Off the Rails
Cantankerous drivers, moribund managers and spineless politicians are all to blame for the crapification of the TTC. The case for privatizing public transit—an oxymoronic idea whose time has come
Say what you will about Adam Giambrone’s youth and inexperience: before his career collapsed in a haze of G-rated text messages, the baby-faced boy wonder—who presided over one of the most unaccountable, out-of-control and inept periods in the TTC’s once proud history—had already mastered the art of civic politics, Miller style. Barely into his 30s, he was wise enough to know that nobody gets ahead at city hall by pushing for serious change.
When the TTC’s 9,000 unionized workers went on strike in 2008 (for the second time in two years), Giambrone quickly stamped out questions of whether riders would be better served by private operators. Aside from London, England, he said, “There are no major centres that run privatized operations—there’s a reason.” In fact, there are dozens of big cities with privately operated public transit, and in many cases those systems work far better than the TTC.
Then, last fall, when the TTC announced an 11 per cent fare hike and imposed its infuriating one-token limit, Giambrone limply said that he understood why riders might be frustrated. He even blew off criticism after phase three of the new St. Clair streetcar line launched this past December—two years late, more than double the initial $48‑million estimate and, if its first months of operation are any indication, just as tragicomically ill-managed and undependable as the old-school system. Giambrone applauded the TTC, saying that, while the system would always have its critics, managers there had taken “bold action” in recent years.
Yet by early February, as passenger complaints hit record highs and images of snoring ticket takers, empty fare booths and epically surly drivers went viral, not even Chairman Himbo could brush aside the Better Way’s woes. So he assembled a panel. Translation: he wouldn’t really change a thing.
We should be thankful for the sex scandal, if you can call it that, and what can only be the beginning of the end of Giambrone and (his mentor) David Miller’s reign over the TTC. While they clearly love public transit, neither man has ever been interested in fixing what actually ails Toronto’s system. (Miller recently, all too obliviously, called the TTC “one of the greatest success stories in this country.”)
The city needs somebody who’s willing to restore the agency’s focus on the riders it long ago forgot how to serve. It should start by replacing the TTC board with qualified leaders and axing at least a third of management. And then if they want an efficient, modern transportation system, they’ll contract out its operations to private bidders, or sell it off, piece by underperforming piece, to transit companies that have a clue.
For what it’s worth, the rot didn’t begin with Giambrone, or with Howard Moscoe, his ever-meddling predecessor, or with Mike Harris, who kneecapped local transit when he killed the TTC’s provincial subsidy in 1998. The troubles predate all of them—to the early ’90s, when the system started losing riders.
Few public institutions were luckier than the TTC in its early years. Toronto the Good was a cheap, compact city to serve. Through WWII and its shortages of private cars and fuel, the system made reams of money—enough to almost entirely fund the construction of the Yonge Street subway line. The inner city didn’t hollow out through the post-war years as so much of America did—a fact that both benefited and emboldened the agency’s planners. The commission was admired internationally (doesn’t Peter Ustinov’s “like New York run by the Swiss” line smart these days?), and that culture brought both good and bad. The TTC came to believe it could do no wrong. It bloated its ranks with junior engineers and taught them everything they’d ever need to know. It promoted almost exclusively from within and developed a fierce resistance to anything not invented here.
If passengers of Stockholm transit are delayed more than 20 minutes, they get reimbursed for cab fares of up to 800 kronor, or $116
When ridership slipped during the recession of the early ’90s, TTC planners panicked. They shifted their focus from improving transit to getting by. You could almost hear the gurgling sound as the ambition drained from TTC headquarters.
Over time, the system grew into an enormous black box where public money went to die. The union became more entrenched and bitter, despite landing sweetheart deals. (TTC operators currently earn $60,000 after two years of service, and their contract guarantees them the highest transit operators’ pay package in the GTA.)
More significantly, the TTC’s nominal oversight body—the commission board—changed in 1989 from a mixed civilian and city council institution to one that was composed exclusively of councillors. Many of them didn’t hesitate to muck with the system’s operations when it was politically convenient (see Moscoe, Howard, above, who so thoroughly undermined management that two of the TTC’s more competent general managers who were pushing for improvements quit in disgust).
Given the level of dysfunction, it’s no wonder Queen’s Park hasn’t shown any willingness to lend a hand with operating costs. The provincial Liberals splash around cash to launch election-friendly capital projects, like the 120-kilometre, $8.3-billion light-rail Transit City program, which will bring right-of-way streetcar lines to eight key corridors in the region; and the $2.6-billion Spadina subway extension, which reaches up into Vaughan toward Greg Sorbara’s strip mall of a riding. But new subway and streetcar lines bring millions of dollars in new operating and maintenance costs—burdens that the TTC rightly says it can’t afford. All told, the system’s ridership is expected to increase by nearly 40 per cent in the next decade. Nobody has a clue how the TTC will staff and operate it all.
The biggest problem, however, is how terrified the city is of taking steps that would fundamentally improve it. We’ve become convinced that drastic interventions into moribund civic programs are a strictly neo-conservative and draconian prescription. (Hell, Ontario’s too terrified to privatize its liquor stores.) And so accommodation and stasis have become Toronto’s progressive way.
Major centres far more progressive than ours did away with state-operated transit a long time ago. Take Stockholm, Sweden, a city of some two million people in a country with a political tradition that makes Toronto’s lefties look like Pinochetistas. Stockholm’s public buses and subways carry 700,000 people each weekday (about half of the TTC’s daily volume). The system is directed and regulated by a central public authority staffed by 500 managers, supervisors and clerical workers (the TTC has roughly 2,500). Private companies, operating under 30 separate contracts, do the people-moving and maintenance.
Ticketing is automated and easy. Riders can even buy electronic transit tickets via text message; their smartphones become instant passes. The central regulator demands and enforces high standards for cleanliness at stations and on vehicles. The system is also blanketed with easy-to-use and reliable electronic information displays. Stockholm transit is so confident of its performance that it guarantees passengers won’t be delayed for more than 20 minutes as a result of system malfunction or faulty travel information. If they are, they’re reimbursed for cab fares of up to 800 kronor, or $116. Though cash fares range from $2.15 to $8.75, depending on distance, regular riders can buy a monthly pass for the equivalent of $100 (it’s $121 in Toronto).
Granted, Stockholm does this with an annual operating subsidy of some $900 million—more than double what we drop on the TTC every year just to keep it in its death throes. But great transit systems cost money.
We’ve become convinced
that drastic interventions into substandard civic programs are a strictly draconian prescription
There are systems like this across Scandinavia, France, Switzerland and much of Asia and South America. When Copenhagen gradually put transportation services out for tender between 1990 and 2002, the city stipulated that winning bidders would have to hire displaced workers from the unionized city transit service, and without any cuts to their pay. They managed to do that while increasing service levels and contracting an Italian company to operate Europe’s first driverless metro system. Not that we’d have to look so far away for operational expertise. Bombardier Transportation Danmark A/S, a subsidiary of the Quebec-based multinational, is on the short list to build and run Copenhagen’s newest subway line.
To be sure, there are examples of privatization disasters—the naysayers cite them compulsively. After bus services in Britain were deregulated in 1985, getting around many cities became a crap shoot. In Manchester, several fly-by-night bus companies compete on the most popular routes, setting their own timetables, fares and service standards, then abandoning areas in off-peak hours. Less profitable routes go unserved unless local authorities pay the bus companies to run them.
Much the same happened in the U.S. after Ronald Reagan’s department of transportation pushed local systems to start privatizing; some states prohibited local services from considering bids on any criteria other than price.
The key difference between privatization successes and failures is the motive: Thatcher and Reagan didn’t do it to improve transit—they did it because they didn’t believe in funding the public good with public money. There’s a growing pile of credible research on how to avoid the pitfalls that have hobbled some systems: on how to run tenders, how to evaluate would-be contractors, how to ensure quality and how to manage public-private relationships through the long-term.
For the remaining we-could-never-do-that-here contingent, take a look closer to home, at York Region, which, through a consortium of private companies, created Viva and then hired a respected French multinational called Veolia to operate and service the buses. The network, opened in 2005, is composed of just two straight-shot rapid transit lines. Because of the geography and culture through much of the region—criminally low density and an almost umbilical dependence on cars—Viva is an expensive service to run. It’s highly subsidized, as most quality public transit systems are. But it’s a good service, with clean, efficient and comfortable buses that arrive when they’re supposed to. Viva has a public information system that does what the TTC hasn’t been able to pull off in any significant way since the start of the information age: there are electronic displays aboard every Viva bus and at stops to tell riders estimated arrival times. York Region Transit even gives out free snacks twice a year on “customer appreciation days,” something the TTC wouldn’t consider without a decade of study, protracted labour negotiations, a purpose-built department in system headquarters and a $37-million special budget.
The magic of competition has helped York keep a lid on outsized labour demands. Two years ago, after rejecting an offer that included wage and benefit increases, Viva’s 160 unionized workers went on strike. As the Amalgamated Transit Union’s members skulked the picket lines, other bus companies contracted by York Region picked up the slack. Two weeks into their stoppage and suddenly aware that they didn’t hold a monopoly on public transportation, the ATU’s rank and file voted to return to work, accepting the same contract offer they had initially declined.
In Toronto, the way ahead is blindingly obvious. We should build on what some of the smartest transit thinkers in the world have already done. The first step is to replace the commission’s political board with civilian appointments, much as the provincial government did with Metrolinx last year. The new Metrolinx board may include a few too many land developers and corporate leaders—the sorts of people who wouldn’t be caught dead on the vomit comet—and too few regular transit users, but Metrolinx’s directors have all shown they can manage large and successful organizations, a skill set the TTC’s current overseers are sorely lacking.
The TTC’s new board should toss out the chief general manager, Gary Webster, an agency lifer who started with the system almost straight out of university in 1975 (he’s an engineer, of course) and was named chief general manager in 2006. The man has had four years to address the system’s problems, and yet we’ve seen little progress. The system, no matter what form it takes, needs a leader who can build a culture that moves quickly and efficiently and puts customer service first. It would help to have a leader who has more credibility with his employees, too. When Webster sent a stern memo to staff last January (“I am becoming increasingly tired of defending the reputation of the TTC,” it began), Bob Kinnear, the operators’ union president, ate him alive.
The province, for its part, has to step up with operating funds. The TTC gets far too little public money—less than nearly any other system on the continent. This is where Metrolinx could help. With authority from Queen’s Park, the agency could levy road tolls or a region-wide gas tax and funnel a chunk of the revenue to Toronto.
The path to any form of privatization will take a few leaders who can articulate their intentions and then stare down the transit unions’ certain opposition. The TTC has received some 30,000 rider complaints in the past year. It’s fair to say the public—whose memories of last summer’s garbage strike are still fresh—is ready to rally around a reformist figure.
We could go big and split the service into several different (but seamless) zones and then tender them all at once, or play more cautiously, offering up new infrastructure projects, like those eight planned Transit City lines, for public-private partnerships. Managed right and run with a mandate to put public service first, we’d get a system that we could once again be proud of.
But first we’ll have to get over our paralysis, because Toronto’s greatest fear about privatizing transit is that it will turn a system that was intended for the public good into one that’s run to benefit only a few. The thing we’re so afraid of is what we’ve already got.
Oh yes, privatize the TTC.
Then, when it inevitably does not profit its corporate owners (transit systems never do), we will be presented with the ultimatum, so often seen whenever private interests control essential public services: pay the difference (as defined by us) or we’ll just close it down.
The TTC needs to focus more on customer service, and it needs more funding from all levels of government – but what we most need is leadership (in the TTC, in the government) who can spearhead the shift in thinking from the “car is king” mentality that has for so long hobbled essential transit development in Ontario. We also need to stop the rampant, unsustainable expansion of low-density housing across Ontario’s countryside.
Private businesses should never be entrusted with essential public services. That is what government is for. Citizens elect governments to act in the public’s best interests. Corporate priorities are commonly at odds with public interests. Businesses want to make money for owners and shareholders by whatever means possible, whereas Toronto established its transit service because citizens needed a good way to get around town. What do these goals have in common?
Canadians are going to regret giving away the institutions that our own parents and grandparents built – energy, transit, healthcare, telecommunications, and so on – all because of the myth (promulgated by greedy profit-takers) that business can run everything better. That is, we’ll be sorry if we take the time to learn enough about our own history and current events to realize the value of what is being stolen from under our noses. Well, if we don’t, then maybe this is no more than we deserve.
Oh yeah, that’s why I don’t subscribe to Toronto Life -suggestions like this this. The TTC needs more funding from all levels of government. The government needs to realize and appreciate the importance of the public transit system. Ofcourse, magazines such as yours that are produced by and read by the middle and upper class of the city can’t possibly get it. Privitization is not the answer for the TTC -or for Health care incase you are working on that suggestion for next month. What does it feel like to be out of touch with the majority of people living a ‘Toronto life’?
Typically, the two posters before me fail to cite any examples or data that can show why privatizing the TTC would fail. For them, the answer of course relies on yet more public funding. As for being out out touch, Ray, most people around me despise the TTC and would likely agree to privatization. Funny though, we’re not rich—we work retail, make a whole hell of a lot less money than TTC employees, put up with the same bullshit (or worse) and are often late for work because of the TTC.
When I started reading this article, I agreed with the first two commenters – we need more funding. But with an open mind, I can see how TTC management has totally lost touch with what is expected today. The kind of changes proposed here do have to happen – if it requires privatization (at least at first) to budge (blast??) the current culture then maybe we should consider it.
(I live on the St. Clair construction line, take the TTC regularly, and both love and promote the benefits of public transit.)
To privatize or not to privatize, that is not the question. At least not at this point in time! How do we install a board of directors and management team that will ensure a level of service that is adequate to the basic needs of the transit users? Clean vehicles, lines and signals… regularily maintained and in good repair. Expansion plans that meet the needs of the users (i.e. subways and not streetcars). What is going to take? No one at TTC, municipal and provincial government levels are listening to the taxpayers.
TTC is in need of a major reorganization starting with their leadership.
The Province should take them over completely with Metrolinx and integrate the overall GTA transportation system including the operation of main highways in the GTA area.
Transportation experts from other sectors should be brought in to implement modern fare technologies and planning expertise to stop the planned LRT’s and build efficient subways for the future of our great Metropole.
One does not need to be a rocket scientist to understand that when you build elevated streetcar lanes on Sheppard East, you cut the Community in 2 halves,preventing all left turns and forcing cars to do U Turns at main intersections.
This results in total traffic chaos like the one recently created on St Clair West.Riders are exposed to potential accidents with cars, streetcars and bicycles. This is particularily affecting seniors who will also have to walk longer distances to board streetcars as these streetcars will only stop at every second bus stop.
This LRT plan for Scarborough should be shelved immediately and replaced with the looping of the Sheppard subway with the Bloor line which would give most Scarborough residents rapid and efficent access to the South and to the North of Toronto via a subway line.
IT seems like a lot of the riders are spoiled brats ,,if you do not like the TTC then walk or get a bicycle..be happy and enjoy a excellent CANADIAN transit system ..TTC has received many awards for best service in the world over the years …I have never had any problems over the years while rideing transit from the west end to the east end from the north end to the south end ….TTC IS THE TOP TRANSIT SYSTEM IN CANADA …TORONTO IS CANADAS LARGEST CITY ..SURE THERE ARE GOING TO BE CONGESTED TIMES THROUGH OUT THE DAY .IT IS A KNOWN FACT, THE LARGER THE CITY THE LONGER THE LINE -UPS ,ANYWHERE AROUND THE CITY,not just on transit….LIVE WITH IT ..OR MOVE TO THE COUNTRY OR THE PRAIRIES..WHEN RIDEING GOVERNMENT TRANSIT SYSTEMS ACROSS CANADA YOU SUPPORT CANADA.WHERE YOU LIVE AND WORK and enjoy your hard earned money on good food and drink..
I am not a regular TTC user, but my father was until recently. He thought that commuting from the 905 to Yorkville (parking his vehicle at Yorkdale) would be the cheaper and better option (for a while it was). But with the rising prices of the Metropass and constant service issues, he’s been driving all the way down there. I do think he is a bit overblown with his criticism of the TTC; when Giambrone was running for mayor, he went on a huge tirade against him and how terrible of a leader he is (and this was before the scandal!). I don’t think privatization is the answer, but it does need a major overhaul from the inside, as well as more support from Queen’s Park. I also think the LRT’s are a bad idea. The city really needs to look at more lines or at least extending the current ones.
And in response to Brian’s comment, saying that Toronto’s transit system is the best in Canada is like saying the ribeye is the best thing on a menu full of burgers. With our population we need to look beyond Canada and examine other transit systems that serve similar cities like ours. Toronto is a world class city, but the transit system has a lot of room for improvement, based on my personal experience with systems in New York, DC, and London.
Good for you Chris Nuttall-Smith – it is a tough minefield of a topic, that you are addressing clearly.
The comments above are being made by people with friends and family working for the TTC, or people who do not deal with TTC employees on a regular basis. The real riders are all those folks that make way less money than the people that get them to and from work!
It is clear that TTC operator salaries are entirely too high – where is the employee turnover?? there is none… What other job would these very very lucky employees ever get? But instead of being grateful, they are mean, dismissive, and disrespectful.
If you really want to shake things up though Chris, just post a clear list of average salary for TTC employees for the world to see. you can surely do some digging to find that out. Do you know how many blogs would link to that chart??
You mention 60k after 2 years… You need to go deeper, and follow-up with salary figures for ticket-takers, bus drivers, streetcar drivers etc… Maybe throw in their average level of education, and the average cost of attending post-secondary institutions instead of working right out of high school:) The public is dying to know this info, and this thread would lean a lot further in support of your excellent article.,,
Agreed, there is almost nothing wrong with the TTC, I have been riding it for years(17). The only issue that needs to be rectified is the lack of Technology, ie estimated arrival times for buses. I do not want the TTC to be put in MetroLink’s hands, why on earth would Toronto give up its Transit Power to a Provincial government. All of a sudden a guy in TimBuckTwo thinks the TTC needs a change and poof there it is. We should be proud to have such a great means of transportation that can get you to any part of this city at any period of time (day or night).
Sorry almost nothing wrong with the TTC, I do find it funny thou that so many people quip about the TTC’s ineptitude and they do even ride the dame thing, and now we have people making recommendations about the TTC and they don’t even use the service, Mr. Steve O’Brien and that marketing girl (who take the streetcar from time to time a couple of stops) let alone ask the transit workers themselves! I do agree that its time for a change at the top of the TTC, much like in many other industries, and please whoever gets the job, that he not be an accountant, engineer, politician, lawyer, etc and instead be someone born in Toronto who has used the subway for numerous years, only they can understand the system. Most of my friends who use the subway often have no problems, and we all agree most of the hub-bub is all political spin machine garbage..Leave the TTC alone, its truly fine the way it is, built by the people of Toronto for the people of Toronto.
One last thing mr Chris Smith are you even born in Toronto, or have ridden the subway more then 1 year, if not keep your recommendations to your over hyped journalistic Self, your BS is not needed here! And please “Toronto life” start hiring people born in this city!
If i were you byJ, i would leave the average workers salary alone, Its people like you who destroy the middle class. If you start making an issue about how much ticket-takers, bus drivers, streetcar drivers get you will soon find yourself without any neighbors as no one will even be able to afford the house to your, left, criminals perhaps, but definitely not the average working guy. As for how much a bus driver makes, if you think its so much why dont you apply for the job, they are looking for recruits, lets see you drive a route for a couple of years while dealing with ungrateful passengers, gangsters etc…Again, MrJ, be careful for what you wish for, for soon you will find yourself without any neighbors!
Srry for being a little harsh…
I do have one question thou, if you had enough money or anyone who reads this had enough, would you not buy a street car route if you had the opportunity? Lets face it we all would buy it, and for one simple reason, who ever owns it, their family would never have to work ever again, and we are talking generations. And Chris, if you followed the money like mrJ suggested you would realize that Toronto is being Set up, and the people much like yourself are eating it up..The people never come out ahead through Privatization, and whoever created this firestorm is the one behind it…Now why would Toronto ever want to do something like that? If we privatize like Chris suggests what will happen to the routes where not alot of people take the bus? they will get shafted! as well, the price will also rise across the board. Im actually surprised that you did not research the price increases in all the transits that you provided? Considering the cost of the TTC and the value and scope that Toronto receives, we are in a very good position.
Tim-O, you are missing the point entirely.
People who ride the TTC and pay 3 dollars to a guy reading a magazine behind glass, make fa-a-a-a-ar less on average than those who work in these TTC jobs-for-life…
Clearly you are one of them… Good on you though. Enjoy your cottage up in Muskoka, or slightly further North, your ATVs, and 5 weeks vacation… we’ll keep commuting further and further away so you can hold the city hostage every few years, in order to put in a new dock:)
“Cannon-Ball!!”
You actually think a guy who makes 60 grand a year around 37 after taxes can afford a cottage in Muskoka? Wow, let me know where I can afford that cottage, especially in Muskoka…And that 37 is far less after union dues, pension etc. and by jay, if we can create a system that allows a human being the right to hold a job for life, and provides them with a comfortable living, isn’t everyone better off? Granted the system is not perfect and there will always be rotten apples, there is always a few in every company, but to attack the TTC and the amount of money bus drivers make, is come-on. Remember 10 to 1 everyone knows someone who works for the TTC, and 10-1 someone in your family tree, long after you pass away, if we don’t privatize it will end up working there as well.
I agree Adam was a bonehead, and used his position for selfish gains, but so was the people who he was working with, whoever handled the PR should be fired, the people have a right to information as well as an explanation as to why certain things are happening, well in advance, it’s a human right, like fair hikes, token hording etc. I bet you if they(TTC) were not so worried about losing a few million to the very people who take the TTC, the whole ticket hording thing would never have happened, which means there is a rat working in the TTC and he too should be fired.! Any which way, I agree changes should occur, BUT I REPEAT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF PRIVITIZATION
And unfortunatly, I do not work for the TTC, Wish i had the golden ticket, but no…just a dude who lives in inner city Toronto, that rely’s on TTC for his bread and Butter!
Hey – I respect your opinion. I think the TTC is a great service, it’s just over-priced, even with the subsidies, and the people “working” there are on a “golden ticket.”
They are not held accountable, and to be clear, if you make 60k – you take home way more than 37k a year… and please note – the 60k figure was just after 2 years of service!! Top university grads don’t make that kind of money in their first years out of school – and they’re paying off student debt!! I can only imagi-i-i-i-ne how much these guys are making,that have been there for 10 or 20 years… I don’t want to imagine, I want a journalist to step up and find out!
Yes, I guarantee they have cottages just north of Muskoka and laugh amongst themselves about the ransom they hold this city to, all the time…
It isn’t just the drivers, it’s management as well… The good years created bloated salaries and set the bar at an unrealistic height for thick and thin times. No Mayor ever wants to stand up in the slightest to these guys, because as you said – everybody knows somebody working there.. and everybody has the potential to vote…
The article is good because it recognizes the serious issues faced by the TTC, including public perception and its bloated salaries. Unfortunately, sometimes you need to blow something up to change its parts.
Oh Jay, for the record, I don’t even know one person working for the TTC -so I’m not speaking as a person related to someone working at the TTC -as you suggested we all are who disagree with you. Are you so close minded that you think only people related to TTC workers would want to keep the system from being privatized. Also, while I make $30,000 a year in the non-profit sector of Toronto – I wouldn’t want any position at the TTC for any amount of money. I’m thankful there are people out there who are willing to that work -which from what I see every day riding the TTC – can be challenging from many aspects. They deserve ever penny they get. The government needs to step up and help fund public transportation.
That’s great. Now can you cite an example of a PPP transit system that doesn’t operate with a MASSIVE (profit) subsidy (since public transit, by nature, bleeds money)?
Stockholm (being your success story) with double the subsidy for a population half the size with a city with a much more intensified, compact footprint?
We can do better by electing better politicians and by being more active in our communities, not by privatizing essential public services.
Are you aware that there are actually other cities in Ontario, some of which even aspire to build transit systems, if on a much more modest scale than Toronto’s?
Perhaps if Toronto were willing to build alliances with those cities, like Ottawa, London, Hamilton, KW, etc., instead of trying to monopolize every drop of transit cash (what little there is) at Queen’s Park, all of Ontario’s major urban areas would benefit.
Until then, cry me a river. As an Ottawa taxpayer I’m sick of sending Ontario taxes to GTA transit capital works, when Dalton McGuinty is still nickel-and-diming his hometown.
re: Joe Best. That’s great. Now can you cite an example of a PPP transit system that doesn’t operate with a MASSIVE (profit) subsidy (since public transit, by nature, bleeds money)?
http://www.mtr.com.hk/eng/investrelation/financialinfo.php
The Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway system was privatized in 2000 and taken public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. All subsidizes were removed upon privatization. It has been profitable for the last ten years. Revenues rose from $4 billion HKD (about $500 million USD) in 2000 to $8 billion HKD ($1 billion USD) last year. See their financial report above.
The corporation now owns subsidiaries across Europe and China, building subways and consulting on passenger rail projects for foreign countries.
Please do some research before making uninformed and ignorant comments. Privatization can work.
The other thing if you look at the MTR’s financials is that wages account for only 30% of expenses. For the TTC wages account for 75% (from their annual report on http://www.ttc.ca). I recommend everyone look at the TTC annual report and check out the financial statements – subsidies per-passenger has actually be rising every year, but it is not enough to cover rapidly rising labour expenses. That is the core of the problem.