After more than five years as the TTC’s chief executive officer, Andy Byford is leaving to take the top job at the New York City Transit Authority.

Byford made the announcement at a scheduled press conference at the TTC’s Yonge St. headquarters Tuesday morning, moments after the news was reported by the Star.

He will end his tenure in mid-December after overseeing the completion of the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension, which is slated to open Dec. 17. The following month, he will start work as president and CEO of the New York agency, which he described as “arguably the toughest job in transit right now.”

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“I will look back on my time at the TTC as the absolute highlight of my 28-year transit career to date,” Byford said in a prepared speech, surrounded by television cameras and with TTC chair Josh Colle at his side.

Byford said that since he became CEO in 2012, his goal had been to institute “a top-to-bottom modernization” of the transit agency’s physical assets and workplace culture, and he declared the five-year plan had been a success.

In June, the American Public Transportation Association named the TTC its transit system of the year, and while some riders have mocked the award, Byford said it was a testament that the agency “achieved our objective of getting back to being No. 1.”

“While there will always be room to improve still further, the basic tenets of the service have been substantially improved,” he said, citing a decrease in subway delays, dramatic reductions in “short turns” of buses and streetcars, and higher customer satisfaction scores.

In a written statement, Mayor John Tory said Byford was leaving the TTC in much better shape than it was in five years ago.

“Mr. Byford has been no less than superb when it comes to taking the tens of millions of additional dollars city council has given the TTC, under my leadership and that of TTC chair Josh Colle, and investing this new money quickly and wisely in restoring services previously cut and adding new service,” Tory said.

Colle praised Byford’s “relentless focus on customer service,” which he said had made the transit system “cleaner, safer and more reliable for our customers.”

Byford, a 52-year-old from Plymouth, England, has spent almost three decades working his way from post to increasingly prestigious post at transit agencies around the globe.

Before coming to Canada, he worked as a general manager at Transport for London, then as an executive at RailCorp in Sydney, Australia.

He joined the TTC in 2011 as chief operating officer, and months later was unexpectedly handed the reins of the agency after TTC commissioners loyal to then mayor Rob Ford fired general manager Gary Webster amid a heated debate over Ford’s subway plans.

Byford soon became arguably the city’s highest-profile civil servant. He has often been praised for the candour with which he discussed the TTC’s shortcomings and personally apologized for service problems.

Despite taking over the TTC in the thick of a city hall battle over subways versus light rail, Byford largely avoided becoming ensnared in the bitter politics that often surround Toronto transit debates.

There were notable exceptions, however. In 2012, he was compelled to address a controversy sparked by Ford, after two TTC buses were taken out of service to pick up the high school football team coached by the then mayor. Upset that Ford had called him directly to ask about diverting a bus, Byford bluntly instructed the mayor’s office that unless it was for official business, “I would rather he did not call me.”

In January, a transit advocacy group filed a complaint with the city ethics watchdogs about a briefing note the TTC drafted, comparing the cost of the Scarborough subway extension to an alternative light-rail plan, and which Byford discussed at a crucial July 2016 council meeting.

In a report released last month that Byford and the TTC described as a full exoneration, the auditor general determined that while there were errors in the note, neither the CEO nor agency staff had deliberately attempted to mislead council.

The Scarborough subway remains the most contentious file of Byford’s tenure, and on Tuesday he was repeatedly asked for his candid assessment of the project, now that he’s leaving.

The cost of the one-stop extension has ballooned to an estimated $3.35 billion, and though Byford said the project might be justified, he cautioned that if the price rises again next year when the TTC advances the subway to the 30-per-cent design stage, it may become unsupportable.

“If that 30-per-cent cost comes in, and it’s absolutely exorbitant and it’s gone way beyond what we said that we think it will be … that will need to be revisited. There comes a point where you cannot support it,” he said.

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Byford asserted that “there’s been far too much transit planning in this city where facts haven’t been taken into account,” but said the biggest source of aggravation during his term wasn’t political interference. Instead he cited chronic delays to the TTC’s Bombardier streetcar order.

He advised that his successor will have to “relentlessly hold (the company’s) feet to the fire” to ensure the TTC gets its cars as soon as possible.

He also issued a warning about transit ridership, which has flatlined after more than a decade of annual increases. He said the TTC and the politicians who fund it need to pursue an “aggressive ridership strategy” next year.

“For that you need radical options; you need investment,” he said.

In New York, Byford will inherit a subway system that has fallen into crisis after decades of underinvestment. A recent New York Times investigation found that, adjusted for inflation, maintenance expenditures on the 113-year-old subway have remained the same for the past quarter-century, despite growing ridership and decaying infrastructure.

In June, plunging on-time performance and a derailment in Manhattan that injured dozens prompted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to declare a state of emergency.

In interviews Tuesday, past and present politicians of all stripes praised the outgoing TTC chief and wished him well in New York.

Councillor and TTC commissioner Joe Mihevc predicted Byford’s legacy will be pushing ahead with the implementation of the Presto fare card system, automatic train control and the Spadina subway extension.

“He put his heart and soul into the job,” Mihevc said. “Andy will be known to have completed this cycle of infrastructure projects that took the TTC to the next level.”

Karen Stintz, who was TTC chair from 2010 to 2014, said Byford “became CEO in a time of political turmoil and upheaval but he maintained his professional composure and kept his eye on running the system.”

“I think he brought a new level of pride among staff in the system, as well as accountability for himself and others,” said Stintz, who is now chief executive of Variety Village.

Adam Giambrone, whose term as TTC chair predated Byford’s arrival, now works in New York City overseeing the creation of a streetcar line linking the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn.

He said the TTC “is well respected here for its professionalism” and Byford’s experience in Toronto will serve him well in New York.

“There are a lot of very serious challenges in New York City, but that makes it a very exciting time for someone like Andy,” the former city councillor said.

According to public sector salary disclosure records, Byford earned $339,913 last year.

Colle said that an international search for his successor has already begun, but next month he will ask the agency board to appoint deputy chief executive Rick Leary as acting CEO. The TTC hopes to have a permanent leader in place by July 1.

With files from Jennifer Pagliaro and David Rider

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