The TTC is a system that the critics love to hate.

Our transit system has its fair share of challenges, but still succeeds remarkably in moving over half a billion people per year (nearly 1.5 million riders every day!) across every corner of our growing city. The task of moving so many people with a system that has suffered years of neglect is not to be underestimated and requires a great deal of hard work from staff at every level within the organization.

There is a renewed sense of optimism at the TTC, with transit now receiving record levels of federal funding for state of good repair work and city funding for service improvements.

One of the largest challenges facing the TTC is addressing its aging infrastructure. The TTC has been strongly and successfully advocating for greater investment in the “nuts and bolts,” the integral, but “unsexy,” state of good repair work that is too often neglected in favour of ribbon cuttings for shiny new infrastructure.

Contrary to what some critics may believe, the TTC is in the midst of the most ambitious system overhaul in its history: upgrading of the signalling system with automatic train control on Line 1, subway track replacement, transitioning to the PRESTO fare card system, making all of our subway stations and vehicles accessible, and adding new subways, streetcars, and buses.

We were thrilled to learn that hundreds of millions of dollars will be contributed by the federal government to the TTC for such projects, thereby helping us accelerate much needed work to address our $2.7-billion backlog of essential repair work. This is a welcome announcement, and demonstrates that we are learning from the mistakes and neglect of the past, in order to properly fund the unglamorous "nuts and bolts" of our system.

Over the last two years, the TTC board and city council have also made historic investments in the TTC, with a $100-million budget increase for transit over 2015 and 2016. This unprecedented increase has allowed us to make the system more reliable and comfortable for customers by restoring bus lines that had been previously cut, helping families by allowing children ages 12 and under to ride for free, adding new express bus routes across the city, expanding our night bus service, and bringing in new streetcars, buses, and subways.

Ridership has recently softened, but reports on this issue can be misleading. So far in 2016, ridership is more or less equivalent to what it was in 2015. Ridership has not plummeted; however, it has not increased as much as was projected for 2016. Further, it appears that this decrease in ridership has been trending across transit systems in North America. The TTC is monitoring this trend, as well as the employment forecast, as employment has historically been the single best predictor of TTC ridership.

While some critics have pointed to TTC customer frustration as being a cause for the softening ridership numbers, customer satisfaction has been at an all-time high over the last 12 months and reported at 79 per cent during the first quarter of 2016.

Our critics also point to the current cost of TTC fares as influencing ridership; however, the TTC board decided to freeze the price of the Metropass in 2016, recognizing the value of our most loyal customers. While the token and cash fare price did increase slightly, it is important to note that several GTHA transit systems have a higher cash fare than the TTC at $3.25, including Durham ($3.75), Oakville ($3.50), York ($4.00), Burlington ($3.50), and Brampton ($3.75).

The TTC is under immense pressure all while having the lowest subsidy-per-rider of any comparable North American transit system. We continue to face great challenges in funding our operations and our long-term maintenance. With this in mind, we are succeeding in reversing the trends of the past and are active in advocating for long-term, predictable funding to help keep the TTC's infrastructure in a state of good repair and to promote ridership growth. Stable, sustainable, predictable funding for transit is a must. The 2017 budget process will be a challenge for the city and the TTC, and I will continue to work with our partners and advocate for more provincial and federal funding to address the shortfalls in our budgets.

In addition to focusing on renewing the existing transit system, the city has been turning our eyes toward the future and transit expansion. This is essential for our growing city and must be done in tandem with investing in our current system. Transit expansion should be constant and the new normal. With two new rapid transit projects — the Eglinton-Crosstown and the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension — well under construction, and a momentum for expanding even further from all levels of government, Torontonians should know that this is an exciting time for transit in our city.

Josh Colle is chair of the TTC.