TTC in total crisis

Emerging from the mists surrounding reality seems that the Toronto Transit Commission entered a serious period of crisis without anyone noticing. This morning's sudden, unexplained total communications breakdown on the critical Subway system points to the parade of problems surrounding today's TTC.

Clearly the Chief General Manager, Andy Byford, lords over this land of disasters. If the subway breakdown was a one off, then that is the way life is. Mark this list, for it is a list, these serious service interruptions continually occur wholly under Byford's apologetic announcements. Up to this point, Byford managed to slide off the problems onto previous managers, administrations and politicians.

He's continually referring to the necessary upgrades of the Subway communications and signal systems. Yet, with every weekend shutdown seems followed by a series of major service interruptions. With each the TTC seems to minimize the effects of each service interruption. Yes 150,000 riders were affected. Beyond that number is the total failure of the TTC or its Chairman to acknowledge the real impact of TTC traffic interruptions.

Each one of those are workers or students especially at the rush hours. Rush hours rarely have shoppers or tourists by traveling by choice. Each person must arrive at work on time and faces an wage decrease due to lateness. Each working rider also faces the reality that an employer regards their tardiness as the responsibility of the worker, not the responsibility of the TTC. Each person faces justified dismissal from their employment. Each person likely has a family relying on their ability for arriving at work in a timely fashion.

Further, each employer hires people to do necessary work when the work must be done. That is why any employer pays people for tasks. Not having those tasks dealt with costs companies including the likely loss of revenue. System wide failures cost all city residents monies whether or not they actually take the TTC.

At the end of this, who remains accountable? Today's TTC planning seems a shambles. Seems, no exists in shambles. There are massive cost overruns and project delays. There are service interruptions. There is flip flopping by the operations managers as they follow the whims of city politicians into a variety of ideas, none of which are followed through on. When a City Council creates, and begins a plan, the following political incarnations cancel, reverse and adversely modify those projects.

Even with the weaknesses of the LRT plans for rapid streetcar corridors in Scarborough, those projects might have been nearing or fully completed had not the retrograde thinking of a group of thuggish politicians representing the opposite end of the city blocked and reversed planning. Those projects had been fully financed. Then they took credit for subways that do not exist using questionable funding profiles that have been proven totally false and inadequate when compared with the reality experienced with the York University subway extension project.

It should be pointed out that swift action came with the YorkU extension cost overruns with the firing of a couple of managers directly responsible for that project. But while these poor people were responsible, they weren't the people accountable. The TTC Board and its Chief General Manager are the people who are accountable. The latter group seems to have Teflon coating when it comes to accountability. The Toronto media seems to buy their excuses hook, line and net fully supporting those people.

The long list of subway failures, of project delays, of cost overruns falls within the tenure period of Andy Byford. Clearly he remains because he appeases the political delusions of the TTC Board. Byford never stood up to the political interference from the Toronto City Council. How does the City fix it? First diminish the political influence on the TTC Board. Second, insist upon the resignation of Andy Byford. Too many adverse events have occurred to smooth over the Chief General Manager's ability to politically survive that list which he is accountable for.