Thousands of baseball fans were left stranded across Toronto on Saturday night after Game 7 of the World Series went into extra innings just as transit service was preparing to shut down for the evening.
In a social media post shared shortly after midnight, the City of Toronto told fans that “transit won’t wait,” despite the game running long.
“The final GO train leaves Union Station soon, and the last TTC train is around 1:30 a.m,” the City wrote.
The historic game brought out thousands of people to cheer for the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre in downtown Toronto and at watch parties and events throughout the city.
After a devastating 5-4 loss against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Blue Jays fans cleared the stadium and some were visibly upset to find out that the last train had left without them.
Footage posted to social media showed fans dressed in Blue Jays gear yelling expletives and cursing at transit employees.
Others shouted “shame!” and “unbelievable!”
Local politicians also slammed the City’s post as condescending and took to social media to voice their disappointment.
“This post by the City of Toronto was really bad,” Councillor Josh Matlow wrote on X. “And even worse, both Metrolinx and the TTC really should’ve been prepared for the possibility of a late game to avoid leaving thousands of people stranded.”
“I’ll be raising this at tomorrow’s TTC board meeting,” he added.
Councillor Brad Bradford also criticized the transit schedule as a “dumb” decision.
In a statement shared Sunday afternoon, TTC CEO Mandeep S. Lali explained that there were plans in place to extend subway service and deploy 30 additional buses if the game ran late.
“As the game ended at roughly 12:15 a.m. and crowds cleared quickly, those contingencies were not activated,” Lali said.
“We operated more than a dozen extra trains on Lines 1 and 2, running until the end of scheduled service,” he added. “The last trains left Union Station around 1:45-1:47a.m., with Line 2 connections at approximately 1:55 a.m.”
Lali said subway service continued for more than 90 minutes after the game ended and pointed out that 95 per cent of streetcar lines have 24-hour service.
“We’re aware of social media complaints about GO and UP Express service at Union Station, but Metrolinx, operates those services, not the TTC,” Lali explained. “Based on reports GO trains faced crewing constraints that limited their ability to extend service. These decisions were outside TTC’s control.”
Representatives for Metrolinx were not immediately available for comment.
