On Saturday, Star transit reporter Ben Spurr reported on TTC CEO Andy Byford’s prophecy of what riding the TTC will be like just one year from now. He said that after four years of his management “I think we will meet that objective of being back to number one in North America by the end of this year,” and that what he envisioned 12 months from now after the opening of the Spadina line extension, was the “utopian journey of the future on the TTC.”

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OK. Ouch.

Deep breath.

Where to begin?

I like Andy Byford, and I think he’s so far been a pretty good manager of the TTC, from what I can tell. Much of the agency’s approach to customer service has improved under his watch, and many of the transit service’s problems are ones he inherited or are more properly blamed on the politicians he answers to.

BUT COME ON! Utopia? Really?

If there’s anything worse than shivering away at a bus stop, waiting for an overcrowded vehicle that was supposed to be there 15 minutes ago, it’s to realize that the bone-chilling wind you feel sweeping over you is being generated by the vigorously swinging arms of the man responsible for that bus service as he pats himself on the back for a job well done.

Just off the top of my head: The new streetcars from Bombardier start to seem like they may never, ever come. The Presto system’s reloading and fare-taking machines fail a good percentage of the time. The newish fare machine at Queens Quay — the only way to buy a fare at a station with no token vending machine — seems to be out of order more often than not. Just this week the TTC announced service cuts to a bunch of bus routes — not forced by small budgets but by a shortage of vehicles — that will leave people in the dead of winter waiting a couple minutes longer for buses that will be ever-more crowded when they arrive. On our two main subway lines, morning commuters often encounter trains so full they cannot get on. And any delay on those lines — a drunken fight, a snowstorm, a passenger illness — pretty much shuts down a system that has few alternate routes available. And hey, fares have just gone up again.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! declares the boss. BEST IN NORTH AMERICA!

The people in charge of our transit system have a habit of doing this. Last summer, during the depths of the great subway bake-off, during which an air-conditioning failure was systematically cooking passengers on the Bloor line (an episode that, to his credit, Byford at least acknowledged this weekend as a big regret), TTC chair Josh Colle responded to complaints by penning an op-ed suggesting critics failed to notice the TTC is actually staffed by hard-working people who are doing a great job at this “exciting time for transit in our city.”

I understand, in both the cases of Colle’s op-ed and Byford’s bragging, the impulse to defend the progress you are making, progress you may feel is going unacknowledged. That many people are working hard, and implementing difficult changes, and doing so with very limited budgets that are beyond their control, forced to work with outside partners who may not deliver. But there must be a way of doing that while also acknowledging the mountain of small frustrations that are grinding down loyal passengers day to day. Some middle ground between accepting blame for total failure and “suck it haters, you have nothing to complain about.”

My own prophecy of where the TTC will be in 12 months anticipates many improvements: more streetcars will have arrived; the new York subway extension will be open; Presto will likely work more smoothly than it does now. But I also expect that, unsurprisingly, things will still fail to be seamlessly perfect: streetcars will still be delayed by car accidents; the main subway lines will remain overcrowded; technological growing pains will continue. I don’t think this is pessimism, rather it is the realistic expectation that improvements will be gradual.

Forget “best” for now. Focus on “better.” That’s something we can share optimism about.

But that theoretical optimism is based, in part, on believing that those in charge of the system are aware of the problems and frustrations people are feeling day-to-day, and because they’re aware of them, are working on them. “Just 12 months from utopia” undermines that belief.

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Or maybe I’m misunderstanding. While it’s generally used to mean an imagined or longed-for paradise, the term “utopia”comes from Greek words that together mean “no place.” And I guess it’s possible to think that if you were going no place, the TTC is already very close to being an ideal way to get there. But I wouldn’t think that would be a message the CEO of the agency would want to advertise.