Mamdani Nominates Ex-Bloomberg Official To MTA Board
Guess who’s back, back again. Janette’s back, tell a friend.
Bloomberg Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan will return to city service as one of Mayor Mandani’s two new picks to join the MTA board, City Hall announced on Tuesday.
Mamdani has tapped Sadik-Khan and Melanie Hartzog, a former deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio, to serve as two of his four representatives on the board. Ex-City Planning Commissioner Dan Garodnick, an Eric Adams appointee, and Community Service Society President David Jones, who served under Adams and de Blasio, will both continue to represent the city as well, the mayor said.
“Melanie and Janette have dedicated their careers to delivering results for New Yorkers, and alongside Dan and David, they will help ensure that this city gets fast and free buses, and that riders have strong advocates at the table,” Mamdani said in a statement.
Sadik-Khan installed the first parking-protected bike lanes in North America, launched Citi Bike and pedestrianized Times Square as DOT commissioner under Mayor Mike Bloomberg from 2007 to 2013. In the years since, she has served as the chair of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, a non-profit that advises cities on street design and policy, and at Bloomberg Associates, where she also advises cities on transportation policy.
As commissioner, Sadik-Khan drew comparisons to Robert Moses from some of the dullest people alive due to her belief that the city should use its authority to reshape its roads for the benefit of pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders. Mamdani reportedly leaned on Sadik-Khan for guidance as her boss Bloomberg spent heavily against him in last year’s election.
Crucially for her role on the MTA Board, Sadik-Khan oversaw the creation of Select Bus Service, the city’s version of bus rapid transit, during her time at DOT — experience that should come in handy as the city and MTA pursue the mayor’s “fast buses” agenda.
“As we enter a new transportation era, we need a transportation action plan that matches our ambitions,” Sadik-Khan said in a statement provided by City Hall. “I am grateful to Mayor Mamdani for the opportunity to serve on the MTA Board and to be a vote and a voice for all riders looking for affordable transportation and the access that our buses and rail provide to jobs, housing and opportunities.”
Hartzog’s resume includes stints as director of the Office of Management and Budget and deputy mayor for health and human services under Mayor Bill de Blasio. She oversaw the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic from October 2020 through the end of the de Blasio administration and has been the CEO of New York Foundling, a child welfare charity organization, since January 2022.
“I’m honored by Mayor Mamdani’s recommendation that I serve as a member of the MTA’s Board of Directors and by the opportunity to help ensure our transit system is not just affordable, accessible, and reliable, but delivers the level of service New Yorkers expect and deserve,” said Hartzog.
The pair will have no shortage of things to do on the board, especially since Mamdani has made transit such a central piece of his agenda. The mayor has promised to bring “fast and free buses” to New York City, even as MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber has tried to pump the brakes on free fares proposal and the state legislature was too wrapped up in other budget shenanigans to pick up the policy this year.
Notably, neither Sadik-Khan nor Hartzog mentioned free buses in their statements on their nominations. The MTA does ostensibly share the mayor’s goal of faster buses, however, and it will fall on his representatives on the board to push the MTA to embrace speedy policies like all-door boarding and to find ways to manage bus dispatching and service more efficiently as the city lays down more bus lanes and bus-priority streets.
The MTA is also pursuing several expansion projects in the city, including the second phase of the Second Avenue subway (and a possible westward expansion of the Q train across 125th Street), Penn Access and the Interborough Express, all of which have outstanding funding and planning questions. There are also hundreds of miles of upcoming signal upgrade efforts on the Fulton Line, the Liberty and Rockaway Lines (A/C trains in Brooklyn and Queens), and the Nassau Street (J/Z trains), Sixth Avenue (B/D/F/M) and Broadway (N/Q/R/W) lines in Queens and Manhattan. Those projects will disrupt service and require coordination between the city and MTA to keep people moving.
The MTA board’s 23 members represent the full service area of the transit agency, from the Hudson Valley to Suffolk County. Seventeen of those members can vote on board deliberations: six appointed by the governor, four appointed by the mayor, and one each appointed by the executives of Nassau, Suffolk and Westchster counties. Four other counties (Orange, Dutchess, Rockland and Putnam) each have one member who share a single vote.
The board has the authority to approve contracts, service changes and fare hikes, and is legally required to make decisions with the MTA’s best financial health in mind. The positions are ultimately mostly advisory, as the MTA Chairman and CEO serves at the discretion of the governor, but board members can still influence agency business.
De Blasio DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, for example, made a series of attempts to rally board members to oppose policies pushed by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but wound up resigning in frustration after not getting enough support from City Hall to marshal the city’s representatives to speak with one voice on important issues.
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