Wednesday, December 13, 2017

‘Ask Metrolinx’ Town Hall Draws New Ideas, Shared Concerns

TORONTO: December 13, 2017 – Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster hosted the first “Ask Metrolinx” town hall on Tuesday night, giving the public an opportunity to put their questions about transit and transportation in the GTHA directly to both him and the senior management team.
Two-thirds of the questions were asked live by the audience in the room at Union Station and via our livestream feed. The other questions were chosen by the public from 170 submitted online. Senior leaders listened intently as interested community members shared their issues and concerns, their ideas and suggestions, and committed to a number of follow-up meetings in communities around the GTHA.

Topics included:
  • Dealing with service disruptions
  • Managing poorly performing contractors
  • Where fare dollars go
  • Electrification and hydrogen technology
  • New stations and accessibility
  • Parking (stop building parking structures or build more)
  • Noise mitigation both for service increases and construction

Town Hall by the numbers:
  • 170 questions were submitted online ahead of the event
  • 733 votes on their favourite question
  • 35 questions submitted through livestream
  • 75+ people attended the town hall
  • 100+ watched livestream

A video of the town hall will be posted online at metrolinxengage.com. All questions submitted will be answered over the coming weeks. In addition, Phil Verster committed to making the town halls a regular event to encourage public participation and feedback.

4 comments:

  1. BickyDecember 13, 2017 at 4:53 PM

    Aside from a few annoying posters on the live stream chat, I thought it was pretty well done.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 14, 2017 at 1:27 PM

    Agreed. It would be useful if you could block trolls on the livestream chat. In person questions were overly long in some cases. Answers were mostly generic but at least the C suite folks seemed to be listening. It's good to see a new Captain in place - he seems to be shaking things up a little. Overall it was well run.

    ReplyDelete
  3. C.J. SmithDecember 14, 2017 at 1:36 PM

    I like Phil.
    Very direct.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousDecember 14, 2017 at 9:47 PM

    Is there a way to watch a replay for those of us who were, I don't know, stuck on a delayed train at the time?

    ReplyDelete

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