Toronto is searching for four good men. Or four brave women. Or a mix of men and women with foresight, backbone and expertise to help guide Canada’s largest city out of jurisdictional and political gridlock.

The appointments will be one of city council’s most important decisions this term, in that the task involves the future of transit — one of the most vexing concerns for citizens of the Toronto region.

The four are being added to the mix of seven councillors who now serve as transit commissioners on the TTC. To say the politicians can be hidebound and partisan, depending on who is pulling their strings, is to understate the current landscape. What is well documented is that we can’t always depend on the councillor commissioners to vote what is in the best interest of the public. The result of numerous votes on the issue of subways versus LRT in the last year proves the point.

Adding four non-politicians to the commission — four out of 11 — doesn’t guarantee anything, except that they should change the dynamics somewhat. They should breathe some new life into the culture, and, if Toronto is extremely fortunate, revitalize the TTC.

That will require citizen commissioners of biblical stature. They need the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon and the vision of Moses — a wish list of eligibility credentials that is almost too ambitious. Still we dream.

The TTC is at a crucial period. More riders are using it than ever. The city-region is totally dependent on it to get around. Through a budget crunch and political upheaval in the provincial government and false fiscal crises created for political gain, the transit system has endured to remain an essential part of our lives.

This past year, the TTC has been cast into another political storm. Politicians loyal to Mayor Rob Ford ignored TTC advice, fired the TTC chief general manager, and in effect delayed transit improvements for at least a couple of years in pursuit of Ford’s undeveloped, unfunded, unsupportable and unsustainable transit idea of “subways, subways, subways.”

In the end, those politicians — city councillors who double as transit commissioners — were so disruptive and out of sync with city council, that council removed them from the TTC. As part of that action, council voted to expand the commission by adding four citizens, one of whom will be a TTC vice-chair.

These new citizen commissioners will be appointed for two terms, or eight years. (The first group start mid-term, Oct. 30, 2012, so will serve six years.) That provides continuity. It also means the citizen appointees may be around long enough to develop their own expertise and should be vaccinated against the political games.

Still, it will be a difficult task.

Even as LRT lines are to be constructed along Eglinton, Sheppard East, Finch West and as a replacement for the Scarborough RT, the mayor badmouths the plan, tries to destabilize it, and is crafting a re-election campaign around sinking the LRTs.

The appointees will be hobbled by this conflict. Added to their angst is this: It is the provincial agency, Metrolinx, that’s in charge of constructing the LRT lines, before turning them over to the TTC for operation. The TTC is concerned about this, but with the mayor publicly willing to divest the entire TTC to the province, the TTC has little weight or pull.

Added to this is the prospect that the municipal election campaign will be waged just as construction will tie up traffic on several major streets — a perfect opening for the mayor to claim that subways would avoid all the chaos caused by rail tracks down the middle of our streets.

The city plans information sessions Tuesday night at the North York and Scarborough civic centres, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., for those who think they are cut out for this essential and politically hot battleground.

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Appointees get $5,000 a year ($10,000 for the vice-chair) plus a $450 per diem per meeting. Application deadline is July 4. To learn more, visit Toronto.ca/public-appointments.

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca