With Andrew Cuomo out of the picture and his infrastructure legacy receding with him, our attention turns to Kathy Hochul. The new governor hails from Buffalo and is the first Upstater to live in the Executive Mansion since the 1920s. This may be a blessing for the NYC region as Hochul doesn’t come with a long history of, say, MTA animosity or the auto-centric policies of some suburban politicians.

After years of heavy-handed, ego-driven interference with MTA operations from Cuomo, New Yorkers are looking for signs from Hochul that change is on the way, and so far, the new governor has been saying all the right things. “The MTA is going to be far more liberated,” Hochul said to NY1’s Errol Louis during Thursday’s Inside City Hall. “I will not be filling positions with political allies because there’s a lot of talent out there and I want a diverse population, representing the riders, which is a diverse population.”

But words are just promises that need to be fulfilled. It’s only the first week of the Hochul Administration during the doldrums of August, and the new governor is still getting her sea legs. Plus, Hochul may be only a steward for the next year. She’ll be in office for only 12 months before facing a wide-open primary next year, and the jockeying for a four-year term may limit her power. So with politics in New York very much up in the air, Hochul’s first actions on transportation are still to come.

In the meantime, I have my own thoughts on what she could do. So without further ado, a ‘to do’ list for the new governor.

1. Pledge MTA Leadership Stability

To say turnover was high at the MTA during Gov. Cuomo’s time in office is an understatement. I put together a list of all the people to serve as either MTA head or New York City Transit President during the ten years, seven months and 23 days of Cuomo Administration, and you can see why leadership continuity and righting the MTA’s ship have often felt impossible over the past decade.

MTA Chair & CEO	New York City Transit President
Janno Lieber (Acting)	Craig Cipriano (Interim)
Pat Foye	Sarah Feinberg (Interim)
Fernando Ferrer (Interim)	Andy Byford
Joe Lhota	Phil Eng (Acting)
Fernando Ferrer (Interim)	Tim Mulligan (Acting)
Tom Prendergast	Darryl Irick (Interim)
Fernando Ferrer (Interim)	Ronnie Hakim
Joe Lhota	James Ferrara (Interim)
Jay Walder (nominated by Paterson)	Carmen Bianco
	Tom Prendergast (nominated by Paterson)

The MTA has careened from one leader to the next with few spending enough time to implement reform or long-term strategic planning. For hre part, Hochul should commit to stability atop the MTA. She should swiftly move to install Janno Lieber as the permanent head of the MTA, as she has indicated she is likely to do, and she should consider Alon Levy’s advice in hunting for agency heads: Look outside the U.S. for leadership; consult with Andy Byford on potential NYC Transit presidents; and give a good, long look to candidates outside of the Anglosphere.

Again, she’s saying the right things. In an interview with The New York Times, Hochul discussed her relationship with the MTA and struck a different chord than Cuomo’s heavy-handed interference. “Authority doesn’t have to be concentrated in me when I’m hiring outstanding professionals who know their jobs,” she said, in a veiled reference to the failed Byford-Cuomo relationship. “I will be there if there’s something that’s not following what I want. But I also know that day to day, they’re the ones that have to be accountable. Accountable to the riders, accountable to me. But I also know that granting more freedom allows them to rise.”

But even here, Hochul may not be able to bring the stability the MTA needs to chart a multi-year course. She almost immediately has to face an election campaign, and while she will enjoy an incumbency advantage, she’s going to have to beat more well-known candidates to earn her own term. If she loses, the next governor will likely want to appoint his or her own MTA heads, thus continuing this leadership upheaval in the short term. Anyone who fits Levy’s bill or may be inclined to take on the task of leading New York City Transit may not want to do so until the gubernatorial election is settled. Still, if Hochul can commit to stability and a proper relationship with her MTA heads, that’s a step in the right direction.

2. Clean House at the MTA Board: Get Rid of the Cuomo Holdovers

While we all acknowledge the governor of New York controls the MTA and can do with the agency as he pleases, the way Andrew Cuomo interacted with his own MTA heads sometimes sounds unbelievable. Cuomo would name his own agency heads and then appoint Board members whose main responsibilities involved inserting themselves into day-to-day MTA operations, essentially as the Governor’s enforcers/spies to undermine the agency heads. The worst of this was the Larry Schwartz/Andy Byford dynamic, and it led to animosity among MTA leaders and fear among the rank-and-file that the governor’s right-hand man would show up with demands out of left field, usually unreasonable.

The next MTA Board meeting isn’t until late September, and not a single one of Cuomo’s appointees should still be on the Board for that meeting. Already, Linda Lacewell, Cuomo’s former head of the Department of Financial Services, stepped down from the Board when she resigned from her position, but Cuomo’s other appointees remain. Jamey Barbars (one of the few Cuomo Board appointees with actual transportation experience), Haeda Milhaltses and Robert Mujica have said nothing, but Schwartz has defiantly said he’ll stay on the Board until Hochul kicks him off.

Claiming he did nothing wrong (despite being named in Tish James’ report numerous times and separately being accused of threatening county leaders to support Cuomo or risk their vaccine supply), Schwartz told The Post he will not leave “on my own.”

“I’ve been looking for over two years to get off, so I’m not looking to stay on,” he said. “But I will do the right thing. If they feel I can be a help short term, or long term, we can talk about it. I’ll do whatever the new administration wants. They’re aware.”

Schwartz has constantly used his Board position to bolster Cuomo and undermine those willing to show an ounce of independence so the claim he’s been looking to leave for two years doesn’t pass the smell test. Either way, he may soon get his wish.

“I’m committed to ensuring that the people named in the attorney general’s report will no longer serve in my administration,” Hochul said when asked last week about MTA Board holdovers. “I’ve asked for a 45-day period. Some individuals will be gone sooner than that. Many have already been removed or left on their own because they knew they were not going to be in my administration…I’ll be naming a whole slate of new people to fill those soon-to-be vacant positions and make sure entities like the MTA are free from interference, from political influences and also to make sure we have the best talent. So I would just say, stay tuned.”

Stay tuned we will, but if Schwartz and Co. are at next month’s MTA Board meeting, something will have gone horribly wrong.

3. Speed up congestion pricing

The MTA recently announced a rather lengthy review process for congestion pricing that could delay implementation of the fee for nearly two years. The agency first must conduct public hearings, scheduled to begin in September, prepare the Environmental Analysis and then bid out the infrastructure required to toll Manhattan’s Central Business District. Meanwhile, congestion has made New York City worst-in-the-nation traffic grind to a halt, affecting air quality, productivity and safety. The Mayor’s advise was to “improvise,” and congestion pricing is a key hope to untangling the roads while funding the MTA’s capital plan.

Another two-year delay after the initial two-year delay represents a failure to respond to the crises of climate change, gridlock and MTA funding. Here, Hochul’s hands may be tied, and congestion pricing could become a hot button issue among suburban primary voters next year. But the new governor has vowed to do what she can to speed up the process, and she can use her bully pulpit to push the MTA and feds on reducing the timeline for review. It’s absurd on its face for an environmental review process for something clearly designed to help the environment to take two years. Advocates are pushing hard for a shorter timeline, but Hochul has not yet taken the step to exercise the power she has.

“The mayor and I spoke about congestion pricing…We had a very good conversation and there are certain legal requirements in place that have to be followed,” Hochul said earlier this month while still Lieutenant Governor.” I have supported congestion pricing. But in terms of the timing, I have to follow what’s in place right now, but it’s very much on my mind. I’m also meeting with the MTA to find out our financial situation to see how long we can go without the money we anticipate from congestion pricing.”

4. Ditch the LGA AirTrain

My views on the backwards Laguardia AirTrain are well documented: It’s a project with no transit utility pushed through because Gov. Cuomo came up with the idea, and the EIS appears to have been heavily weighted, perhaps illegally so, to ensure the Willets Point connection was the only viable option. At the least, Hochul should halt the AirTrain project and order a review to assess the level of Cuomo’s political interference into the environmental review process. At best, Hochul should push for a true transit connection that extends the subway from Astoria to give a subway desert a station while providing a useful connection to the airport.

So far, Hochul has been mum on this project. She supported it as Lieutenant Governor but has yet to address it since taking her new job. Many advocates have urged her to reassess the project while the RPA continues to ignore the transit analysis in favor of Looking Strong On Infrastructure. I do not have high hopes here that we’ll end up with a better connection to Laguardia Airport, but Hochul could rescue this project from becoming a $2 billion boondoggle.

5. Untangle the Gateway/Penn Station South mess Cuomo created.

Throughout the Trump years, Cuomo spent a lot of time and energy arguing for the feds to pony up their share of the dollars for the Gateway Tunnel. The agreement forged in the waning months of the Obama Administration would have had New Jersey and New York each paying a third with the feds picking up the final part of the tab. But Trump stonewalled the deal and never intended to pass an infrastructure bill. So Cuomo could hammer him on Gateway while scoring political points in true blue New York.

Once Biden took over and Gateway with its steep price tag suddenly become that much closer to a reality, Cuomo mysteriously pulled an about-face. He started making noises about halting Gateway or not contributing New York’s share to the project, much to the confusion of, well, everyone. As I wrote last week, this type of political shenanigans was typical Cuomo, and Hochul can walk it back pretty easily. Recommit New York to Gateway, and figure out if Cuomo’s Vornado hand-out at Penn Station South has any merit. These projects should get the level of attention they deserve under a Hochul administration paying lip service to giving the experts a say but could fall to political gridlock as well. This is the toughest of the tasks Hochul has to face and may fall victim to the looming primary season.

So that’s that. The top five for the incoming governor will fill up her plate for the remainder of her term. It’s a chance for a new start for New York’s beleaguered transportation and transit policy makers, and as the post-Cuomo Era dawns, for the love of all that’s holy, please add some seats to Moynihan Station.

Uncertainty and political paralysis has gripped the MTA since early June, and making heads or tails of the situation hasn’t been easy. The story unfolded when an Andrew Cuomo ploy late in the legislative session to split the MTA CEO and Chair role into two faltered late in in the face of a New York State Senate unwilling to do the governor’s Eleventh Hour bidding. In its aftermath, Janno Lieber is now the interim MTA CEO and Chair as Pat Foye moved to the New York State Economic Development Corporation. Sarah Feinberg, who had been serving as NYC Transit’s interim president since Andy Byford left last February, has left her post too, and a transit agency struggling to make it through the pandemic has to face yet another period of leadership turnover and tumult.

The latest machinations arose in early June when Cuomo announced a new plan for MTA leadership. Foye was to leave at the end of July (as he did) and replacing him would be a two-headed leadership team. Feinberg would move from Interim NYC Transit President to Chair of the MTA while Lieber, then the head of MTA Construction & Development, was pegged to be the CEO of the entire agency. The governor’s press release spoke of it as a done deal, but there was one problem: Cuomo couldn’t split the MTA leadership role into two without Senate approval, and the Senate wasn’t keen to rush through what many viewed as another gubernatorial power grab.

The back-and-forth began immediately with various deals on and off the table and an aborted attempt in the Senate to vote on Cuomo’s plan during the waning hours of the legislative session in June. When the Senate adjourned, Cuomo’s plan hadn’t been approved, and the Senate never reconvened in July to hold a special session to take up the measure. In effect, the Senate vetoed Cuomo’s plan.

It wasn’t immediately clear why Cuomo’s plan faltered or what the future holds for it, and I’ve tried to get to the bottom of this. At first, it seemed as though the bill died when Cuomo tried to remove the CEO from the purview of Senate approval. As first conceived, the Senate would vote on only the (unpaid) Chair role and have no ability to approve the person tasked with running the $17 billion transit agency. When the Senate and labor leaders objected, Cuomo’s team revised the bill to allow the Senate to approve both the CEO and the Chair nominees, but this too went nowhere.

From various conversations with State Senate sources, I have learned that a variety of factors were at play. Some lawmakers simply did not want to do a damaged Governor’s last-minute bidding. They felt that major changes at the MTA required a more public airing than a rushed vote as the legislative session expired and weren’t keen to approve personnel moves put forward by a governor currently under Senate investigation.

Others raised some concerns with Feinberg’s nomination specifically, noting that a spring press release with her name on it included a reference a variety of mayoral candidates who had been supportive of the MTA’s call for more police officers in the subway system. The MTA has acknowledged they intended the reference to be on background, and agency officials have said it was inserted without Feinberg’s knowledge while she was out of town. Still, a few State Senators viewed this as a political step too far for an agency that is supposed to be outside the realm of city electoral politics.

That said, no one I spoke with said this alone was the main reason Cuomo’s bill or Feinberg’s nomination died. Some State Senators were keen to question Feinberg generally about her time at the MTA (though they obviously have not yet gotten the chance to do so). Furthermore, Feinberg has offered multiple times to brief State Senators interested in speaking with her, and she and Lieber have offered to appear at public hearings on Cuomo’s plan. The Senate, on the whole as a legislative oversight body, has not yet taken either of them up on these offers.

It’s also not clear why Foye went along with the governor’s plan (or why he was asked to). Sources I spoke with indicated that Foye had been happy as the head of the MTA and that leaving wasn’t his idea. But as a loyal member of Cuomo’s inner circle, Foye seemed to understand that the personnel shuffle was, in part, about leadership structures and in part keeping a narrowing circle of confidants close at hand. Foye, some believe, went along with the move because not rocking that boat is Pat Foye’s nature.

Others close to the matter believe the brewing mess around Penn Station is the driving force behind both Foye’s departure and the newly-proposed power structure. I haven’t found any who disagree with that assessment either.

Cuomo is dividing the MTA’s power structure and installing all of his top loyalists to ensure that he maintains a firm grip on the MTA and ESD, which has to do with ensuring Empire Station Complex is done HIS way—in spite of significant community opposition.

— Liam Blank (@LiamBlank) July 30, 2021

Meanwhile, the MTA had hoped the Senate would give the bill a proper hearing in July and the governor reiterated those hopes in the press release he sent out this week about Lieber’s new role. The new bill and Feinberg’s nomination, the Governor noted in the present tense, “awaits approval from the State Senate.”

Even without immediate action on the horizon, Feinberg echoed Cuomo’s optimism. “As we wait for the State Senate to return to session,” she said, “the Governor, Janno and I agree that this is the best path forward to provide stability and continuity of leadership at the MTA. While I am disappointed in the Senate’s delay in taking up deliberations of our nominations, I have no doubt Janno will do a tremendous job in the acting role.”

Yet, Albany is in no rush to respond, and the MTA must move forward. So Feinberg is out, replaced by Craig Cipriano, current head of buses, on an interim basis, and Lieber is in the interim head of the entire shebang. For an agency with a huge budget deficit struggling through the pandemic, leadership turnover and another round of interim leaders, even if familiar faces and old pros, adds another level of uncertainty to an uncertain time. The MTA needs firm direction and leadership. Instead, it is embroiled in yet another political brouhaha.

Despite the castle intrigue element to this story, I have found myself asking whether Cuomo’s plan is really all that bad. Richard Ravitch, in 2009, proposed one CEO and Chair role instead of two as two seemed to lead to a diffuse power structure. But as some within the MTA had told me, these are two roles with a lot of responsibility, and asking one person to lead the MTA Board while also serving as operation head of an agency with over 70,000 employees is a tall task.

“For three years now, I’ve been advocating that that job should be split,” Feinberg said to NY1’s Dan Rivoli. “It should be a CEO and a board chair, and the reason is this: It’s a multibillion-dollar agency. It’s a 72,000-person workforce. On its best day, it is big, it is unwieldy, and it is multiple challenges on every front.”

Plenty of transit agencies have bifurcated power structures, and there is no real right answer here. I ultimately think The LIRR Today’s point in the tweet embedded below is the right one: It doesn’t matter because we all know Andrew Cuomo – or whoever is governor of New York – is the ultimate power atop the MTA.

An independent MTA is likely the best setup, but we all know that's not likely to happen. So it probably doesn't make that much of a difference if we give full control instead of continuing to pretend.

— The LIRR Today (@TheLIRRToday) July 26, 2021

So what comes next for the MTA and for its interim leadership? At this point, the immediate future is clear: Janno Lieber will be the interim head of the agency, a position he can hold for up to six months, and Sarah Feinberg will not become the first woman to head the MTA Board. New York City Transit will have its second interim president since Byford left 17 months ago, and the agency will continue to muddle through the endless pandemic, hoping ridership and leadership stabilize soon. I’ll give Byford, who spoke to Rivoli last week, the last word for now.

“I’m sure it will work out, but it’s certainly not ideal from where I sit,” Byford said from his perch in London. “The danger it brings is that it encourages, if not deliberately, it kind of encourages short-term thinking because you know that maybe you don’t have the long-term tenure that a substanstive person would have…My advice would be, get through the politics and make a decision because the MTA is such an important part of New York,” he said.