Why there's hope for Richard Davey, the new NYC Transit chief

Plus: Where in NY and NJ you still have to wear a mask on mass transit [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( [VIEW IN BROWSER]( [DONATE]( [WNYC Politics Brief] Like Byford before him, the new NYC Transit chief starts in a time of tumult Plus: We break down where in New York and New Jersey you still have to wear a mask on mass transit. Pedestrian deaths have spiked in the first part of 2022. And the former New Yorker copyeditor has some sage words on alternate-side parking. --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- [Incoming NYC Transit chief Richard Davey] MTA The job of running the MTA’s subways and buses was always important, but Andy Byford elevated it to celebrity status. Nicknamed "Train Daddy" by transit enthusiasts, Byford swooped in with plans to get subways running in the short term and to make major improvements down the road. In the process, he earned countless favorable headlines, and seemed to win the hearts of New Yorkers. But Byford's tenure was cut short when he resigned two years ago over difficulties with then-Governor and inveterate micromanager Andrew Cuomo. Now, after two interim New York City Transit presidents, Richard Davey, the former Massachusetts Transportation Secretary, has been named the new permanent chief. Davey doesn’t come with a Byford-like resume of working at rail systems in major cities such as London and Toronto — he has instead spent his career in Boston, which has a much smaller transit system that doesn’t run 24 hours. Davey also doesn't have a flashy nickname or an intriguing British accent. (Although his wife, Jane Willis, was a member of the MIT blackjack team that counted cards to beat casinos and was immortalized in the movie 21.) But Byford and Davey do have something in common: Both started amid turmoil in the subways. Byford came as the agency was continuing to see abysmal service problems and breakdowns. Davey comes as ridership remains 2 million people below pre-pandemic levels, and as commuting patterns have possibly been altered forever. Unlike Byford, though, Davey arrives at the MTA as it appears to be working in tandem with the city and state. This comes after years of rancor between Cuomo and former Mayor Bill de Blasio over fixing and funding the subways. During the past few months, Governor Kathy Hochul, MTA Chair Janno Lieber and Mayor Eric Adams have appeared together at various events, vowing to work together to solve problems at the MTA. But conflicts over money are looming on the horizon, which will likely change that dynamic. To start, Hochul — who is running for her first full term as governor — deferred the MTA’s biannual fare hikes this year. But it’s not clear if the MTA will have to raise costs by 4% or even 8% down the line to cover expenses. Second, once the $16 billion in federal relief funds to cover operating expenses runs out, the agency could face a $2 billion shortfall. Over the next couple of years, the MTA will have to make the case to lawmakers, many of whom don’t live in regions served by the MTA, that more money is both needed and will be well spent. And details about the congestion pricing program are expected to be released this summer, with different groups of drivers already jockeying for exemptions to the fee. Davey does have some experience balancing the needs of the riding public with the needs of elected officials. Jim Aloisi, who served as Massachusetts Transportation Secretary before Davey, said his successor's battle to raise the gas tax in the state is an example of how he operates, and succeeds, working with advocates and the business community. "He’s a very good step-by-step thinker and consensus builder, he never gets ahead of where he needs to be," Aloisi said. Good government watchdog groups like Reinvent Albany also expressed hope that Davey will stick around longer than two years, which hasn’t happened since Thomas Prendergast served as transit president for three years from December 2009 until January 2013. Earlier this month, in his first public appearance since being appointed, Davey fielded questions from the press for nearly an hour about his goals, priorities, and what type of leader he plans to be. If riders were hoping for any surprising, out-of-the-box ideas, Davey wasn’t delivering. "Safety, security, reliability, and cleanliness," he said were his goals. "I think it’s taking ideas that exist and accelerating the heck out of them." Davey didn’t reveal too many personal details, but said he planned to live somewhere in Manhattan, and planned to spend a lot of time in the subway system. "I generally don’t have a life," he said, "so I expect to be out and about talking to folks and seeing how we’re performing, as I did in Boston." His official first day on the job is May 2nd. — [Reporting by Stephen Nessen]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Confusion, conflicting information for commuters after federal mask mandate ruling [maskless commuters exiting Penn Station] Gwynne Hogan/Gothamist Commuters in the region were thrown for a loop this week after a federal judge in Florida ruled against the Biden administration's nationwide mask mandate for all public transit and transportation hubs, something the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had approved. In response to the ruling, Amtrak and NJ Transit lifted their mask mandates. The MTA — including the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North, and all subways and buses — is keeping a mask mandate in place, as in the NYC Ferry system. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the PATH train and oversees the Port Authority bus terminal and regional airports, is still requiring masks at all New York locations, but not anywhere in New Jersey. And Uber and Lyft told customers that masking requirements were no longer in effect, though this only applies to riders outside New York City — the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission clarified that app-based and yellow taxi riders within the five boroughs were still required to wear masks. The federal Department of Justice has [appealed]( to get the mask mandate reinstated, but some legal experts say this comes at a risk: If the appeal loses, this could permanently damage the CDC's authority to pursue public safety measures. — [Reporting by Gwynne Hogan]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's What Else Is Happening Mayor Eric Adams said he's moving forward with plans to put metal detectors in Subway stations. The mayor announced on Monday that he's reviewing metal detectors made by three different companies, but wouldn't disclose the names of the manufacturers or which one(s) he's leaning towards. This comes after last week's mass shooting on an N train in Brooklyn, which separately prompted MTA chair Janno Lieber to signal his support for bringing back the NYPD's random bag checks. ([Gothamist]( Traffic fatalities jumped 44% in the first quarter of 2022. A total of 59 people — including 29 pedestrians — died in crashes in the first quarter of this year, according to a new report from Transportation Alternatives. That makes this the deadliest start to any year since 2014, when the city launched the Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities. ([Gothamist]( New York City is bringing back twice-a-week alternate-side parking rules. Newly-appointed Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced on Monday that street sweeping, which was reduced to once a week around the start of the pandemic, would be restored to its twice-weekly schedule beginning on July 5th. "I know it's a pain to move the car, but let's be real, we need people to do it to allow our brooms to give the city the good scrubbing it needs," she said. ([Gothamist]( Mary Norris, the former copyeditor for The New Yorker, shared some tips from her life as an alternate-side parking expert. "First, I got a calendar to memorize all those holidays — the idea that you don’t have to move your car because it’s traditionally the birthday of the Virgin Mary, that’s kind of funny stuff," said Norris, who used to keep a blog called The Alternate Side Parking Reader. She agrees that free on-street parking is probably a mistake to begin with, but given that the system is the way it is, she said there's still a way to be optimistic about it. ([Curbed]( Is the food in Moynihan Train Hall too fancy? Sauce, the pizza vendor inside Penn Station's new train hall, is very good. But its version of a plain slice is $5, and it also closes before 8 p.m., betraying the Working Person spirit that Penn ought to have. That said, it's still relatively easy to shimmy over to the old NJ Transit wing and pick up a tallboy for $5. ([Eater]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- And Finally: The MTA is airing announcements delivered by students with autism [a video of a possum in a bag on the subway] Marc A. Hermann/MTA As part of Autism Awareness Month, the MTA has paired up with students at the Foundry Learning Center, a special needs school in Manhattan, to deliver subway announcements and messages at 11 stations. In one announcement, 10-year-old Jordan reminds straphangers to not hold the train doors. "It seems like a nice thing to do for someone, but it actually holds everyone up. Thank you, and have a nice day," Jordan says in the recording. Jonathan Trichter, the founder of the Foundry Learning Center, said in a statement that "the MTA holds a special place in the hearts of New York City's autistic children," and that bringing awareness to autism is important so that people "know these children are different but similar — and not less." See a full list of the stations where these messages will be playing from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., every day for the rest of the month. — [Reporting by Stephen Nessen]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Support WNYC + Gothamist Make a donation to support local, independent journalism. Your contributions are our largest source of funding and pays for essential election coverage and more. 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