The author’s ever growing skill set now includes “personnel expert” and prognosticator. Larry Penner knows what personnel is best for the job of NYC Transit president and knows how long it will take the new president to learn the job.
On the basis of my 42 years of experience riding the New York City subway, this is my prediction: Very little will change.
The New York City subway will keep on keeping on, no matter who the president, CEO of its parent organization, the MTA, or the governor is. It will continue to provide service that is most reliable during the daytime, not so in the evening. Every once in a while someone will get hit by a train just before the start of the morning rush, a passenger will get sick, or there will be a track fire, causing massive delays up and down the line. The fare will continue to increase.
Buses will continue to bunch. The agency will continue to operate in the red. Ever since the rebuilding of the subway under Hugh Carey the subway, no matter who was in charge, did not get significantly better and did not get significantly worse.
Think of New York City transit as a machine with thousands of gears, each gear representing a New York City transit employee. I presume most— if not all — of these employees need his job to put food on his table. Each gear will continue to turn. I doubt a transit employee sweeping trash off the tracks or giving a passenger directions or operating the train will care much who is the president.
The practice of bringing someone in from the outside is as old as time itself. I could fill 10 of these letters naming heads of municipal organizations from the outside to run the agency. Andy Byford, widely praised by the media, is among them. I’m not approving or disapproving of Byford’s job performance.
The author continues to refer to current straphangers as “pre-COVID riders.” I am not following how a current rider is a “pre-COVID” rider since we are in the (mostly) post- COVID era.
The author states how the appointment is an insult to 5,000,000 subway riders. The author should revise it to 4,999,999. I could not possibly care less. I am insulted by 90 percent of the author’s opinion pieces that insult my intelligence. Larry Penner knows when I should take off my mask on the LIRR, he knows Andrew Giuliani would not be a good governor of my state because Giuliani is the son of the former NYC Mayor and has never built a business, Larry Penner telling me as a Bronxite how good the ferry I live nowhere near and cannot possibly feasibly use is.
Larry Penner does not feel Andrew Cuomo should be given a chance to tell me his side of the story. As the final irony, Larry Penner felt the U.S. DOT ran fine without Peter Buttigieg (Buttigieg was on leave of absence), reinforcing my point that it does not matter whom runs the subway, it will keep on in its current state until the fall of the republic.
Nat Weiner
7 Metropolitan Oval MC
Bronx, NY 10462
917-580-2890