The Fish Always Stinks From The Head Downward....

Giambrone, Mihevic....

James: Wheels falling off the TTC

November 28, 2009

Royson James

One is never sure who most deserves our pity: the TTC, transit workers or commuters relying on a system that moves about a million trips a day.

But after a most disastrous month for transit, there is not much sympathy on the buses and trains and streetcars for a system that too often fails to anticipate the most elementary foul-ups and address them with dexterity and minimum fuss.

In fact, commuters have grown increasingly edgy, with cause. Management and political leadership just seem to be perpetually a step behind. Like the Dallas Cowboys' cornerback Terence Newman, the TTC has the speed, provides good coverage but somehow manages to mistime a jump, slip and fall, and fail at critical times.

Much of the negative news on the transit agenda today is probably unavoidable – bad luck, bad social conditions in the city, reduced funding from the province.

It is not the TTC's fault that a worker, not from the TTC, punctures the concrete casing around its subway tunnel, shutting down homebound trains for an evening.

But must it be so inept in informing riders – and so callous in not accounting for refunding of fares when people were allowed to go into the station, drop fares, only to find there was no service?

For years, TTC officials refused to release statistics on suicides from people jumping in front of trains. The Star doesn't report on suicides, except in unusual circumstances. Such reports may encourage those considering an attempt.

Still, in the midst of all its problems this week, the TTC was forced to release suicide statistics showing an average of one episode per month. There were 22 jumpers in 2007, with 13 deaths.

Meanwhile, bus passengers are being shot by stray bullets, as are transit operators.

The TTC can't be blamed for the bad men in our city. But it surely is harmed by the effects of their deeds. Already, there are transit cops on the subway.

In fact, the presence of transit security hasn't been a welcome sight for many commuters, again caught up in another TTC surprise – crowd control measures that have disrupted commuting routes at the Bloor station and infuriated many.

Toss in the irritatingly high fare hike, starting Jan. 3, and the embarrassing screw-up over the ban on token sales to prevent hoarding and the reintroduction of paper tickets, and the anger mounts.

The TTC is well-practised at raising fares. Yet they bungled this one, too. We expected fares to go up in 2009, but the mayor decided not to – a bad move that has forced a much higher than normal increase for 2010. If fares had been hiked 10 cents in 2009, you would need only 10 cents, maybe 15 cents more in 2010.

With that kind of small, incremental increase, few commuters hoard tokens, as they started doing with a 25-cent hike pending.

Transit officials know about hoarding. It's happened before. They should have anticipated it this time, especially with tokens being the only single-fare medium.

Instead, we have chaos at the turnstiles, huge lineups, no tokens, no tickets and angry riders.

Into this milieu, TTC chair Adam Giambrone launched a television show this month, On the Rocket. It seemed like a great idea.

Planning to run for mayor, Giambrone was getting free air time to practise the art of political stumping, and sell his attributes.

Now it's blowing up in his face. Overheard on the subway: "Before that Giambrone guy tries to run the city, he should learn how to run the transit system."

Ouch!