{"id":322290,"date":"2021-08-12T01:28:51","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T22:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/cuomos-style-worsened-mta-dysfunction-but-scored-tolling-win\/"},"modified":"2021-08-12T01:28:51","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T22:28:51","slug":"cuomos-style-worsened-mta-dysfunction-but-scored-tolling-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/cuomos-style-worsened-mta-dysfunction-but-scored-tolling-win\/","title":{"rendered":"#Cuomo’s style worsened MTA dysfunction, but scored tolling win"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Cuomo’s style worsened MTA dysfunction, but scored tolling win<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

He went off the rails.<\/p>\n

Soon-to-resign Gov. Andrew Cuomo\u2019s notorious bullying and micromanagement helped fuel years of dysfunction at the MTA, driving away top managers, causing labor strife and prioritizing high-profile construction projects over running trains. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great metaphor for his entire tenure \u2014 the brutality and the threatening of the underlings \u2014 that was what\u00a0the\u00a0MTA experienced,\u201d said Norman Brown, an MTA board member, representing the unions for the MetroNorth commuter rail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last few years of demonizing the workforce, it\u2019s been tough to justify,\u201d he added. \u201cWho wants to do business that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The agency is currently confronting a major train operator shortage \u2014 driven by pandemic-era retirements and a hiring freeze \u2014 that\u2019s caused thousands of cancellations and left fuming straphangers wasting their sometimes waiting 20 minutes or more for subway trains. <\/p>\n

This latest crisis comes a little more than a year after Andy Byford quit, following a slew of highly publicized disputes as the governor publicly belittled and sidelined him, even as he oversaw a revitalization of the flailing subway system. <\/p>\n

\"Former
Former MTA New York City Transit President Andy Byford resigned in early 2020 after feuding with Gov. Cuomo.<\/figcaption>
Taidgh Barron\/NY Post<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brown told The Post that much of dysfunction was driven by two of Cuomo\u2019s app<\/a>ointees to the MTA board, Larry Schwartz and Linda Lacewell, who are viewed by agency staff as the governor\u2019s enforcers. <\/p>\n

Both figured prominently in Attorney General<\/a> Letitia James\u2019s blistering 168-page report that affirmed and uncovered 11 women who were sexually harassed or groped by Cuomo and revealed how a \u201ctoxic\u201d workplace environment allowed the abuses. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have no doubt that he enjoyed humiliating staff,\u201d said a former MTA insider. \u201cI watched him drag people into meetings just to do it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday during a press conference in Albany she planned to clean house of anyone closely tied to the wrongdoing uncovered by James\u2019 office but was not specifically asked about Schwartz or Lacewell\u2019s fates. <\/p>\n

\"Lt.
Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul did not confirm that she would remove any of Cuomo\u2019s MTA appointees.<\/figcaption>
Stephen Yang<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The MTA has suffered through massive turnover during Cuomo\u2019s soon-to-truncated three terms as New York\u2019s top boss. No chief of the city\u2019s bus and subway system lasted for more than two years during the governor\u2019s reign. <\/p>\n

Nor was there any question about who was calling the shots at the nation\u2019s largest transit operation, which carried more than 5 million people a day on the subways before the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a hold over the agency that was unprecedented,\u201d said Jaqi Cohen of the Straphangers Campaign.<\/p>\n

Cuomo installed Schwartz and other top aides at the MTA, personally interviewed many top managers and he and his aides were known to berate and big-foot staff over the smallest issues. <\/p>\n

Byford went public after quitting, citing Cuomo\u2019s treatment of his subordinates as one reason for his departure. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just would not accept the fact that my people were being yelled at,\u201d he said last March in a television interview.<\/p>\n

Cuomo picked Sarah Feinberg, a former federal rail official and PR professional, to replace Byford on an interim basis in 2020. She subsequently left the MTA after the state Senate rebuffed Cuomo\u2019s request to make her the board\u2019s chairman.<\/p>\n

\"Sarah
Sarah Feinberg \u2014 Byford\u2019s replacement \u2014 stepped down after 17 months of being the interim Interim NYC Transit president.<\/figcaption>
Dennis A. Clark<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To Cohen and other transit activists, Cuomo was a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality, where they could find an ally or an enemy, depending on the issue and the day. <\/p>\n

He managed to win the decades-long battle over congestion pricing, guaranteeing the agency a new funding stream for needed upgrades and repairs. <\/p>\n

However, Cuomo\u2019s focus on mega projects that continued to run massively over budget on his watch \u2014 like the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access \u2014 diverted funds and attention that could have sped badly needed subway signal upgrades. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt proves how much he could have done if he cared about maintenance as much as he cared about big fancy projects,\u201d Cohen added. \u201cYou can\u2019t cut a ribbon on a subway signal. And those are the kinds of improvements that help everyday New Yorkers.\u201d <\/p>\n

Insiders and activists all point to the Byford saga as the clearest example of how Cuomo\u2019s instincts could get it right \u2014 and then have it all go terribly wrong. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way to view it is through the parable of Andy Byford,\u201d said Danny Pearlstein, the spokesman for transit activist group Riders Alliance. \u201cThe governor had the foresight to bring Andy Byford here and then ran him off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The subway system was in crisis as years of deferred maintenance and upgrades finally caught up with the MTA, causing a meltdown that saw on-time figures for the system fall below 70 percent and left riders fuming. <\/p>\n

Cuomo hired Byford to fix the mess as he was hammered over it by his 2018 Democratic primary opponent, Cynthia Nixon. <\/p>\n

\"Gov.
Gov. Cuomo originally hired Byford in 2018 to head the MTA.<\/figcaption>
Robert Miller<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Brit quickly earned good headlines as his tweaks to the system\u2019s daily operations sped up trains and slashed delays. <\/p>\n

But Cuomo tired of someone else getting the credit and began to publicly chafe. <\/p>\n

In 2019, the governor organized a conference call where he mocked Byford\u2019s $40 billion plan to modernize the subways signals, a day that one MTA insider describes as the \u201camong the most surreal\u201d of their time at the agency. <\/p>\n

Cuomo then belittled the subway system\u2019s station cleaners, triggering a public rebuke from Byford. <\/p>\n

A hastily rolled out MTA reorganization plan that summer substantially reduced Byford\u2019s authority at the agency and triggered months of speculation he was looking to leave, before he ultimately departed in 2020. <\/p>\n

\"Gov.
Gov. Cuomo signing legislation for the creationg of the Air Train to LaGuardia Airport on June 25, 2018.<\/figcaption>
Kevin P. Coughlin\/Office of Gove<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cuomo\u2019s love of controversial big-ticket projects didn\u2019t stop at the MTA. <\/p>\n

He muscled the Port Authority into approving a $2 billion AirTrain that would loop back from Willets Point to serve LaGuardia Airport, even though the price tag has quadrupled and opponents argue that extended the N line would be far more logical routing. <\/p>\n

But, even with Cuomo\u2019s resignation in two weeks, Port Authority insiders say the project \u201cis proceeding as planned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe critics can say what they want,\u201d said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi. \u201cBut, the facts are that without Governor Cuomo, newly accelerated projects like the Second Avenue Subway, the [Long Island Rail Road\u2019s] Third Track and the L-train reconstruction and soon-to-be-completed East Side Access would have remained stalled \u2026 and the agency would have continued to languish as it had for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Additional reporting by David Meyer<\/em>\n <\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Cuomo’s style worsened MTA dysfunction, but scored tolling win” He went off the rails. Soon-to-resign Gov. Andrew Cuomo\u2019s notorious bullying and micromanagement helped fuel years of dysfunction at the MTA, driving away top managers, causing labor strife and prioritizing high-profile construction projects over running trains. \u201cIt\u2019s a great metaphor for his entire tenure \u2014 the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":322291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/andrew-cuomo-14.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[113932,70430,96708,71452,71454],"class_list":["post-322290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-8-11-21","tag-andrew-cuomo","tag-andy-byford","tag-mta","tag-subways"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}