TORONTO – Andy Byford, CEO of the Toronto Transit Commission, has promised that the TTC will become North America’s premier mass transit system by the end of 2017 through large-scale sabotage of other transportation systems across the continent.

“Let’s face it, the TTC is an unsalvageable mess with no hope of redemption within the next 10 years or more,” Byford admitted frankly. “But we believe that by sufficiently vandalizing other metropolitan transit systems, the Red Rocket will be seen as a glowing bastion of efficiency by comparison.”

Efforts to impair other subways, streetcars, and bus systems across the U.S. and Canada are already underway. TTC representatives have been dispatched to various stations along Chicago’s famed “L” train routes wielding long metal poles to be wedged between the tracks, thereby halting all movement and grinding the Windy City’s transit to a halt. Similar techniques have been utilized in Philadelphia, Boston, and Montreal causing total commuter chaos and making the TTC look positively stellar in contrast.

“I got a call at 3 A.M. a few nights ago from Mr. Byford telling me that Operation Better Way was in effect and the next thing I know I’m on a train to New York with instructions to rally the local homeless population to “soil” as many buses as they can in 24 hours,” said Mike Travis, Vice-President of Customer Relations for the TTC.

Reports have continued to pour in of severed wires in the Mexico City Metro, kidnapped San Francisco cable car drivers, and even “trained, loose bears” attacking People Movers up in Anchorage. Scattered testimony from London. England have even suggested that the current tube strike was seeded by “firm, but polite, rabblerousers”, indicating a global campaign underway. In each case, eyewitnesses have reported seeing individuals in depressingly maroon uniforms fleeing the scene shortly before the incidents.

“Today on the TTC, my Presto card wouldn’t scan, the bus driver stopped in the middle of Bathurst for a 45 minute coffee break, and the subway turned back at Lawrence because of the signal system repairs,” reported Jaime North, a regular TTC rider. “But I guess it’s better than Vancouver’s system which I’ve heard is suddenly on fire for unknown reasons.”

Recent polls, however, show that many Torontonians would still prefer a system that is actively on fire to the current state of the TTC, suggesting that there is still a way to go.

“We have a plan. And that plan is to completely decimate our peers’ transit infrastructure to such a degree that the TTC will look like a positive utopia next to them,” Byford claimed confidently. “Better a metaphorical trainwreck to the literal ones we’re causing in other places.”

Further comment could not be obtained from Byford as he had to board his plane to Miami, tapping a wrench into his outstretched palm gently but menacingly.