Category: MTA Politics

Over the past few days, rumors have continued to swirl that former Deputy Mayor and current MSG executive Joseph Lhota will be named the next head of the MTA. At the bare minimum, we know that he’s in the running, and interestingly enough, he’s the only candidate whose name has been leaked to the public without any transit experience in his background.

Initially, I wasn’t too concerned with Lhota’s background. After all, both outgoing MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo have said that the MTA’s leader need not be a transit expert. As long as he or she surrounds himself with qualified and knowledgeable executives, the MTA head can focus more on big-picture budgetary and management concerns while the sub-agency heads can immerse themselves in operations. A part of a recent article on Lhota by Transportation Nation’s Jim O’Grady has me reassessing that stance.

Yesterday afternoon, O’Grady summed up the rumors and solicited some feedback from various advocates. He writes:

Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future, a policy think tank, said he didn’t know Lhota well enough to comment specifically. But he said that from a leadership perspective, “It’s important someone be selected who can really make a strong case for transit and can convince legislators that this is so critical to the city’s future and that we’re on the precipice of something bad happening.”

Bowles added that the stakes are enormous: “If there’s one thing Governor Cuomo could do now to boost the city’s economy, it’s shore up the transit system.”

…Sources differed on Lhota’s ability to rise to those challenges. The NY MTA needs someone “who can handle the union relationships, the crisis of money, and Lhota will get it faster than most people,” said one. Another thought the Republican Lhota could help the Democrat Cuomo beat back a Republican-lead push in the state legislature to eliminate the payroll mobility tax.

But a third believed Lhota was the front-runner precisely because he won’t speak up too loudly for the needs of mass transit: “He’s gong to be the person who makes the cuts without making any demands on the state budget. He may even then turn around and say to the city, ‘It’s all your fault.’ He’s going to protect Andrew Cuomo from the hard choices.”

Of these statements, I believe Bowles’ comment and the third anonymous source raise some valid concerns. The MTA is at a point where it needs someone to advocate for a capital funding plan solution. That requires a detailed knowledge of transit operations and construction as well as a thorough understanding of how Albany works. Furthermore, at a time during which the MTA’s finances are in flux, the authority needs someone who will be more than just a Yes Man for Cuomo.

Over the past few years, Walder has taken an aggressive tone in arguing for investment in public transit. If the next MTA head is someone will be more willing to make cuts without pressuring the state for solutions, New York City’s subway system and the millions of riders who depend upon it will suffer. Even without transit experience, the next head must advocate for the system.

With speculation flying, Cuomo has expressed a desire to name a replacement for Walder before he departs next Friday. One way or another, this saga will come to a resolution soon.

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Update (3:24 p.m.): As I was writing this piece, Colby Hamilton at WNYC’s Empire blog offered up his take on the appointment, and he is highly critical of Cuomo’s intentions here. “A Lhota appointment look based on political calculations more than anything else. The Cuomo people are signaling an interest in reducing their exposure to potential political problems, not in solving the agency’s unsustainable financial crisis. This of course was created over the years by politicians worried about their political exposure,” he writes. “If you add in the push-out of Chris Ward at the Port Authority, it’s Cuomo’s top priority is having his people in key, highly-public posts who will put the governor’s political interests first.”

My 10th grade English teacher had an expression that he would impart to us every month. On the tenth of each month, he would say, for all practical purposes, the month is now over. It’s not really a saying that makes much sense if you think about it, but it’s stuck with me throughout the years. As yesterday was the 10th, then, for all practical purposes October is now over.

For the MTA, though, the end of October will be a major milestone. By the end of the month, before the next three weeks elapse, Jay Walder, the current MTA CEO and Chairman, will depart for the greener pastures of Hong Kong, and the authority will be left with a new leader, its fourth over the last five years. At some point, Andrew Cuomo will name a successor, and that political appointee will have to balance a drive to move forward with the need to shore up a capital budget and looming labor negotiations. It’s not an easy or enviable job.

During his final board meeting at the end of September, Walder dropped some hints as to what qualities his successor might posses. “Whoever runs this organization should be dedicated to the organization,” he said. That person has to be “dedicate to what it does on a day-to-day basis. I think it is helpful to have a knowledge of mass transit. I don’t know that it’s an absolutely essential quality.”

Without naming names, the Governor issued a similar statement in September. “The MTA [CEO] primarily is an effective manager, and I think the ability to manage a complex process, that deals with highly technical services, in a political environment, in a large organization, at a financially strapped time, you know, that’s where we are,” Cuomo said. “To me, the management is very important. Of course, the technical expertise, but you give me a good manager, who can run an organization, and find efficiency, that this organization is going to have to find, that’s going to be paramount.”

Essentially, what Walder and Cuomo have both said is that the person atop the MTA command structure doesn’t need to be, first and foremost, a transit guy. Rather, he needs to be a management guy, and as long as he surrounds himself with a COO and agency heads who know transit, the organization can, in an ideal world, deliver the service while moving forward with improvements and streamlining the bureaucratic organization. You don’t need to be a transit guy for that; you just have to willing to listen to your transit people.

All of that is a roundabout way of burying the lead. Lately, I’ve heard one name bandied about in a few off-the-record conversations, and it strikes me as both an odd choice and one in line with what both Walder and Cuomo have said. Joseph Lhota, a veteran of city government and a current Executive Vice President with Madison Square Garden, appears to be on the short list of potential people to head the MTA. He’s an odd choice for an appointee by Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo because he was a long-time right-hand man of Rudy Giuliani’s. He served as Deputy Mayor for Operations for three years and as the city’s Budget Director for three as well. He was also a point person on Giuliani’s failed presidential campaign in 2007-2008.

As far as management goes, though, Lhota fits the bill. He’s a Harvard MBA with experience in city budgetary politics and governance and with nearly ten years under his belt as a higher-up with both Cablevision and MSG. Based on contemporaneous news coverage, he had some dealings with the MTA budget back in the mid-1990s and now serves on the CUNY board. Thus, he seems to know both corporate and governmental management. Personality-wise, he was called bombastic and outspoken in profiles written about him during the waning years of the Giuliani Administration but was also known as the softy during some bull-headed years.

Despite some whispers that Lhota could well be named MTA head this month, no one, of course, would confirm his place on the short list to me on the record so I’m relying on some rumors and speculation here. Even in the 2010 election cycle, Lhota donated to Scott Brown and Peter King, among other Republicans, and Cuomo, a Democrat with designs on a White House run, isn’t the type to reach across the aisle for such a key state appointment.

Ultimately, though, whether he’s chosen as MTA head or not, Lhota is simply a stand-in for the type of the person Cuomo seems to be eying. The next MTA head may come with practical political experience but no true transit background. If Walder’s successor is intent on reforming the MTA while installing or maintaining those who are knowledgeable in transit operations, such an experiment might work out. We’ll find out soon enough.

Wednesday morning marked the beginning of the end for Jay Walder, the outgoing Chairman and CEO of the MTA. Yesterday, the Hong Kong-bound transit expert presided over his final MTA Board meeting, and the last part of the meeting was a veritable love-fest. Walder’s fellow board members all wished him luck in his future endeavors, and nearly all of them praised his leadership. I couldn’t help but feel that the kind words were premature.

The praise came fast and easy. “You are the best transportation operator on the planet,” Mark Lebow said. Patrick Foye echoed that praise: “At a time when public and private sector is in retrenchment, you were able to develop new initiatives that made a significant impact on the public and community.” Charles Moerdler, a fairly recent MTA appointee, praised Walder for his willingness to respond to complaints about service in his home borough of the Bronx.

The lone dissenting voice came from Norman Brown. The holdover appointee who is a strong friend of labor rightly criticized Walder for both leaving too soon and creating a strong sense of conflict between management and the authority’s labor forces. Walder, said Brown, isn’t through with the job, but he’s leaving nonetheless.

Walder himself deflected certain questions surrounding his departure. He insisted that he has a good relationship with Gov. Andrew Cuomo despite unsourced reports to the contrary, and he said that the lure of the job in Hong Kong pushed him to take it. He also spoke about any potential predecssor. “Whoever runs this organization should be dedicated to the organization,” he said. That person has to be “edicated to what it does on a day-to-day basis. I think it is helpful to have a knowledge of mass transit. I don’t know that it’s an absolutely essential quality.”

These statements seemed to be echoing sentiments from the Governor himself. “To me,” Cuomo said to Transportation Nation, “the management is very important. Of course, the technical expertise, but you give me a good manager, who can run an organization, and find efficiency, that this organization is going to have to find, that’s going to be paramount.” It sounds as though the governor wants someone who is at least as strong on leadership and creative management as they are on transit planning. That does not bode well for the TWU.

But the real question surrounding Walder’s departure is one of public effectiveness. During the meeting yesterday, one of the MTA Board members — I didn’t see who — issued some high praise: “You have left this place much better than when you came in.” That statement raised my eyebrow. I don’t disagree with it, but I’m not sure the public agrees.

The MTA’s problem right now is one of external perception vs. internal reality. During Walder’s two-year tenure, the MTA has streamlined a significant portion of its operations, and it has come to embrace technological innovations while moving stalled projects forward. It’s budget is leaner than it was half a decade ago, and the agency has programs in place to realize more savings. Anyone looking at it from the inside will see improvements.

Yet, to Joe and Jane Straphanger — the folks who just want their trains to come frequently, run smoothly and have seats for them — the system isn’t really better off. Headways are longer; the bus network is becoming less reliable and convenient; the subways cost more and trains are more crowded. We’re paying more and waiting longer for less service. Does that mean the MTA is better off today than it was before Jay Walder showed up? Publicly, at least, that’s a tough argument to make.

The next MTA head, whoever that may be, has his or her work cut out for them. That person will have to address a combative union, an obstinate legislature and a gaping hole in the capital budget. He or she will have to deal with rising debt costs and the desire to move the system forward. For the public, at least, “better off” might be slipping further out of hand, and the next MTA CEO will have some mighty high expectations to live up to.

Ever so slowly, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo is working his way through the pile of legislation the state Assembly and Senate left on his desk when their session expired in June. Yesterday, we learned that the Governor signed an MTA smoking ban into law. No longer are commuters permitted to smoke on LIRR or Metro-North platforms.

Now, it’s all well and good that Cuomo decided to approve the smoking ban. It should make the train environment far more pleasant for those folks who do not like the smell, experience or health impact of secondhand smoke. But that bill is a minor one in the grand scheme of the MTA. It won’t, for instance, protect the MTA for future raids on its supposedly dedicated revenue streams. That’s what the lockbox bill — which currently sits on Cuomo’s desk, sadly unsigned by the Governor — would do.

So far, Cuomo has given no indication of what he will do with the lockbox bill, and it’s tough to discern his plans. For years, Governors have covered their fiscal deficits by borrowing liberally from the MTA’s revenue streams, and Cuomo would be handcuffing himself were he to sign the bill. Still, dedicated dollars are dedicated dollars, and the MTA needs to know that the money is secure. With razor thin margins propping up a shaky budget, the authority can’t afford to find itself down $200 million between July and November because the Governor or the Assembly has decided to reappropriate the money.

With silence from Albany, transit advocates and union leaders are working to get Cuomo’s attention. Daily News columnist Pete Donohue, an important voice for transit in that paper, spoke out in favor of the bill earlier this week. “Essentially,” he writes, “lawmakers would have to own up to what they’re doing in a more public way and specify some of the pain that will result. They couldn’t hide behind the MTA, which by design provides political cover when news is grim.”

Donohue writes of a letter signed by various unions and advocates that urges Cuomo to pass the bill, and I have a copy of that letter. It discusses the importance of the legislation and urges Cuomo to sign it. It reads in part:

The strong principle of the legislation – that MTA dedicated funds should be spent as intended – has attracted a wide range of supporters. These include business leaders, labor and trade unions, transit and environmental advocates, environmental justice and community groups.

The “lockbox” bill was a reaction to the diversion of $260 million in transit funds over the last three years. These diversions contributed to the worst metropolitan-area transit service cuts in memory. They included the elimination of 36 bus routes and 570 bus stops; killing all or parts of three subway lines; and burdening millions of city and suburban riders with lengthier waits, more crowding, extra transfers and longer trips. Commuter rail riders have had their trains eliminated and stops added to remaining trains. Para-transit service for individuals with disabilities has been made even less convenient or, in some communities, eliminated completely.

Our groups understand that New York State faces extremely serious financial woes. But raiding dedicated transit funds is poor policy. The dedicated taxes and fees that flow into the dedicated fund were explicitly created, and politically justified, to provide the MTA with a “stable and reliable dedicated funding source.” Additionally, the $260 million diverted from the dedicated funds aggravated declining dedicated tax revenue caused by the economic downturn.

Our groups support your goal of restoring fiscal responsibility to New York State. This bill is consistent with your goal of ending New York’s fiscal shell game. It is basic good governance to keep the promise to taxpayers and transit riders that dedicated transit funds will be spent on transit.

One quarter of the state’s workforce relies on mass transit to get to work. They, their employers, and the economy rely on these dedicated taxes to help pay for subway, bus and commuter operations and transit capital projects.

Cuomo has so far been willing to take political risks and do things because they seem to be the right move to do. He ushered a gay marriage bill through Albany and recently signed a complete streets piece of legislation. The MTA lockbox should be next. Protect the money. Protect transit. New York City’s and New York State’s futures will depend on it.

I certainly picked an eventful week to go on vacation, eh? Between signal fires near Coney Island and torrential rains that of course led to some subway flooding, the past few days have been chock full o’ service changes. But much like everything else in New York, the subway system goes on even when people leave for a few days. I’ll be doing some more traveling this week, but this time, my journeys will be within the U.S. I’ll try to post as often as I can.

As I dig through my backlog of news, I start with a story from the end of last week. A new Quinnipiac Poll on all things New York found some intriguing numbers when it comes to the MTA. Despite the fact that most New Yorkers begrudgingly deal with the authority on a daily basis, they want to see more economic support for the MTA.

The first question concerned the overall level of support for the MTA. “As you may know,” the poll asked, “the MTA is the agency which provides rail and bus service in the NY Metropolitan area. Do you think the state government should provide additional funds to the MTA, or not?” The answer shows a clear geographical divide.

A whopping sixty-two percent of New York City residents say the state government should provide additional funds, but only 41 percent of suburbanites and just 30 percent of upstate New Yorkers agree. Of course, that’s not too surprising considering upstate New York’s love-hate relationship with the city. They love to take our tax dollars; they have to use the New York economy to bolster some poor areas. But they refuse to offer up any modicum of support. New York City wouldn’t get much state money if it were up to people who don’t live here. That’s just the reality of New York’s blue state/red state internal divide.

The support from within the five boroughs isn’t too surprising either, but it’s a comforting figure in an age when politicians are loathe to do anything to help the MTA. New York City commuters know that more state support will keep fares lower and keep services running frequently. We’ve seen what happens when the MTA cuts services, and no one wants to live through it. Too bad no one in Albany is listening.

The next question concerned the controversial MTA payroll tax. Passed a few years ago to bolster the MTA’s seriously sagging bottom line, it was the politically viable alternative to any congestion pricing plan. It hasn’t been popular in the seven counties outside of New York City, and politicians such as Lee Zelding keep releasing trumped-up press releases about overturning the tax without offering any real funding solutions instead.

The question: “Currently, employers in New York City and the suburban areas served by the MTA pay a special tax to help the transit agency. Do you think that tax should be increased, remain the same, decreased, or eliminated?”

The results: 46 percent of New York City residents said the tax should remain the same while 15 percent said it should be increased. Just 33 percent of suburban residents said the tax should remain the same while 10 percent said it should be increased and 40 percent said it should be eliminated.

Now, those numbers are far from a mandate on the payroll tax. It enjoys a majority of support within the city and a bare plurality outside. But while politicians make noises about “job-killing taxes” and forensic audits that will magically turn up $1.5 billion in annual savings, New York voters seem to recognize the importance of the revenue generated by the tax. Overturning it without providing for other streams of dollars would be a mistake.

So we like to complain about the subways, but it seems as though enough people understand the dynamics of MTA financing to warrant a closer look from Albany. The politicians though are as silent as they always are.

With a little over two months left before current MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder jets for Hong Kong, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has named a powerhouse search committee of transit and labor leaders who will be tasked with finding the next MTA head. While they won’t be landing Richard Sarles, the committee is going to recommend and evaluate candidates who could see the MTA through a tumultuous few months.

“This committee will help conduct a national and international search to find and recommend the most talented candidates for the next chairman of the MTA,” Governor Cuomo said. “I am committed to appointing a new chairman who will put straphangers first and who will continue to reform the MTA by reducing costs and waste, while improving efficiency and service.”

According to the release from Cuomo’s office, the committee is staffed with “leading public transportation and experts and management professionals in the public and private sectors.” Many have experience in government, including a few former U.S. Department of Transportation officials, various former MTA and Port Authority executives and, of course, Richard Ravitch and Gene Russianoff. Krauthamer & Associates, an executive search and recruitment firm, will help in the hunt as well.

“Governor Cuomo has charged this committee with assisting in the selection of a new chairman for the MTA and over the next months we will help evaluate and review top public transportation professionals from across the nation,” Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association and committee member, said. “I commend the Governor for assembling this committee to assist with finding a new chairman, and I look forward to continuing to work together to revitalize our state’s public transportation system.”

While numerous labor officials are on the committee, they are closely related to the AFL-CIO. The TWU, it seems, does not have a seat at the table while only Fernando Ferrar, former Bronx Borough President and recent MTA Board appointee, is representing the agency. It is somewhat curious that no one from either of these two key players is on the committee, but their interests should be well represented.

After the jump, the full list of committee members and their bios. Note how Howard Glaser, a senior adviser to the Cuomo, has no bio. Peculiar. (more…)