From the Star:
New transit chief ready for the ride
Oct. 14, 2006. 07:51 AM
DAVID BRUSER
TRANSPORTATION REPORTER
As commuters press in, the GO train doors slide open and a freshly shaved Rob MacIsaac shuffles out of the cold, dark early morning and takes a seat.
It's 6:30 a.m. at the Aldershot station in Burlington, and like so many do every weekday, the new head of the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority is riding into Toronto.
Holding his cup of Tim Hortons, he searches a newspaper for the story about his nomination, made official Thursday.
Grinning, he says, "Remember Cy Sperling, the president of the Hair Club? I'm not just the president but a client?"
A president, of sorts. But will he have any power?
By many accounts in Burlington, where MacIsaac is the outgoing mayor, the 44-year-old former commercial real estate lawyer is a charismatic consensus builder. Even two local politicians battling each other for his current job can't disagree on MacIsaac.
And by all accounts, MacIsaac, a weekend rock singer, will need his charms to make the GTTA a meaningful outfit and his position more than the paper tiger some fear will be shredded by all the competing transit interests that will come under the GTTA umbrella.
"Trying to co-ordinate, keeping that balance, is probably going to be the greatest challenge," says Burlington mayoral candidate Joan Lougheed, who, along with MacIsaac, appeared in 1991 as a rookie Burlington councillor. "It's going to be a tough job."
But perhaps one fit for a man whose ideal Saturday plays out like this: "Go out in the morning, grocery shop, get all your ingredients, spend the day sort of preparing your meal and have guests in for dinner. That's fun."
The agency is a central body whose job is to co-ordinate the GTA's mix of public transit systems, such as operating a region-wide fare-card system, plan highway expansion, and to help prepare construction plans.
Earlier this year, when the Toronto Star identified MacIsaac as the front-runner for the GTTA job, both provincial and municipal officials said they were impressed by MacIsaac when he chaired the provincial Greenbelt Task Force, which paved the way for a 728,000-hectare greenbelt, ringing Toronto from Niagara to Peterborough. He also chaired a so-called smart growth committee created by the former Conservative government.
MacIsaac says he won't start his new job until December and can't predict every move the nascent GTTA will make. In part that's because it is still unclear what powers the agency will have long-term.
"I know there has been a lot of criticism that maybe it doesn't have the power it requires. This is going to be an evolutionary process. What we start out with is just fine," MacIsaac says. "Our initial task is really about developing a plan and a vision about what the transportation system can be ... Let us walk before we run."
As the train rumbles toward Union Station and the car fills up, the nine-year mayor of Burlington does, however, give a few hints of where he's heading and some major challenges that await.
He wants the agency to wield more power in the future, saying it's likely the GTTA will someday take over GO Transit. (For now, MacIsaac says, the GTTA cannot "issue directives to local transit systems.") He also wants the agency's head office to be at GO headquarters in downtown Toronto.
Aligning with GO makes sense, at least symbolically, since GO is a region-wide transit system using rail and highway routes, and often feeding commuters to other transit systems. MacIsaac's second-in-command will be GO's current chair Peter Smith.
Transit riders may take cold comfort in the fact that MacIsaac, though he is still negotiating a contract that will probably include a car, plans to take mass transit from his home in Burlington to the agency's head office. The car would help get him throughout the region when visiting various transit stakeholders. He drives a Ford Explorer provided by Burlington but has to turn it in next month.
The GTTA will also preside over the implementation of a fare card system that can be used on any transit system in the region, from Hamilton to Oshawa. The so-called smart card system, which should be up and running by 2010, will be built by Accenture, a firm awarded the 10-year, $250 million design contract this week.
`You have to be prepared to think in big terms ... What we're building is going to last a long time'
New GTTA head Rob MacIsaac
But the TTC is not yet on board, with an official saying a couple days ago that the commission may have more pressing needs than replacing its fare system.
Enter the consensus builder, not yet sure how he's going to win the support of the TTC.
"They're one of the stakeholders in the room that I'm going to work hard to bring to the table," he says. "I don't know exactly how it's going to happen. I just know I have to do it."
Longtime friend Gord Forstner, the director of public relations at Hamilton steel giant Dofasco, thinks MacIsaac has the skills to pull it off.
"He's not divisive. At the same time, he can make a decision. He's not a ditherer."
MacIsaac has been on record as supporting toll roads, saying taxpayers can no longer be expected to foot the bill for new highways. He also entertains the idea of tapping the private sector to improve an "inadequate" transit infrastructure in which "roads, bridges, buildings are crumbling."
"There are massive pools of private capital out there looking for projects and not able to find them," he says. "You have to be prepared to think in big terms. You can't be scared off by big numbers. What we're building is going to last a long time. It's going to be amortized over hundreds of millions of riders."
As for the money that will fund the GTTA, MacIsaac says the provincial ministry of transportation will fund the start-up as it hires a secretary and CEO, but after that the agency will submit a budget for approval on an annual basis.
Meanwhile, MacIsaac, on his way on this day to a conference near the University of Toronto, admits to the normal kind of anxiety anyone has when starting as new job.
"You know, you're unsure of the path forward, exactly how it's all going to work out," he says, but the father of two adds he expects nothing more challenging than serving as mayor of Burlington.
"My life's been a public appearance for nine years. Being mayor is really a 24-7 job. You can't buy a cabbage at the grocery store without somebody approaching you. People have been really good to me. I'm not complaining about it."
While one Burlington political colleague cautions MacIsaac to resist feeling too much loyalty to Burlington and treat all players in the region equally, MacIsaac wants the new agency to recognize the importance of the suburbs and cities that have built up around Toronto. "416ers have to recognize the importance of 905," he says, adding the agency might consider recommending "a more aggressive approach to HOV lanes."
MacIsaac has a dramatic 416 debut planned, at the Canadian Urban Transit Association conference next month  "live from the Royal York."
"I have a band," he says. "It's a rock 'n' roll band. I sing. It's all 1970s. We cover like Van Morrison, Rolling Stones. It's a garage band. We play charity stuff."
Dubbed Slow Monday  no, not an expression of sympathy to commuters starting their work week gnashing teeth in QEW traffic  the 10-piece band plays charity events and rehearses weekly in a strip mall music school.
Friend and bandmate Forstner explains the sobriquet:
"It's more to do with the fact that we rehearse on Sunday nights and sometimes that makes Monday morning difficult," he says.
"Rob is not a pretentious guy," adds Forstner, who plays bass and guitar. "He didn't have any musical background, but he assembled a group around him. He throws himself into not just work but life. People respond to that."
Slow Monday features MacIsaac on vocals, though three other bandmates sing, too.
"Believe me," says the consensus builder as his train rolls into Union Station, "I need the back-up."
AoD
