In the early days of his term as head of the TTC, Andy Byford says he could count on being woken up at least once a week by a late night call from Rob Ford. “I got very used to phone calls at 2 a.m., even 3 a.m., from the mayor,” Byford told an audience at the Empire Club of Canada last week.To Byford’s bemusement, Ford would always introduce himself as “Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto.” “And I’m like, ‘I do know who you are. What do you want, it’s 3 a.m.?’” Ford would invariably respond, “‘Hey buddy, I’m standing at the corner … I’ve got someone here who wants to know where their bus is.”Read more:Text from Byford contradict public statements on subway memoEdward Keenan: Byford has woven his own tangled web of confusionAndy Byford leaving the TTC for a job with New York City Transit“How the hell am I supposed to know where that bus is?” Byford would think, but he would agree to talk to whoever Ford was standing with, and would, in his words, “wing it.” “Ah yes, we’ve just had a bit of a problem on that route, it was a traffic accident, (the bus) will be with you in five minutes,” Byford would improvise, having no idea whether the bus was indeed five minutes away.Despite the lost sleep, Byford was always willing to answer the phone. (The TTC chief said Ford, who would later become engulfed in a crack cocaine scandal, never sounded inebriated when he called.) The bus rider would feel better about waiting, and “the mayor was very happy with me because I had bothered to take the call.”Last month, after more than five years as the CEO of the TTC, Byford announced he was leaving to become president of the New York City Transit Authority. He will step down on Dec. 22. In a series of speeches and interviews since he announced his resignation, he’s spoken candidly about Toronto’s messy transit politics, and wh ...
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