[Host]: Andy Takagi is the transportation reporter for the Toronto Star, and he joins me in studio. How are you doing?

[Andy Takagi]: Good. Thanks. How are you?

[Host]: I'm doing well. All right. It has been almost a month since the Eglinton Crosstown launched. Three months since the Finch LRT is launched. What do you say Metrolinx has learned from this experience?

[Andy Takagi]: Well, so we've heard from the CEO himself about kind of the lessons the agency has learned on Finch and with Eglinton. Mainly it's the contract structure which has been much maligned by lots of public officials, but basically they are learning to step away from big contracts that give full responsibility to one private consortium, or packaging all of that risk into one contract. They've learned that for the Ontario line, which is broken up into several smaller contracts, another part of that is also the soft launch approach to to these new lines, which was really emphasized on Eglinton, Finch, a little less so. But, you know, I think they've learned that building up a lot of hype for a line that they need to ramp up service on is maybe not the best approach, especially after what we saw happen on Finch. So I think those are kind of the main lessons that they've they've learned with with Eglinton and Finch.

[Host]: Fair enough. So I think those are kind of the main lessons that they've they've learned with with Eglinton and Finch. Yeah. All right. So whether it's with fanfare or not, I am curious how much of a difference does having both of these lines up and running actually have in terms of moving people across? You've done many series where you've documented people's some of the most some of the worst commutes in the city, but how much does having a, you know, something that can go east to west across the city help?

[Andy Takagi]: I think it really changes the game, especially for for east-west travellers like you were mentioning. Right. Like so far, if if you're taking the line to to work and the line to shut down in portions, then you know, you have to kind of rely on the shuttle bus or an Uber or, you know, you have to circle around the line one or something like that. Now, you can theoretically take the line five across the city, right? It does provide kind of redundancy for the line to in case it's shut down, especially for the people who live along those lines. I'm sure it's a game changer if you're if you're commuting on Finch to to Humber, if you're on on line five or even trying to get to the airport, you know it provides a connection to the Up express. So, you know, I think it changes the way people will travel in the city and hopefully provide some relief for for riders on on line two.

[Host]: When you said shuttle bus, I got a little shivers because I think a lot of people, when they think of any delay.

[Andy Takagi]: Everyone. Yeah.

[Host]: Let's talk. Let's go north to the Finch LRT. They announced transit signal priority for people who aren't familiar with that. What is that and how has it been rolled out so far?

[Andy Takagi]: Yeah. So basically the way transit signal priority works is for trains that run on the same level as car traffic. If you pull up to a red light, you're waiting there for a full red light cycle like a car would before you're able to go through right? The way transit signal priority works is the train is able to signal ahead to the red light and say, hey, I'm you know, I'm carrying a lot of passengers. Let me through and it'll extend a green light for transit, right. Or it'll have an early green light signal ahead of left turning vehicles. And that was a big problem on Finch, even just from personal experience. When I took it after it first opened, you know, we were we were stuck behind red lights a lot of the time. And, you know, if you ride a downtown streetcar, you know that that's a common frustration even on Spadina or, you know, lines like Finch where there's a right of way for the streetcar, you're not contending with other traffic, but still you have to wait behind a red light. And so transit signal priority is a way to to speed up the trains, especially when you have, like on Finch, where a lot of the stations are on the far side of the signal. So you're waiting at a red light, and then you pass the red light, and then you're stopping again at the station. That can be really frustrating as a rider, right? Because you're stopping twice.

[Host]: In terms of speeds increasing in terms of commute times rather decreasing. Have we noticed that with signal priority or.

[Andy Takagi]: Anecdotally? I mean, the city has rolled it out over the past couple of weeks, and I've kind of heard from from people who take the, the Finch West LRT that it's it's been running a little smoother, kind of closer to the target times that that were promised by Metrolinx originally when when the project was was first announced. So that's good news. I haven't been on it personally yet. I think that's something that I'm looking forward to testing out.

[Host]: I want to go back to sort of the conversations with, with Metrolinx, help us understand sort of the conversations that are happening behind the scenes. Who is the adult in the room when, say, TTC and Metrolinx are blaming each other? You know, for transit not being built on time or for not being on budget?

[Andy Takagi]: I mean, we kind of saw that with Finch, especially in the first, first few weeks when transit signal priority was was a big issue in the speed of the trains was a big issue. It was kind of a back and forth between TTC and Metrolinx about who was really responsible. We couldn't really get a hold of the private consortium who's in charge of maintaining the line, right? To be honest, there isn't really an overarching authority, right? Like theoretically, Metrolinx answers to the province and the city in a way kind of answers to the province because it's it's a creature of the province, like through legislation. But there is no, you know, governing agency in charge of all transit, in charge of the TTC and Metrolinx, who can say, you know, you guys need to get into a room and talk to each other. You know, the head of the TTC regularly talks to the head of Metrolinx. We know that. But what those conversations look like and who's, you know, kind of has the the authority to to have final say, I don't think is really clear right now.

[Host]: All right. With that being said, there have been calls for a public inquiry from not only the Ontario Liberal Party city councillor Josh Matlow. Transit advocacy groups. Will that ever happen? Obviously, we can look at the Ottawa LRT as a as, you know, as an example of what we can learn from it. Premier has said that that's probably not the direction they're going for. Will it ever happen?

[Andy Takagi]: Probably not anytime soon, I don't think. It is really within the purview of of Premier Doug Ford and his government. And, he's signaled that that's not really something he's interested in. You know, Metrolinx as an agency and and the MTO, the Minister of Transportation has said that, they've learned lessons from the crosstown, and they kind of want to put this to bed and focus on the Ontario Line and all of the the new transit projects that are coming down the pipe. But it really is just kind of wait and see to see if they've really to kind of learn the lessons from from the crosstown.

[Host]: I want to talk a little numbers here. You know, having public sectors back into the office, you know, five days a week. I know it's been sort of a slow increase for a lot of people there. Have we seen an increase in ridership. But, you know, one thing that I think a lot of people when we talk about these big projects that the province and other levels of government get to announce is it's the nice, flashy kind of announcement. But at the end of the day, who gets the maintenance part of all of that? And so I think a lot of people are worried about costs. Bottom line for commuters, will fares go up. Can we see some of that down the line. What's the conversation been around there?

[Andy Takagi]: I mean that's kind of the thing that we're looking forward to this year, especially with the TTC budget, is they were warning late last year when they were considering putting forward the budget for for this year that, you know, they are having to to put drivers on to two new lines. They're taking on those those operating costs with some help from the provincial government. But the TTC also has a massive state of good repair backlog, right. That's why we have slow zones. It's why we have early nightly closures on, on on parts of the line two and line one. It's why, you know, sometimes your streetcars is diverted because they're doing track maintenance on on streetcars. All of those things are being, you know, need funding. And so far it's I think it's in the billions of how much they're under funded, right. For state of good repair. So with all that said, without any kind of operating funding from either provincial governments or the federal government, it seems like the TTC will have to to figure out a way to to increase, you know, its funds. Otherwise. Yeah, they're in a tight spot. And something that they were talking about was whether or not a fare increase could come down the pipe. And it doesn't seem like there's much appetite for this year, but maybe next year, in the next few years, it would take a significant fare increase for the TTC to to cover its budget shortfall.

[Host]: We still got a few more transit projects in the hopper. Got the Ontario Line, the Scarborough subway. Can we expect those projects to avoid the fate of the Eglinton Crosstown?

[Andy Takagi]: It's a good question. I wish I had a crystal ball to be able to say whether or not it will, but you know, there were some issues with Scarborough. The Scarborough subway extension with the tunnel boring machine that seems to have been cleared up. It seems like they're making pretty decent progress on that. The Ontario line is a really complex project. It tunnels right through the core of downtown, right. You're dealing with a lot of old infrastructure, which is the same problem you had on Eglinton, whether or not they run into the same kind of unexpected issues and are able to navigate that. Hopefully they've learned some lessons from from Eglinton and are able to to fold those lessons in. But, you know, I think with mega-projects like like the Ontario line especially, you know, you have to expect a few years of delay. I mean, that's that's kind of standard for for big contracts, big transit projects, even across the world. But I don't think that's to say that, you know, you can let Metrolinx kind of get away with not communicating on these issues and, and talking about what's stalling these projects. Yeah.

[Host]: All right. Whether it's fare increases or new subway lines, we will keep our eyes on it. And we really appreciate your time.

[Andy Takagi]: Thank you so much for having me.