Recommendations for new Commissioners don’t represent us riders

UPDATE (May 6, 2014): City Council has approved a change to the TTC Board appointment list to replace Kevin Marshman with Maureen Adamson.

On Thursday April 30^th, the media began spreading the word about the recently announced recommendations for public appointments to the TTC Commission.

To the frustration of many transit riders, the four new citizen appointments to the TTC Commission were all men and hailed from business, political and finance backgrounds despite the fact that more than half of the TTC’s daily riders are women.

Most importantly, the Metro has reported that those involved in the appointment process preferred candidates with backgrounds in finance, procurement, labour relations, law and other categories of business. But what about experience planning public transit services? What about first-hand knowledge of the TTC? This blatant lack of rider representation on a Commission that should be dedicated to the experience of the rider is a major concern for us. These are concerns that several council members also share.

Here's 3 reasons why we're worried about these appointments:

These four newly appointed Commissioners are from Bay St. not Main St. They aren’t on the ground everyday talking to riders and representing their concerns
Three of the appointees Ron Lalonde, Kevin Marshman and Rick Byers, have no clear experience in public transit services according to their bios
Some of the Commissioners have close ties to Public-Private Partnership agencies. After all of the examples of what privatization has done to public transit, such as the recent Auditor General report showing that the Province wasted $8 billion on privatization, and a recent finding that road maintenance done by private contractors hasput lives at risk, we need Commissioners who are distanced from private industry so that we can trust how they evaluate public transportation service delivery.

Moreover, the Mayor himself has recommended that the Public Appointments Committee re-consider their selection.

In March, TTCriders received positive widespread attention for running a competition within its organization for alternatives to the status quo commissioners of the past four years (Many of whom do not ride the TTC in the first-place). The criteria used by TTCriders had more to do with knowledge of public transportation operations, first-hand experience taking public transportation, and organizational experience. Most riders would agree that these criteria would be much more suitable in the selection process.

Tell your city councillor what you think of the new appointments to the Commission. Let them know that you want people who will represent riders.

[caption id="attachment_4744" align="alignnone" width="1024"] We want people who talk to riders and have first hand experience with transit to represent us[/caption]

Link to the Motion to appoint the new Citizen Commissioners:

http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewPublishedReport.do?function=getMinutesReport&meetingId=10050

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