The relations between TTC management, its union and its commissioners seem to be an open wound this week, with tensions still high over ATU Local 113’s illegal strike a week ago Monday, and TTC General Manager Rick Ducharme’s public resignation and subsequent dismissal. The Toronto media has had no shortage of copy as a result.

Today, the Toronto Star takes the time to interview Rick Ducharme as he packs up his office. Freed from any obligation to moderate his words, Rick says what he thinks about TTC commissioners in general, Howard Moscoe in particular, and the inability of Toronto and Ontario to make public transit a priority. For example, here is his comment on the difficulty he had in putting the streetcars on St. Clair onto private right-of-way:

“I’m not building a new streetcar line. I’m fixing the tracks. And when I do, I want to put the concrete six inches high. That’s all St. Clair is. It’s that simple. And look at what we’re going through. And we’re a transit city? Oh yeah, right.”

Of course, there has been no shortage of opinion in the blogosphere about Ducharme’s legacy and Moscoe and Miller’s contribution to his departure. Spacing’s Wire asks if Moscoe should step down, and as always, Steve Munro has sage commentary.

In other news…

• the Toronto Community Foundation announced that it had reached a funding milestone in its drive to revamp Museum, St. Patrick and Osgoode stations.

• the T-1 car mocked-up as a preview of the next generation of Toronto’s subway cars is currently on display at Davisville station, subject to train movements (the car shut down early at 2:30 p.m. a couple of days ago because the TTC needed the track), and it has received mixed-but-generally-positive reviews. The Torontoist blog offers its two cents.

• Finally, Torontoist has a summer project on the go wherein he intends to visit a photograph each of Toronto’s 69 subway and RT stations over 69 days. After starting at Kipling, he has currently reached Spadina station on the Bloor-Danforth line. I joined the every station club in 1989 over the course of two weekends, going from station to station, and I have the transfers to prove it, but I didn’t think to bring along a camera. Oh, well.