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thestar.com

MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 2010

Report to urge TTC overhaul

Panel to offer 75 recommendations, some fast, cheap, on ways to boost customer service
TESS KALINOWSKI
TRANSPORTATION REPORTER

An outside panel of customer service advisers will recommend a sweeping overhaul of the TTCs corporate culture when it releases its long-awaited report Monday. The report will contain about 75 recommendations addressing issues ranging from quick low-cost fixes such as messages on the front of the bus telling riders its full to

revamped hiring practices, which could take years to filter through the system, according to Toronto Star sources. Produced by a 10-member panel of volunteers, the findings amount to an overhaul in the way the TTC views and treats passengers what commission vice-chair Joe Mihevc calls a cultural change. Torontonians will hear theyve been heard. The recommendations

speak to what passengers are thinking or feeling, said Mihevc (Ward 21, St. Pauls). The report follows a disastrous year for the TTC: Adam Giambrone, the commissions chair, dropped out of the citys mayoral race following a sex scandal; riders lashed out over a fare hike that led to token hoarding; photos of sleeping subway collectors outraged the city; and Danforth-area home-

owners became furious over plans to expropriate houses. The TTC intends to change its approach to customer service the same way it revolutionized its safety and state-of-good-repair procedures following the 1995 Russell Hill collision of two subway trains that killed three people, Mihevc said.
PANEL continued on A8

STAR EXCLUSIVE

From ad to art
Global activists sweep through city postering over dozens of billboards

Sick, poor left out of food grant talks

Groups say province promised consultation on new program
LAURIE MONSEBRAATEN
SOCIAL JUSTICE REPORTER

Health and social advocates say they are still waiting for promised government consultation on the design of a program to replace the special diet allowance that helps about 165,000 people on social assistance. Many are worried the new, more restrictive program announced in last springs budget has already been designed without community input and may be unveiled as early as next month. Many of the provinces most vulnerable are fearing the worst. No one has been consulted as far as we can tell, said Vani Jain of the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario, who is in contact with patient-support groups, nurse and physician associations and anti-poverty organizations. The lack of information or transparency around this is fuelling all sorts of rumours and causing a lot of anxiety among the people we represent. Its awful, she said.
SUPPLEMENT continued on A7
RICK EGLINTON/TORONTO STAR

Teams of activists spread through Toronto on Sunday, replacing advertistements in public space with guerrilla art from around the world.
LIEM VU
STAFF REPORTER

THE STARS VIEW: Dont slash funds for those who need them most, A10.

A lanky, 6-foot-tall New Yorker dressed in black, manoeuvres through Toronto armed with an electric screwdriver, duct tape, a stepladder, and a doorknob. His target: a four-sided, Pattison ad pillar. He removes a screw; inserts the doorknob and cranks open the

frame as nearby sirens sound. Within minutes, he is gone, having replaced the ads with art. One down, 41to go. His name is Jordan Seiler, the founder of the Public Ad Campaign, an initiative committed to reclaiming public space from what the campaign contends are illegal advertisers, and filling it with guer-

rilla art. On Sunday afternoon, Seiler led 15 activists into a war against Canadian billboard giant Pattison Outdoor by removing ads from 41pillars and replacing them with 85 pieces of art. Public space should be a place for public communication, said the 30-year-old. I feel like I have a right

to react against (advertisements) when, in particular, theyre done illegally. The Star was unable to confirm the legal status of the signs targeted by the group, and efforts to reach Pattison Outdoor for comment Sunday were not successful.
ART continued on A7

FULL INDEX PAGE A2

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