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There aren’t enough handstraps onboard the trains. We seem to have lost a couple of trains along the way. Car 15, where are you? At Tunney’s, a long shack had to be erected as a waiting area. Blair did not get winter protection, even though winter also occurs east of Bank Street. R1 does not work very well, witness Hurdman station last week, which looked like one rock-throw short of a full-blown riot.

Before it launched, we had way too many buses and drivers. Then we rushed to put some of the old klunker buses back on the road. Then we bought a bunch more buses. Then we had no handy place to put the standby buses, so they went in a baseball stadium. Drivers, by the hundreds, were going to be laid off. Then not a single driver was laid off. Now we are rushing to hire more drivers. Trainers were working right through the Christmas holidays!

The mayor is sorry. The chairman of the transit commission is sorry. The boss of RTG and RTM is sorry. Several OC operators are sorry. I’m probably leaving some apologetic souls off the list here, and for that I’m sorry.

The mayor is demanding better from RTG and RTM. So is OC Transpo general manager John Manconi. So is top city bureaucrat Steve Kanellakos. And transit chair Allan Hubley. The mayor, Manconi and Hubley demanded a meeting with the consortium and they got it. The city is holding RTG to account. City staff are “putting pressure” on RTG. Everyone is demanding things! Did the mayor not haul the CEO of Alstom all the way from France, to give him the what-for, in two languages? Did Manconi not bring in experts from around the world?