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“I do think there has to be a greater emphasis on existing levels of service and the experience of a rider and the value they get from their fares,” he said Monday as he descended the steps of St. Patrick Station into the heart of the subway grid.

“The fixation always seems to be on expansion and I get that. It’s great debate and it’s sexy. But most people on this train, they’re going to talk about crowding, reliability, the fact that five years ago for them to get to work or home, it took this amount of time and now it takes this much longer.”

The councillor has some ideas for tangible changes in the short term, chief among them the unfurling of a robust system of express buses. He said the TTC also has to make “way more progress” on the Presto electronic fare card and reinstate some of the bus routes cut during the Ford years.

He’ll have to grapple with finding the money to pay for all that, and Mr. Tory’s campaign pledge to freeze transit fares next year.

“The challenge with fares is: Do you artificially freeze them to keep the sting away from people’s pocketbooks, or do you just take the approach where it’s a much more modest, regular, predictable increase that people can plan around. Unfortunately, politics get in the way of that.”

Mr. Colle agrees that riders have paid “a lot” and the first approach would be to find the money elsewhere, but “easier said than done.” The TTC also has to get better at generating revenue through the system, he argued, with retail opportunities, or by marketing its brand like New York City or the London Tube do.