Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster is stepping down.
Verster tendered his resignation on Monday so as to take a brand new place and can depart his function as CEO of the provincial transit company as early as Dec. 16. The province has already named his interim substitute as Michael Lindsay.
“With his many years of service helping to build our great province as President and Chief Executive Officer of Infrastructure Ontario, no one is better positioned to take on this role than Michael,” mentioned Premier Doug Ford. “I have given Michael a clear mandate to open Eglinton Crosstown as soon as it is safe to do so. That is his top priority.”
The announcement comes on the heels of Metrolinx’s seemingly constructive replace on the sometimes troubled Eglinton Crosstown LRT final week, when it introduced it’s transferring in the direction of a gap date someday in 2025. The brand new transit line, connecting east and west Toronto, was slated to open in 2020, however has regularly confronted value overruns since development began 13 years in the past.
Verster was named CEO of Metrolinx in 2017, after his tenure as managing director of ScotRail Alliance, a rail agency based mostly in the UK. He changed Bruce McCuaig, who unexpectedly resigned after six-and-a-half years within the function.
Verster earned $838,097 in 2023.
“I wish to thank Phil for his a few years of service to Ontario,” Ford mentioned in Monday’s launch. “Phil led and supported explosive development in transit development, together with the most important enlargement of public transit in North America. The transportation panorama in Ontario shall be completely higher due to his contributions.”
In response to Verster’s resignation, Ontario Greens Deputy Chief Aislinn Clancy mentioned he value the province billions.
“His decade of delays impacted hundreds of thousands of residents and companies, whose tax {dollars} have been paying his million-dollar wage whereas LRT stations on Eglinton sit empty,” Clancy mentioned in a launch.
“Mr. Verster’s departure is a vital first step towards delivering the accountability that folks of this province deserve. However let’s keep in mind that the buck finally stops with the Premier, who has been propping up Metrolinx’s failures for six years now.”
Earlier on Monday, Ontario’s NDPs issued a name for Verster’s elimination, in addition to a full public inquiry into “the continued Eglinton Crosstown LRT fiasco.”
“When governments rent non-public firms to finance and management public infrastructure, taxpayers pay extra and the initiatives are inclined to go off the rails,” MPP Jill Andrew mentioned in Monday’s launch.
“We have lived via years of shuttered small companies, flooding, residential street closures, ongoing development – with no clear plan.”
This can be a breaking information story. Extra to come back…
