Fine: Gov. Andrew Cuomo finally appointed Janno Lieber as acting chairman and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Thursday, but that still leaves the agency without permanent leadership in the middle of huge challenges — thanks to Cuomo’s standoff with the state Senate.
It’s not just Pat Foye, who held the top double-job, who’s out, but also Sarah Feinberg, who’d been acting head of NYC Transit (the city’s subways and buses) for the past 16 months, ever since Cuomo’s interference and jealousy chased Andy Byford out of the job.
By all accounts she’d done excellent work (as had Foye). And while Lieber also won respect as the MTA’s construction chief since 2017, there’s no denying the pool of proven talent at the top just shrunk.
Out of the blue in June, the gov decided to move Foye to the Empire State Development Corp. and demanded the Legislature agree to split the top two jobs so he could make Feinberg the new MTA board chair and Lieber the new CEO. The Assembly passed a bill to allow it, but the Senate balked, refusing to go along with Cuomo’s last-minute demand at the end of session.
And neither Cuomo nor the Senate’s leaders have been willing to compromise since. So the MTA is stuck with an acting leader as it tries to get ridership back post-pandemic and faces huge fiscal woes — along with all the troubles it had before COVID hit.
What Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and her No. 2, state Sen. Mike Gianaris, are proving in all this is that they care more about their bickering than about the MTA or the millions of commuters and straphangers it serves.
Even as MTA service cuts loom as the agency faces a projected $3.5 billion cumulative deficit in 2024 and 2025, after federal aid runs out.
We are sorry to see Feinberg leave: She (with the MTA workforce) kept the buses and trains running despite the pandemic and when subway crime began to soar was unafraid to demand Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea do more.
Cuomo’s increasingly erratic leadership may be the central cause of this standoff, but that’s a side issue for now: The gov and the Senate need to stop holding the MTA hostage to their game of chicken.