Steve O'Brien: Transit's Better PATH
By Karl Petschke, exclusive to torontopath.com
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If you’ve been keeping up with what’s been going on in Toronto lately, Steve O’Brien should be a name that has begun to take on a familiar ring. As recently appointed chairman of the TTC’s Customer Service Advisory Panel, O’Brien has been tasked with the huge undertaking of leading a panel of experts in their mandate to analyze the customer service practices and policies of the TTC. The sheer magnitude of the task is one he rightly describes as being difficult to comprehend, with the TTC containing 13000 employees, and receiving hundreds, or even thousands of complaints per month, but he maintains that he and his team are up to the job.However, this project is one he’s only recently become involved in. For the past 30 years, his primary focus has been in an area that has brought him great success and one in which his contributions have played an instrumental role in shaping the city’s recent history: Toronto’s hotel industry. His work in hotels over the past few decades has varied drastically in nature and scope, having begun with his work as a teenager at the Skyline Hotel, where he was responsible for keeping the grass trimmed and the snow off the walkways. He has since moved on to graduate from Humber College’s hotel management program, and has worked in a variety of positions with some of the GTA’s most successful hotel companies, including Ramada, Hilton, Delta and Marriott. But since then Steve has found a new home. Most days he can be found in his office at One King West Hotel and Residence, where he serves as the general manager. Unlike his ventures in the past, Steve now finds himself at the helm of an independent hotel, presenting him with a unique array of both challenges, and opportunities. This hotel in particular, being the first residential building to be connected to the PATH, has taken up an exciting and unconventional role as one of Toronto’s premier locations for urban living that is as affordable as it is elegant and contemporary. Steve explains that he believes the hotel’s success stems from both its connection to the PATH, and the fact that “it’s not too ritzy”, that it has become a home to all sorts, not just the rich downtown banker or the penny pinching up-and-comer. But this doesn’t just mean that One King West has a broader customer base than many other hotels in the city, it also means that it must be prepared to accommodate a wider range of needs and expectations. Perhaps this will be to Steve’s advantage in the coming month, as he and his team prepare their report on the state of the TTC’s customer service practices. Recognizing that most Toronto residents rely on the TTC to some degree, Steve is conscious of how many points of view must be not simply heard, but actually represented in the report if it is to be a success. However, with the TTC also facing the challenges of aging technology and tight budgets, many customers, as well as employees, are having a difficult time keeping their suggestions within the mandate of the panel. These experts are not contemplating where to add new stops to bus routes, or how to reorganize the company’s structure. Steve and his team are, however, spending a lot of their own time finding ways to ensure smoother interactions between transit workers and riders, in hopes of alleviating the building tensions between the TTC and its customers. So what’s the motivation? Why take a job that pays nothing, comes with an ever-growing list of obstacles and responsibilities, and draws frustration and condemnation from all sides? Steve tells me the job isn’t quite as daunting as it might sound. Though at first he was unsure whether he would choose to contribute, having simply been offered a seat on the panel, when he was offered a leading role, he recognized what an opportunity it was. But although he values the job as a once in a lifetime learning experience, he also describes another motivation, one we jokingly referred to as his “Miss America Answer”. That is, of course, that it will help. It will help people. It will help the city. As a self-described “Toronto Boy” who paid his fair share of tokens catching streetcars to school as a kid, what other motivation does he need? It’s a chance to make peoples’ lives a little easier, and the whole of Toronto a lot more cohesive. And with the TTC being “such a vital, integral part of the city”, there’s no wonder that there would been such an outcry over even the most insignificant inconveniences. What Steve and his team have to do now is find a way to help the TTC escape this cycle of miscommunication. Though it seems a huge task even in such capable hands, Steve assures me that his contribution is only a small aspect of the change he hopes is coming. “What I’m really doing right now is immaterial” he says, explaining that true progress can only come once the TTC begins to take advantage of the suggestions and findings outlined in the panel’s report. Though he’s glad to do his part, Steve maintains that he’ll be relieved once his time in the spotlight is up. “I’m not cut out for politics”, he admits with a laugh, sitting calmly at his desk at One King West, as subway cars rumble by just a few stories below. But as he quietly takes responsibility for the livelihood of an increasingly sophisticated and demanding community, finding himself the target of misguided hostility, and the subject of as many lofty debates as petty squabbles, he certainly could have fooled me.
Last updated on 9/14/2011 11:13:45 AM
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i heard about this panel. its about time the ttc did something about their customer service! wasnt the report due out at the end of june?