Andy Byford is back in New York to build a shiny new Penn Station, but he's already admitted he's not the guy in charge.
Byford appeared at a New York Building Congress breakfast on Wednesday morning to lay out the process of how Penn Station would be reborn as a shining modern train hall. As Byford told it, Amtrak will start the request for proposal process this month, which will be followed by an apolitical, professional selection process ... followed by a final extremely political unprofessional judgment by a man currently demolishing the White House, who has announced war on several American cities and who is claiming he deserves a quarter of a billion dollars from the Treasury for his pain and suffering.
"My task will be, having applied appropriate evaluation criteria, to make a recommendation to the Amtrak Board as to which of the proposals that we think passes muster [and] delivers the best customer output, which is the most constructible, and how is it going to be paid for, etc.," Byford told the gathering of contractors and politicos. "And as long as that gets through the Amtrak Board, off to the White House to just make sure the White House is comfortable with the proposal we've made."
So, in other words, not just the opposite of an apolitical, professional process, but one that ends with President Trump picking whatever project he thinks benefits him the most.
"The first part of his quote completely contradicts the second part," said Rachael Fauss, a longtime ethics watchdog with Reinvent Albany. "You can't evaluate a proposal and a vendor based on the best criteria and then also say that the White House gets to decide. ... That's not how competitive fair procurement is supposed to work. That's how bids get rigged."
And so in a charming British accent, the man who became the most beloved New York City bureaucrat of the 21st century told the room: Let's start the bidding at, shall we say, $3 billion in bribes?
"Who's to say that vendors don't go directly to the White House? Who knows what they offer in return," Fauss said.
Byford's declaration that the president makes the ultimate call on the Penn Station development contract is a surprising turn away from the integrity that characterized his star turn in New York City, when he earned the title "Train Daddy" from transit riders who appreciated his candor and transparency.
Rather, his appearance on Wednesday conjured up the worst memories of government failure — looking at you, Buffalo Billions bid-rigging scandal — that lead to public cynicism and the growing belief that government no longer works for the people, but the plutocrats, profiteers and panderers.
Some insider trading might — might — be tolerable if it would at least lead to a great project that serves the public and doesn't become a mausoleum to the president. But let's remember: the current frontrunner due to slavish devotion to the president is major Trump donor Thomas Klingenstein — whose proposal for Penn Station doesn't solve the station's capacity issues but magically suggests it does via the use of a single-level concourse. He pitched it to Trump in the most intelligent fashion ever these days: With the naked flattery of, "Only Trump Can Make Penn Station Great Again."
Byford's remarks about Trump being the real Train Daddy were part of a set piece. More than once, the former New York City Transit president who is now officially the "special adviser to the Amtrak board of directors," expressed gratitude to Trump and his fellow reality TV talent, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, for trusting him with the job and for providing him what he said was unquestioned backing. But that backing is only as good as the paper that the plan is printed on, he said.
"If I meet with some resistance, or if we have someone that's being unduly obstructive, or something that's causing me a problem, well, my trump card is the Trump card," he said to laughs.
It's a great line until you remember what the Trump card is currently flung directly in New York's face: a war on congestion pricing, the halting of the Gateway Project and the Second Avenue subway, antipathy to basic climate resiliency efforts, defunding anti-terrorism work, mistreatment of immigrants, attacks on the rule of law and protections for transgender students, and even a rejection of a bus lane of all things.
And Byford's claim that his job overseeing the Penn reconstruction effort is a way to "give back" to the city and state didn't ring true, given his other admission that he works in the service of a man who's openly mused about deporting Zohran Mamdani or just straight up starving New York City of federal money to which it is entitled.
And on top of all of that, Byford is now openly admitting that Donald Trump can decide to spend billions of dollars on a garish monument to himself right in the heart of Midtown.
Train Daddy, we hardly knew ye.
