People get so hung up on our current system that it seems they lose their minds when it comes to things like uploading and fare integration. These aren't things we're inventing on the fly, as much as we might like to think so. Plenty of "World Class" jurisdictions have had these things forever.
There's no question Metrolinx could not, as currently constituted, assume authority for regional transit. They'd have to be properly cut-off from cabinet and have local officials of some kind on the board so there is proper democratic representation.
But then people worry about, "How can the PROVINCE be in charge of our local buses?!" or "TTC is awesome - we can't let the province tell us what to do!" and all these teeny details and paranoid assumptions. As KeithZ pointed out, they have no trouble figuring out in London. I've been to London but am more familiar with New York City where there is similarly a single transit authority for the entire region and it has multiple divisions, no different than the way Metrolinx has divisions for Presto, GO and - um - UPX.
From Wikipedia:
Makes sense to me, looking at it simplistically.
There are myriad ways to organize - you could make all the divisions same as the current transit bodies or do more east-west-central etc. It doesn't really matter. It's not too hard to evaluate best practices or find some experts on regional governance to devise something reasonable - the way the province once created Metro to achieve much the same aim.
What does matter is that we stop acting like it's so hard and we're reinventing the wheel, just because we've done things a certain way forever. Bigger, smarter cities have been doing it the other way forever and I don't think London or New York is going to look at us and say, "Gee, it really makes more sense to have a whole bunch of teeny transit services surrounding one big one and then a government-controlled agency that controls the bits and pieces left over," and change their system.
I've probably said it before but if you just looked at a satellite map of the region and the infrastructure in place today - with no sense of the local context and governance - you would NEVER design the system we have with its absurd rules, arbitrary boundaries, multiple fare strategies and political interference. As much as I respect Steve Munro's technical knowledge, for example, I'm sure he is incapable of doing this mental exercise. Every move by Metrolinx is percived as an encroachment on TTC's rightful territory and every change - fare integration being a prime example -seen as some move to undermine the Greater Good, as it now seems to exist.
Everyone's going to keep protecting their little fiefdoms until they're forcefully taken away and it's the riders who lose out.