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TTC CEO Andy Byford says he wants whoever is elected mayor of Toronto in 2014 to be “pro transit.”

He made the remarks Thursday after delivering a speech before the Toronto Region Board of Trade in which he outlined his priorities for the agency in the upcoming year.

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He said the city needs “visionaries” in office that recognize the need for long-term, sustainable funding and the “value of transit.”

“Whoever the mayor is, and whoever the city councillors are, I want them to be pro-transit,” Mr. Byford told reporters.

Mr. Byford, a native Englishman, is not a Canadian citizen and therefore cannot cast a vote in the upcoming municipal election.

One would expect the CEO of the TTC to want a transit-friendly mayor, but stating so publicly is significant in and of itself. And transit will be a central theme of this year’s campaign. Mayor Rob Ford will run on a pledge to put “every single penny” into subways, according to his brother and campaign manager Councillor Doug Ford, and TTC chair Karen Stintz plans to make transit a key plank of her mayoral bid. Former city councillor David Soknacki, also a candidate, has said he would never have approved the Scarborough subway, a “Goliath of waste,” but has not gone so far as to say he would cancel it.