You won't believe how many VPs Metrolinx has
Good morning from the Forest City — yes, the other London. The one that actually matters to us. Let's get into it.
I've been covering this city for a decade, and I thought I'd seen it all when it comes to bureaucracy. But then I read the news about Metrolinx, and frankly, my jaw dropped faster than a puck on a fresh sheet of ice at Budweiser Gardens. You'd think a major transit agency would be focused on, well, transit. But apparently, they've been busy adding more vice presidents than the Knights have roster spots. Last year, the annual salary disclosures, the Sunshine List, showed Metrolinx had 124 people with "vice president" in their title. One hundred and twenty-four. And some consultants are even coming on board permanently. It just makes you wonder, doesn't it?
### What This Means for Us
Look, while Metrolinx isn't directly running our city buses down Dundas Street, they are the big provincial player in transit. When you see numbers like this, it raises questions about efficiency, about how public money is being spent, and whether the focus is truly on getting people from A to B.
* **Impact on Funding:** How much of the transit budget is going to administration versus actual infrastructure? It's a fair question for any taxpayer. * **Trust in Public Agencies:** These kinds of revelations chip away at public trust, especially when we're constantly hearing about budget constraints elsewhere. * **The BRT Debate Echoes:** For those of us who lived through the endless BRT debates here in London, where every penny was scrutinized, seeing this kind of executive bloat elsewhere in the provincial transit system just feels… familiar, and not in a good way.
It’s one thing to have a robust leadership team, but 124 VPs? It just sounds like a meeting that would take up an entire floor of an office building, probably somewhere in Toronto, far from our Thames River. For Londoners, who often feel like we're fighting for every bit of provincial infrastructure funding, this kind of news makes you shake your head and wonder where priorities truly lie.
That's The Buzz for today. Greg and the team chew on stories like this every morning – catch 'em live at mornings.live.