If I wanted to understand Metrolinx, how it works and how it doesn't, where would be a good place to start? Illustrative examples or deep dives especially appreciated.
Suggest you begin with its Board meetings. You can find them
here. What you will find if you scan them from the mid-teens forward to 2023 is that they have evolved, with less and less discussed in public and the presentations degrading from a previous standard of moderate factual detail to glossy, but data-absent, celebrations of things that are promised with fanfare but don't always get finished. Make note of things that got started or announced as new business a decade or less ago.... and that have disappeared altogether ever since. And try to find some presentation of actual managerial data about performance, timelines established or met, financial performance against plan. If you can find any, you qualify for the Livingstone and Stanley Trophy for discoveries in a deep jungle.
You might also look for past ML Annual Reports and their 5-year business plans (again, looking at what their plans were ten years ago, and what got done and what didn't - and how much high level ivory tower planning was conducted versus nuts-and-bolts on-the-ground effort). The RER/GO Expansion Business Case document is a key reference document that remains viable.
Then I would find a good news clipping service and look for ML and Ministerial press releases over the years. Decide for yourself how much is promise and how much is actual delivery.
Past ML Town Halls are still available on Youtube. Measure Phil Verster's grand pronouncements from past years against results actually observable today.
Ironically, their Twitter feed does sometimes answer questions of late.
A few months back I wrote a long post in the Ontario Line thread about ML's unfinished deliveries. I won't go looking for it, but it's there.
- Paul