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The former head of the MTA told reporters on the first day of his new job that New York's transit system was cash-strapped and crumbling when he took it over three years ago.

When Tropical Storm Irene struck New York City, many residents were relieved that the damage from the storm that threatened to deluge low-lying areas wasn’t far worse.

Courtesy of The Madison Square Garden Company

Transportation Nation has a long rundown of the Lhota appointment as head of the MTA, which had been practically a foregone conclusion for weeks now.

"Throughout my career in both the public and private sectors, I have initiated reforms that are performance-based and that cut costs, and I look forward to bringing this same approach to the MTA," Lhota said in a statement from the governor's office. "I thank Governor Cuomo for this exciting opportunity to serve the people of New York."

You can read the governor's statement on the appointment at Transportation Nation. But let's take a look at some of the on-background remarks about the appointment:

Reaction among transit watchers, none of whom would speak on the record to avoid alienating the next chief of the NY MTA, was part puzzlement and part wait-and-see.

“I was a little surprised that Joe Lhota rose to the top of that pool,” said an official from a previous mayoral administration. “He understands inter-governmental relations and he understands the politics but he’s more of a political operative than a manager.”

Both Cuomo and outgoing MTA chairman Jay Walder have said in the past few weeks that the next chair did not need to have a transit background. “I think it is helpful to have a knowledge of mass transit,” Walder said at the NY MTA’s September board meeting. “I don’t know that it’s an absolutely essential quality.”

Lhota fits that profile. His resume shows no transportation posts. But he did manage large governmental agencies in the Giuliani administration and ran the city when the mayor was out of town. Since then, he has navigated the executive suites of the Cablevision Systems Corporation, which owns Madison Square Garden. And Lhota has served as a board member at the City University of New York for the past ten years.  Lhota was one of two board members who did not support withholding an honorary degree from playwright Tony Kushner last May.  The vote to table the degree past last spring’s commencement was much-criticized and later reversed.

...

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.

But others don’t expect Lhota to be a voice for transportation in the way Jay Walder was.  Walder came from London Transport and is headed for a job running Hong Kong’s transit system.  In his tenure as MTA chief he pushed for several innovative transit measures, including countdown clocks, real time information, and better communication with customers.  But his relationship with the union was toxic, and Walder presided over the MTA’s deepest cuts in more than a generation.

The governor is also appointing two other people to the MTA family:

Cuomo also appointed two women to serve in key transportation posts:  Nuria Fernandez, a former Federal Transit Administration official and Chicago Aviation Commissioner, who resigned under pressure from then Mayor Richard Daily after failing to close a deal with United Airlines.  Fernandez will serve as the the MTA’s CEO, and Karen Rae, who worked in the  Obama Administration on high speed rail, will serve in the Governor’s office as Deputy Secretary of Transportation.

Courtesy of the Governor's office

Our sister site Transportation Nation followed up on reports that the search to replace Jay Walder as head of the MTA may be soon over. Former Giuliani aide Joseph Lhota is said to be leading the pack as a possible candidate.

If Lhota was picked, Governor Cuomo would be replacing a transit professional with a manger with experience handling government. He'd also be putting a former Republican operative into the driver seat of the often vilified agency Republicans from around the state are working to strip of revenue via the payroll tax they say is crippling local economies and fundamentally unfair.

From the Transportation Nation piece:

The precipice on which the NY MTA teeters consists of several difficulties: a 2012-2015 capital construction plan with a $10 billion dollar shortfall; a looming contract negotiation with Transport Workers Union Local 100 that, by all signs, will be acrimonious; a threat from a group of state legislators to cut the dedicated revenue stream that is the regional payroll mobility tax, which last year contributed $1.3 billion to authority coffers. That’s about an eighth of the authority’s operating budget.

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-led 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 going 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.”

The replacement process, and the potential Lhota pick, is illuminating a tendency in the Cuomo administration. The search committee members signed confidentiality agreements--not unusual by themselves. What was interesting was how tight-lipped everyone actually was. The fact this information was leaked even led some people close to the process to wonder if it wasn't a Cuomo-controlled event meant to test public reaction to Lhota's candidacy.

If things are as they are shaping up to be, and Lhota is the front runner, the third quoted paragraph is the most interesting. In, at best, creating a hostile environment for Walder, the Cuomo administration made a decision to alienate a transit lifer liked by both elected officials and transit advocates.

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.

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.

But who does that serve, if political decisions are put ahead of qualification or competency, other than Cuomo's public image and political leverage? It's a question that will continue to be asked if Lhota ends up at the top of the MTA pile.

Kate Hinds over at our sister blog Transportation Nation has a good piece up on some rumbling around the search for Jay Walder's replacement. You may recall Walder resigned last month and is set to leave office on October 21--meaning Governor Cuomo has less than a month to find, hire and announce Walder's replacement. That is, if Cuomo's sticking to earlier statements that he wanted someone in the seat when Walder left.

Kate quotes Walder as saying: “I think it is helpful to have a knowledge of mass transit. I don’t know that it’s an absolutely essential quality.”

In an interview with New York Public Radio's capitol bureau chief Karen DeWitt, Cuomo echoed similar sentiments:

The MTA 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. 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.

Numerous calls into the governor's office to get word on the status of the replacement search have not been returned.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo met repeatedly in the first eight months of the year on marriage equality, the property tax cap and even farmer’s markets.  But his schedule from January 1- August 31, made available online Thursday, showed no meetings or phone calls with Port Authority chief Chris Ward or Metropolitan Transportation Authority CEO Jay Walder.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced a search committee to find a replacement for outgoing Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Jay Walder, who abruptly announced his resignation last month.

(Courtsey of the Governor's office)

Earlier today Governor Cuomo announced the formation of an advisory committee to help find a replacement for Jay Walder, who will leave as head of the MTA in October.

"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 in a statement. "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."

The full list of appointees are below. The Regional Plan Association's Robert Yaro, who made the list, praised the governor for assembling the committee. "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," he said in a statement.

William Henderson, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said the advisory committee should seek another CEO-like figure to head the sprawling bureaucratic agency.

"Sometimes it's more than what other folks face when they're answering to a board and running a a system that's a relatively straight forward system," Henderson said. "Its' not so much an operating job as being the CEO of a large, $12 billion operation."

Intimate knowledge of the city's subway system was at the top of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign's spokesperson Veronica Vanterpool's list of requirements for the job. "We need someone who has a strong know of New York City transportation issues in particular," she noted, going on to say the next head of the MTA needed to improve the agency's "credibility with the public."

"It's been a historical perception; it's not just due to one person," she said.

The head of New York’s transit agency abruptly announced he was leaving after less than two years on the job. The news took almost everyone by surprise, including some of his closest advisers. Top leaders in government and business learned only as the MTA was making the announcement public Thursday afternoon.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Jay Walder abruptly announced his resignation Thursday after just two years into his six-year term — and though he was considered a shrewd fiscal disciplinarian his departure comes as many important developments hang in the balance, from completion of mega-projects like the Second Avenue subway to an impending contract negotiation with a major union.

The head of the MTA, Jay Walder, has resigned. Brought in under Governor David Paterson, Walder has served only two of the six years of his appointment. He has reportedly taken a new position with Hong Kong's public transportation system.

The head of the MTA serves at the will of the governor. The head of the MTA is appointed to a six-year term. Walder, who only served two of those years, was generally seen as a highly-effective leader, who could work inside the political world, as well as with transportation advocates. But governor's are often keen to replace even the most effective MTA heads with someone of their choosing. Whether that was the case in this situation remains to be seen. We'll keep you posted.

From Kate Slevin, Tri-State Transportation Campaign Executive Director:

MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder has been an effective, innovative leader. He helped restore the agency's credibility and changed the way it does business, finding billions of dollars in savings during his tenure.

From Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office:

Jay Walder is a world-class transportation professional and any city in the world would have been lucky to have him. He set a new course for the MTA during an extremely difficult period when the agency was not given the resources required to meet the City’s needs. He expertly shepherded major projects like the 7 line extension and new bus rapid transit lines, and by embracing new technology, he made significant improvements to the customer experience – from gateless tolling on bridges to countdown clocks in subway stations – that the public will appreciate long after his departure...He is the type of person we can’t afford to lose, and his departure is a real loss for New York City, the metropolitan region, the state and the country.

From Governor Andrew Cuomo's office:

For nearly two years, Jay Walder has shown true leadership at the helm of the MTA and been a fiscally responsible manager during these difficult financial times. Riders of the MTA are better off today because of Jay's expertise and the reforms he initiated will benefit all for years to come. Jay's departure is a loss for the MTA and for the state, but I thank him for his service and wish him the best in his future endeavors.

Chairman and CEO of the Metropolitan Transit Authority Jay Walder abruptly announced Thursday that he is resigning from his post and taking a position with a rail service operator in Hong Kong.

"We're here to usher in a new era in toll collection," said MTA chairman Jay Walder when announcing that drivers are one step closer to cashless tolling on the agency's nine crossings, "the beginning of the end of the toll booth."

MTA Inspector General Barry Kluger is looking at why three of the agency's four big projects are behind schedule and over budget by nearly $2 billion. He said in a new report that squabbling at the agency is a big part of the problem.

The city has launched a new pilot program that will allow some disabled Access-A-Ride customers to take taxis instead.

The long-awaited MTA fare hike is now official. MTA Chairman Jay Walder announced Thursday that the price of a monthly MetroCard will go from $89 to $104, weekly cards will rise from $27 to $29 and base fares for single rides will increase by 25 cents.

It’s (nearly) official: Monthly MetroCards will go up a whopping 17 percent in January, from $89 to $104.

Almost 150 employees of the MTA earn more in overtime than from their base salaries, according to an audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The report assails the MTA's lax attitude towards overtime and calculates that the Authority spent nearly $600 million last year paying employees time-and-a-half.

Almost 150 employees of the MTA earn more in overtime than from their base salaries, according to an audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The report assails the MTA's lax attitude towards overtime and calculates that the Authority spent nearly $600 million last year paying employees time-and-a-half.

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The MTA put up on its Web site a revised list of service changes that's more targeted than the list it put out last month (which was itself ...