Andy Byford was at Chester station this morning chatting with riders. I spent a few minutes with him, and was impressed with his sincerity, as he seemed genuinely interested in talking with me. He commented that the TTC has been working hard to give stations a more professional appearance (such as eliminating hand-written signage, and returning/restoring the TTC font to stations), and that he's hired a new manager for subway operations from London's Tube, to address things like delays with train crew changes. He also mentioned that he was serious about tackling the problem of bunching on surface routes. I told him that the system certainly has declined from when I first arrived in Toronto several decades ago, but that it is still an under-appreciated gem that a lot of Torontonians had great affection for, and I hoped that he could really improve things.
All in all, I thought it was fantastic that he's engaging directly with riders (how well he can actually address the problems is another matter).