Starting March 9th, the MTA will have a new interim president in charge of subways and buses. Sarah Feinberg has been an MTA board member for the past year; she was appointed to the position by Governor Andrew Cuomo and has served as chair of the Transit Committee, working closely with the former president, Andy Byford. At the board, Feinberg has been a major proponent of hiring 500 new MTA police officers.
She takes the reigns at a time when on-time performance is at the highest level in six years, but the MTA is also in the midst of a reorganization in which it hopes to cut 2,700 jobs -- including 700 jobs in operations, the workers she’ll oversee. Feinberg's background is in navigating politics in Washington, serving as special assistant to President Barack Obama, and senior advisor to Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. She was head of the Federal Railroad Administration for two years, and was chief of staff at the Department of Transportation for two years as well.
We sat down with Feinberg last week to find out how she plans to carry out the job of New York City Transit President.
You worked closely with Andy Byford. What did you learn from him about running New York City Transit that you didn't know from your previous experience? I think Andy did a great job of meeting with customers, of being accessible and available to the public. But what's interesting is, and this is not a criticism of him, it did not feel all that different to me than the way a lot of public servants behave. I just think that the moment that we were in when Andy arrived was just particularly conducive, it was a trait that was particularly welcome at that moment. And Andy and I actually talked about that ourselves, that we were sort of surprised by the fact that his behavior wasn't all that unique, but it was just for whatever reason, it was just welcomed at that moment.
Do you think it resonated because people were so frustrated with the subways and he was a new face, that would be like ‘things are gonna be better now?’ No, I'm not sure that's accurate. So, for example, when Ronnie Hakim was running New York City Transit, I don't think that she was wandering around saying ‘It's not going to get any better.’ I think it was just a moment when the news media had been particularly focused on the system as well. And as anyone who's been in transportation for a long time knows when you reach a sort of moment and maintenance starts to fall apart and ridership can feel it. And so I think his arrival coincided with that moment.
You were at the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration), also managing a very large agency. Is there any particular style of management that you picked up there that you'd want to bring to New York City Transit? I've always had an open door policy and I tried to be extremely transparent about the work that I'm doing and how we acknowledge our challenges and then drill down and try to figure out the best and most efficient path forward. A lot of times, and I don't necessarily blame the bureaucracy, for all kinds of reasons people do things the way they've always done them, and sometimes it's just helpful to have a fresh set of eyes. Doesn't mean the person has a lifetime of experience in track maintenance or a lifetime of experience in signaling. It might be that they just have experience in shifting things around to see if we can get to a better solution, and sometimes the best thing you can do is bring a fresh set of eyes.
Are you going to do more to build the trust of the workforce? I'm excited to get to know so many of them. I've certainly gotten to know the leadership and many of the folks in New York City Transit over the last year or so. I'm interested in getting to know them better. The 51,000 people who work at New York City Transit, I believe, carry out a miracle every single day. And it's quite something to behold it, to watch it unfurl every morning and every evening. And I am absolutely in awe of their work and their dedication.
How do you transition, I don't know if you would use the word from “activist board member,” but you're very vocal on the board. How do you transition from that, to a job where your job is not so much to change the way the MTA works, but to make the trains run on time? It's a very different job. As a board member, you are offering oversight and guidance and doing whatever you can to get agency presidents the resources that they need to carry out what their mission is. And, as an agency president you certainly want the board to be doing that for you. But, you know, I think I will view a lot of my job as blocking and tackling for my team, making sure that they're able to execute on their goals and their mission and making sure they have the resources that they need and the support they need from myself.
You live in the East Village, so you take the subway and bus every day? I generally am an L, 4, 5, 6, and frequently a 1 user. Those are my main lines.
You're going to start taking the bus more just to get the the vibe of what goes on there? I take it sometimes and I'll probably take it more. I'm like a big fan of the 14th Street busway, so I will inevitably take it more. My current modes tend to be subway.
You were appointed by the governor to the board. He's obviously taken a huge interest in the MTA. Would you be comfortable in this new position pushing back on any suggestions of his you disagreed with? Yeah, in my relationship with the governor, that's gone back years, I have always felt comfortable pushing back on things that I don't think are good ideas. And I would say the same for other folks that I've worked for; President Obama, Rahm Emanuel, others. You know, I'm not sure that you get very far in any of these jobs if you just execute on direction and never, never question it or never try to improve upon it. I will say that I think that the governor's involvement and focus on the largest transit system in North America is incredibly useful to the people here, to the workforce, to the board, and to the folks in Albany who are funding us. Really to the entire system.
Is there anything you could share as a good example of when you disagreed with the governor and pushed back and made a change? No. I keep my conversations with folks like that private as they should be.
You've certainly been vocal about hiring 500 more MTA police. Also, we heard this week that 700 operational positions are going to be cut. How are you going to manage that tension? I know a lot of workers are like, well, why fire 700 workers to save money, when you're hiring 500 cops. How are you going to manage that? So the hiring of the additional police we've been talking about for months, and I think it's critical to improving safety and security in the system. Look, we have a solid system, but crime has been ticking up in ways that I am not comfortable with and that I think others are not comfortable with. And if we cannot make sure that New Yorkers feel safe and secure in our system, a lot of the other work that we're doing doesn't really matter. If you don't have safety, you're sort of nowhere. Right?
And so on the other side, on the attrition and the job cuts that are potentially coming at us, this is something that has been talked about for more than a year now. And in order for the MTA to transform into a way that's more efficient, that serves the public better, it's possible that over the course of the next several months that folks in the workforce will retire, will choose to move on to other jobs. That frequently happens in an agency this large. But if the attrition number does not reach where we may need to get to in order to hit financial goals, it's certainly possible that some jobs will be changed or will go away. And I'm not going to prejudge that. I'll leave that to the folks who are running the transformation. But in terms of those jobs vs. police jobs, those feel different to me because there are two different sides.
Just to follow up on the 500 cops, what would the quantifiable success be? How would you know that it's working, that the system is getting safer? Look, a safe and secure system means that crime is down, that people feel safe and secure, that people are willing to ride the system at night, that we don't have folks worried about their commute because they're nervous about the person who's going to be standing in front of the vending machine or the person who's going to be standing in front of the turnstile. They don't feel like someone could grab them or grope them, where women feel like they are in an environment where they are not going to be subject to harassment. That's all success.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
