Lessons Learned

• Author: C. Ian Kyer
• Pages: 163-173



Epilogue

LESSONSLEARNED

ba lesb et ween the City ofTor onto andi tspr ivat ese c

tor transit provider were fought more than a century ago, there are various

parallels with more recent public/private partnerships. Even today we must

grapplewiththeirrepres sibleconictthatDelos FWilcoxthewidelyac

ceptedexperton municipalutility franchiseswrote ofinAshe noted

acenturyagothereisaf undamentalconictofmot ivesbetweenthepublic

andthe privatesectorNoa mountofregulationandnop ossibledevelop

ment of good will and the spirit of cooperation can ch ange the fact that pri

vatecorp orations operating municipal utilities do so for prot and for as

muchprotas theycan getwhilet heconsu mersandt hepublicstr ivetoget

asmuchserviceastheycanattheleastp ossiblecost

As is typical of private partners, the pe ople behind the Toronto Railway

Company TRC saw the  tendering process as an i mportant high

proleopportun itytog rowabusinessandmake ahandsome protThey

knew, however, that to be successful and achieve thei r goals, they had to

impose discipline on the project a nd upon their public sector partner. That

meant carefully ana lyzing the City’s conditions, and developing and adher

ingto abusines splant hatwouldmeet thoseconditionsand turna prot

They needed to know how much money would be needed to build the sys

tem, when it would be required, how much revenue could reasonably be

expected, what contingencies needed to be built into the plan, how long the

projectwouldtakebeforeitwasprotablequestionsonwhichanycareful