VANCOUVER – TransLink’s new CEO Doug Allen rides transit to work every day.
On Monday morning, Global News joined Allen on his bus and SkyTrain ride to ask him about his plans for the job and the future of TransLink.
Allen replaced Ian Jarvis as CEO last week on an interim basis. When asked about the next six months as CEO, Allen said there are a number of priorities he needs to focus on.
“One priority in my mind is the Compass Card and faregate,” he said. “It’s been bugging me for some time and I want to make sure it’s implemented successfully.”
“I think if you looked at faregate installation and Compass Card implementation anywhere in the world, it takes quite a bit of time. And there are, I think, quite a few systems that have taken considerably more time than we have, but we’d like to get this done and we’d like to get it done successfully.”
Allen said he does not have a timeline yet for the projects, but he will be holding people accountable to ensure they are completed successfully.
Another focus will be escalators and elevators at SkyTrain stations. “They seem to be very hard to keep in service all the time,” said Allen. “So I’ll be looking at our maintenance contracts with the providers of maintenance service to see how we can do better.”
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While Allen has a number of items on his ‘to do’ list, he does not want the CEO job permanently.
“I’ve got other things to do in life,” he said. “I don’t have a firm view yet as to what the new CEO should carry in terms of characteristics, but I think we should have a good search internally and externally.”
Allen told Global News he has had many people tell him they would like increased service on buses and SkyTrain and he is hoping to do that.
“I’m trying to get his system to run the best way possible,” he said.
When asked about his salary, roughly $35,000 a month, Allen said while the money is significant, so are responsibilities of the job. “I think it’s a very challenging job,” he said, adding that in his opinion it is worth that much.
“People want to know and an organization like this needs to be transparent.”
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