MTA Chairman Joe Lhota Resigns

NEW YORK — Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota is resigning after just over a year in the post. His departure marks the end of his second stint at the helm of the beleaguered agency ahead of crucial debate next year over how to fund it in the long term.

Fernando Ferrer, the MTA's vice chairman, will take over as acting chairman while state officials prepare to pick a permanent replacement next year, said Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who controls the MTA.

"Joe demonstrated time and again why he was the right person for the job," Cuomo, who was just re-elected to a third term, said in a statement. "I am deeply grateful for his service to the State of New York."

Lhota returned to the MTA in June 2017, around the peak of a crisis in the New York City subways. He unveiled an $836 million action plan to stabilize the system the next month, leading to a months-long standoff between the state and city over how to fund it.

In a statement, Lhota said he took the job for the "sole purpose of halting the decline of service and stabilizing the system for my fellow New Yorkers." The Subway Action plan has since "successfully arrested the subway's decline," he said, as the number of train delays fell in September to its lowest point since February 2016.

"There is still a long way to go to achieve the performance that New Yorkers demand and deserve," Lhota said.

Lhota denied that he would leave his job last month amid speculation about how long he would stay, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported his resignation Friday.

Lhota has faced questions about his continued work for NYU Langone Health and the Madison Square Garden Company while leading the struggling transit agency. He convinced a state ethics watchdog that he could keep his lucrative outside job because he wasn't an "employee" of the MTA.

Lhota said he came back to the MTA "with the understanding" that he could keep his private gigs and delegate the agency's day-to-day operations to others. He put four top officials — the managing director, president, chief development officer and chief financial officer — in a new Office of the Chairman, and tapped new presidents of New York City Transit and the MTA's two commuter railroads, he said.

Lhota is leaving amid questions about how to fund Fast Forward, New York City Transit President Andy Byford's $40 billion overhaul plan that Lhota said "provides the roadmap for modernizing the entire system."

Lhota and Cuomo have expressed support for congestion pricing, a proposal to fund the MTA by tolling vehicles entering central and lower Manhattan. But that idea has met skepticism from outer-borough lawmakers and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who supports an income tax hike for the richest New Yorkers instead.

The Straphangers Campaign, a transit advocacy group, commended Lhota for his service but urged Cuomo to find a new MTA boss who will "save riders from suffering the onslaught of subway signal delays, slow bus service, and inaccessible transit options."

"This action must be immediately followed by a commitment by the Governor and New York State's newly elected legislature to accelerate a new and sustainable funding plan to fix the MTA's ailing transit system and get service back on track," the group said in a statement.

(Lead image: Joe Lhota is seen in December 2017. Photo by Mark Lennihan/Associated Press)