Metrolinx stumbles from crisis to crisis

torontosun.com
The good news is, or rather was, that Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca was finally driven by repeated Metrolinx screw-ups to order a review of the province’s disaster-prone regional transportation agency.

The bad news is Metrolinx Chair Rob Prichard got in a snit about it and told the Metrolinx board he got Del Duca to substantially “soften” and limit “the breadth” of that review.

That letter having gotten out courtesy of the Toronto Sun’s Shawn Jeffords, spokesmen for Del Duca and Prichard now say everything’s proceeding swimmingly with the review which is supposed to be out in the fall.

In other words, instead of kicking down doors and taking names, which is what is clearly needed to right the listing Metrolinx ship, it sounds like this review will be little more than a whitewash of this “arm’s length” government agency as it stumbles from disaster to disaster.

Metrolinx ignored seven — SEVEN! — of its own detailed reports telling it the $27.50 one-way fare it was planning to charge for the Union-to-Pearson Express was too high to attract riders.

Metrolinx charged it anyway and riders stayed away in droves, until it finally lowered the fare to $12.

Then there was Metrolinx’s bizarre, costly and unnecessary promotion of new uniforms for UP staff.

Plus its pointless cross-promotion deals with everything from the Toronto International Film Festival to a Toronto, Buffalo Bills football game, which always seemed to end with Metrolinx staff being showered with goodies.

Ontario’s Liberal government created Metrolinx to take the heat off itself on major transit decisions — then overruled it anyway, when, for example, the Liberals decided they needed to back a Scarborough subway, instead of an LRT, to get a Liberal candidate elected in a Scarborough byelection.

Then auditor general Jim McCarter blasted Metrolinx in 2012 for letting the budget for its “Presto” pass almost triple to $700 million.

On Tuesday, Metrolinx awarded a $428 million contract to build double-decker Go Trains to Bombardier, even though the company is behind schedule on a $1 billion streetcar order with Toronto and a previous $770 million contract with Metrolinx for LRTs.

Maybe it’s time to put Metrolinx out of its — and our — misery.

why is bombard ier so far behind production

dem bais got good jobs then

great for them plus plenty overtime.  dem bais gat big house in brampton