The Toronto Transit Commission’s chief executive officer, Andy Byford, rose above all the Scarborough subway noise this week to remind the politicians scrambling for votes there that we can’t afford to take our eyes off the desperate need for a downtown relief line.

We have come to expect sensible straight-talk and visible leadership from Byford. I chatted with the CEO recently and was impressed with his enthusiasm and total commitment to the TTC – both in defending its strengths and having open eyes about what needs to be fixed.

The TTC operates the third-most heavily used urban mass transit system in North America, after the New York City Transit Authority and Mexico City Metro.

Andy Byford is a mass transit guy.

He was the station manager at King’s Cross station, London, the busiest on the "Tube." Bigger jobs followed, leading to the position as chief operating officer with Railcorp in New South Wales, Australia. He was hired for the same role with the TTC in November, 2011. In March, 2012, he was promoted to CEO.

Byford sized up the TTC quickly, getting first-hand experience by job-shadowing a number of workers in the organization. This has included a day in a subway token booth, a day working with janitors in the station services division, and a shift with transit enforcement officers.

Byford has a big job managing crises and navigating the politics of transit. He takes leadership seriously and is front and centre in dealing with bad news and emergencies, providing information and explaining what the TTC will do to put things right.

He was on the scene shortly after a late-night shooting of a TTC ticket collector in February, 2012, and when the system was partly shut down by severe flooding in July.

Yet, Byford sets time aside for thinking about what needs to change and then getting those changes in place – a hallmark of any leader.

He knew early that some organizational and performance issues needed to be addressed, starting with putting in place some basics of a modern performance management framework.

Byford worked with his executive team to develop a vision – “a transit system that makes Toronto proud,” several key performance indicators and a five-year corporate plan that will be a road map to all staff on what needs to be done over that period. This is now being shared with all 12,500 staff at town hall meetings.

He recognizes that customers should not have to wait five years to see service improvements. Many of the challenges, he says, were glaringly obvious: dirty trains, poor morale, performance management issues, a command and control management structure with an absence of personal accountability – and an overwhelming air of resignation in an organization that could not seem to break out of relentlessly bad media and embarrassing, high-profile customer service failures.

"The TTC is a fantastic organization and I was lucky to inherit a lot of solid progress by my predecessor,” Byford says. “But I felt that, for too long, mediocrity had been tolerated in the way service was delivered and presented, and it seemed to me that there was a need for a ‘can-do’ approach to reinvigorate things. In my opinion, the staff and managers were crying out for strong leadership and a compelling vision and I set out to give them both by showing what the TTC could be like if we all upped our game.”

He started by tackling some glaring issues tailor-made for quick wins. Dirty trains came first. Byford is fond of the question “Why?” He started by asking why early morning newspapers and other trash was still on the floor of trains when commuters boarded for their trip home. He was told this was because trains were only cleaned at night. When he asked why that was, he was told this was the agreement with the unions and cleaners liked to work nights.

He wanted this fixed. Cleaners were moved to terminal stations to remove daytime litter after every round trip of every train. Customer reaction has been very positive.

Other early wins included the introduction of debit and credit payment facilities at all subway ticket booths to address a long-term customer gripe that high-value transactions could only be made in cash, and tackling the notoriously grim washrooms. Byford also put in place the TTC's first Customer Charter (based on a model from both London and Sydney), outlining 31 measurable improvements across every aspect of TTC services.

In the longer term, Byford wants to fix accountability gaps by designating single points of accountability for everything from who is in charge of a subway station to the ability of fare-takers to solve problems for customers. He wants to see improvements to surface transit route performance and to boost employee performance by improving engagement and morale; and a new relationship with unions to achieve more customer-focused procedures and methods of working while keeping the organization whole.

Andy Byford is proud of the TTC, saying it is a great organization with lots of great people.

"I am incredibly proud to head up the TTC. I am quite convinced that we can get it back to being what it once was, namely the jewel in the crown of North American transit. My employees are incredibly passionate about what they do and they want the company to succeed. I have merely shown them what is possible with a refreshed approach, a clear vision and by leading by example."

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