As Mayor Zohran Mamdani pushes a transit agenda centered on dashing the nation’s slowest buses, he has lower than a month to fill a pair of longstanding vacancies on the MTA board.
The mayor has simply 4 seats on the panel that units fares, working and capital budgets for a regional transportation authority that’s largely below the management of Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Mamdani’s suggestions should be submitted to Hochul, who appoints the pinnacle of the MTA and has six board members of her personal, after which accepted by the State Senate earlier than the Albany legislative session ends June 4.
The brand new mayor has already tapped a brand new “bus czar” to guide his pro-bus agenda at Metropolis Corridor. Now, he has to make his first appointments to the MTA board.
“Having someone who is reflective of his values and adding another member of his administration to voice his interests and his concerns is going to be helpful to the many people who are depending on buses,” mentioned Lisa Daglian, government director of the Everlasting Residents Advisory Committee to the MTA.
The 23-member board additionally contains members chosen by every of the county executives from the seven suburban counties served by the MTA’s commuter railroads, in addition to six non-voting representatives from labor unions and commuter councils.
Polly Trottenberg, who was on the MTA board from 2014 to 2019 whereas she led town’s Transportation Division, mentioned the mayoral appointments play a significant function even when they’re outnumbered.
“Who the mayor picks is important,” Trottenberg mentioned. “What I found in my time is that you don’t always have the votes, but you always have the bully pulpit.”
As soon as confirmed, Mamdani’s suggestions would fill spots which have been vacant for months. Meera Joshi, a former deputy mayor below Eric Adams, left final June, whereas one other Adams decide, Midori Valdivia, resigned in March, after Mamdani appointed her as commissioner and chair of the New York Metropolis Taxi & Limousine Fee.
Even with the competing pursuits on the board, Mamdani’s picks are seen as key to advancing his prime transportation priorities, together with transit affordability and the acceleration of slow-moving buses, which plodded alongside at a citywide common of 8.3 mph in March, in accordance with MTA knowledge.
The MTA put in new turnstile guards on the Metropolis Corridor-Brooklyn Bridge station, Feb. 12, 2025. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The brand new board members would be part of mayoral holdovers David Jones, who has been on the board because the de Blasio administration, and Dan Garodnick, the previous director of the Division of Metropolis Planning who was really useful for the MTA board in 2024 by then-Mayor Adams.
Jones, chief government of the nonprofit Neighborhood Service Society, started pushing greater than a decade in the past for the creation of Honest Fares, the city-run program that launched in 2019 providing half-off fares to low-income New Yorkers. Jones additionally often makes use of his spot on the MTA board to talk out towards alleged racial disparities within the NYPD’s policing of fare evasion within the transit system.
However even with the deadline quick approaching, Mamdani isn’t tipping his hand on his personal picks or the fantastic print of his transit plans, at the same time as town’s Division of Transportation has launched a collection of bus- and bike-lane expansions that had been languishing below the earlier mayor.
“New Yorkers deserve a public transit system that is affordable, reliable and accountable to the people who depend on it every day,” Mamdani spokesperson Jeremy Edwards mentioned in an announcement. “Dan Garodnick and David Jones have been important partners in advancing that work alongside the city and we’re grateful for their service to the MTA board.”
“We’ll have more to share soon about the future of these appointments and our broader vision for public transit in New York,” he added.
Advocates and former MTA board members mentioned there’s a very important function for the mayoral picks, particularly when town’s priorities conflict with these of the governor.
“It clearly is a place where the mayor can make the case for what he wants to do and argue forcefully and be able to engage in a discussion over how the transit should be delivered in the city,” mentioned Bob Linn, former commissioner of town’s Workplace of Labor Relations, who was on the MTA board from 2019 by means of 2022.
Veronica Vanterpool, who served on the MTA board from 2016 to 2019, mentioned that the elected officers who decide potential MTA board members should concentrate on “selecting the right individuals” to be “vocal advocates” for no matter transit points they want to champion.
“It’s not useful if whomever is put on the board is not a vocal advocate for the priorities,” Vanterpool mentioned.
The latter half of Mamdani’s transit priorities — to ultimately remove bus fares — has been met with resistance from Hochul in addition to MTA Chairperson and Chief Government Janno Lieber, even because the transit chief has praised Mamdani for being a “truly pro-transit mayor.” Some Metropolis Council members have additionally pushed to develop Honest Fares over the fare-free buses proposal.
However general, the dealings between the state and town on transportation issues are in distinction to these below earlier administrations in Albany and at Metropolis Corridor.
“It could be contentious between the mayor and the governor,” Trottenberg mentioned, recalling the frequent clashes between former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and de Blasio. “It’s a much more collaborative relationship now between the city and the state and that, I think, is reflected in the MTA board.”
When Cuomo was governor and a forceful presence on the MTA, de Blasio’s board members often pushed again towards a few of his priorities. That included criticism of the prices for a Cuomo plan to overtake Penn Station and a number of other subway station renovations that didn’t embody the set up of elevators.
“None of us were shy about taking a difficult stance or position on an action,” Vanterpool mentioned. “None of us were shy about asking questions that were challenging. None of us were shy about indicating what the priorities of New York City were.”
Andrew Albert, who has sat on the MTA board since 2002 as a non-voting consultant for the New York Metropolis Transit Riders Council, mentioned that even occasional flare-ups between board members may be helpful for the transit community and its riders.
“Everyone wants to see the best system that we possibly can,” he mentioned. “And everyone wants to have it financed the best that it can be.”
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