Bad news: New York transit riders lose Jay Walder today as MTA boss. Good news: Ex-Rudy Giuliani deputy Joe Lhota is set to take over.
There’s hope yet for buses and trains.
Neither development, of course, is a surprise: Walder announced his departure months ago; Lhota was long reported to be the odds-on favorite to replace him.
Yesterday, Gov. Cuomo made it official, tapping Lhota, along with other top transit officials.
It’s a superb choice.
And good thing, too, because the guy New Yorkers are losing had been doing a pretty stellar job himself.
No one can blame Walder for cutting loose. He’s moving on to a far-better-paying stint as head of a massive private-transit firm called MTR with operations in Asia and Europe. And he won’t have to hop into the cauldron with the radical Transport Workers Union to hammer out a new contract (the current one ends in January).
But Walder will be missed. In his brief, two-year tenure, he helped stabilize MTA finances — even when it meant taking heat for unpopular fare hikes and service cuts.
He slashed administrative costs and renegotiated deals with vendors.
He trimmed his five-year capital budget some 10 percent while keeping major projects like the No. 7 line extension and the 2nd Avenue Subway on, uh, track.
Alas, the MTA still faces steep financial hurdles. Despite Walder’s efforts, its capital plan remains woefully underfunded.
Oh, yeah: There’s that TWU contract, too.
In the 2005 contract talks, recall, one of the union’s “negotiating” tools turned out to be a systemwide strike during Christmas week. And while there’s nary a cent available for raises this year, TWU President John Samuelsen swears his shop “is not agreeing to zeros.”
Enter Lhota. As Richard Ravitch, who helped rescue transit in the ’80s, put it, “The ideal candidate … is experienced in finance, business and government and cares deeply about public service. Joe Lhota meets all of these criteria.” He saw no one, he said, “better suited” for the job.
During Giuliani’s mayoralty, the most transformative in decades, Lhota was a deputy mayor, overseeing the day-to-day functions of government.
As budget director, he managed $36 billion in operations spending and a $45 billion capital plan, demanding value for taxpayer bucks and keeping costs in check.
The $14 billion MTA budget?
A challenge, but doable.
That is, if Lhota can fend off the TWU.
And Cuomo backs him.