Hastily Constructed, Thoroughly Opposed: MTA Restructuring Plan Still Approved

Dana Rubinstein lays the snark on thick while reporting on the recent approval of a plan to restructure the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

The plan will "fundamentally transform how one of the nation’s most vital transit agency goes about providing 2.6 billion trips a year in the financial capital of the United States," according to Rubinstein.

Click through to find the snark, directed at the MTA board because it approved the plan despite sitting through a public hearing in which not one member of the public spoke in support.

AlixPartners created the restructuring plan as part of a $4.1 million contract. "The firm had just three months to come up with a proposal, a time frame that led some management consulting experts to question if the firm’s retention amounted to 'air cover' for whatever politically difficult decisions Cuomo and his MTA proxies wanted to make," according to Rubinstein.

The plan calls for reducing the number of employees at the MTA from 74,000 to 71,000, partly by consolidating the procurement, legal, budget, communications and human resources departments of the agency.

Transit advocates expressed concern that some of the reforms have been proposed to undercut the authority of New York City Transit President Andy Byford.