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Toronto Transit Commission spokesman Brad Ross says the agency is bound and determined to learn lessons from this and every other project. But at root, he says, “we are a transit operator. We deliver transit to the City of Toronto. … There has been discussion amongst some that perhaps there’s going to come a point where the TTC’s focus should remain solely on operations, and perhaps others should be delivering these projects in the future.”

“That’s a political decision,” he observes. Indeed. It’s one well worth considering.

That said, the TTC’s bad project management reputation is not entirely its own fault. It serves a peculiar clientele, by which I mean Torontonians, and operates under governments for which speed and efficiency are by no means priorities. On St. Clair, it faced downright unhinged opposition from residents and businesses, and a bizarre court injunction ordering it to down tools; on the Spadina subway extension, an Ontario Ministry of Labour investigation saw work stop for an utterly preposterous four months. City council can’t stick to a decision to save its life and we cheer them on: a Toronto Star editorial this week called for returning to the Scarborough LRT plan. Rotating subway closures are finally addressing years of underfunding and neglect, and we complain like mad.

And when it comes to streetcars, we haven’t given ourselves the tools to succeed. Caught between those who love streetcars and those who despise them, we’ve bashed out a compromise-infected network that doesn’t run nearly as smoothly as it could. The TTC has gradually expanded signal priority for streetcars — i.e., operators can extend green lights and in some cases advanced greens, allowing left-turning cars to clear the way. But it’s absurd to hold up a public transit vehicle so private vehicles can turn left in the first place. It’s equally absurd to allow parking along routes where streetcars compete with traffic. A child could do the math.