Business Insider
Andy Byford, a globally renowned transit expert hired in 2017 to help reinvigorate New York CIty's aging subway system, has resigned.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a state agency responsible for city subways, buses, and commuter rails, confirmed his departure in a statement.
"Andy Byford will be departing New York City Transit after a successful two years of service and we thank him for his work," Pat Foye MTA chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "Andy was instrumental in moving the system forward, enacting the successful Subway Action Plan and securing record capital funding with the Governor and the Legislature, and we wish him well in his next chapter."
Before New York, Byford previously worked in London, Toronto, and Australia. His arrival in New York largely signaled a seismic shift for the aging subway system following decades of underinvestment.
During his tenure as transit chief, New Yorkers were treated to improvements in subway communication as well as several high-profile projects designed to speed up commutes and replace aging parts of track, signals, and more.
Byford also became a popular figure among New York transit aficionados, earning the nickname
"Train Daddy" after an anonymous resident began posting stickers of Byford's face superimposed on a subway car with the text "Train Daddy loves you very much." A photo of the sticker quickly spread on Twitter, and the moniker became widely used across social media. The MTA seemingly embraced the term for its subway chief, with Byford himself joking about the title.
I don't have time to write about what I saw coming two years ago, so enjoy my prophecy from Impunity City for now.
Andy Byford may have just realized he is in way over his head and out of his league in his well-paid state service leadership position (yeah it’s redundant, I’m writing about the MTA again so fuck off).
President Byford is trying really hard though. He did come up with that budget study assessing that it would take $37 billion dollars to overhaul the mega-shitshow mass transit system, despite having no current idea or plan how to pay for it. I mean, he is not a bad bloke, he kind of resembles a mixture of Moby and Thom Yorke and he is a big fan of legendary new wave band The Smiths, so big that he thought it was prudent to mention and discuss fave tracks by them during a live social media style town hall with frustrated commuters complaining about consistent shitty service a while back (my personal fave by the way, is the WLIR extended remix of “This Charming Man”), but at least he has been apparently honest and straightforward.
It didn't take long for Mr. Byford to realize that the worst fucking transit system in the universe couldn't be fixed with that moron tyrant Governor Cuomo up his ass.
Just walk away, Train Daddy
19 comments:
Queens residents voted OVERWHELMINGLY for gargoyle andy so they deserve their flanked up daily subway horror show.
"Byford submitted a resignation letter in October, citing frustration with meddling from Albany "
https://nypost.com/2020/01/23/mta-transit-chief-andy-byford-resigns-after-two-years-on-the-job/
Tried to put one over and couldn't take the heat. Back to Jolly 'ol, Andy!
Frank Padavan used to say "It's not the trains that need fixing, it's the passengers!"
He came here, made his millions then quit. Now he will go back home happy.
Asshole guy thought he was in Europe, was also just a "suit" former station manager who like the Governor knows nothing about electronics, mechanics used this side the pond. Should have stuck to the "old way" all the unions know how to do.
Fuck these failing cramped miserable French Canadian made trains and break out the blueprints to the old redbirds. F_cking shitheads in Canada cant even make door motors right. 8 different sized shims per wheel to change brake shoes WTF?
Add the magnaflux wheel inspection machines killing the machinists working on them with cancer.
Anonymous Angry Queens Taxpayer
Well put.
Competent guy who really wanted to improve the system. Hard working with a good team. Sabotaged by Cuomo's enormous ego. His loss is our loss. Wait and see as the improvements stop and we go backwards.
ALAS, the MTA behemoth (Mendacity, Trauma, Arrogance), is a force of corruption that is so vast, so beyond therapy and help, that it now DEVALUES honesty itself, as the hyper-corrupt, entrenched, corporate obedient and establishment-rigged politicians (NOT public servants), continually FEED OFF of the human misery that they themselves have FOISTED onto everyone else in the plebeian, proletariat, rank and file, with impunity——and, the ever languishing public be eternally duped, bilked, scammed and damned!
What? WHAT?? THIS IS NEW???
❝No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.❞ ——Mark Twain
❝It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty——and, how few by deceit.❞ ——Noël Coward
❝The self-righteous rule out the possibility that THEY are what has gone wrong.❞ ——Mason Cooley
❝Nobody in the world, nobody in history has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.❞ ——Assata Shakur
❝There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.❞ ——Daniel Dennett
❝The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.❞ ——Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931)
❝No man will be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.❞ ——Denis Diderot, French philosopher
❝Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.❞ ——Joseph Goebbels
❝The most formidable military machine depends ultimately on the obedience of its soldiers, that the most powerful corporation becomes helpless when its workers stop working, and when its customers refuse to buy its products. The strike, the boycott, the refusal to serve, the ability to paralyze the functioning of a complex social structure―these remain potent weapons against the most fearsome state or corporate power ❞ —―Howard Zinn
❝The system cannot be fixed by the system.❞ —―Tom Morello
❝It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.❞ ——Jiddu Krishnamurti
❝One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.❞ ——Carl Sagan
❝It's ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society that is dominated by huge, oligarchical corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside of a corporation? They're totalitarian institutions—you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There's about as much freedom as under Stalinism.❞ ——Noam Chomsky
❝The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.❞ ——Frank Zappa, American musician (1940-1993)
❝No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.❞ —―William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK7FPSFdkEc
❝American government is corrupt. Those who have enough money can almost get anything they want from our government, whether it is tax breaks, or subsidies, or policies and laws changed, removed, or added.❞ ——Ravi Batra - The New Golden Age
❝What is masquerading as government is a crime syndicate with a flag. The US Government is an instrument of organized crime.❞ ——Nikki Alexander
❝The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That's the only difference.❞ ——Ralph Nader
Lee Camp (of 'Redacted Tonight' fame) says:
❝...we have an economy that, at its core, is based on death, misery and hardship. It’s not based on health and happiness and life. When it’s humming along, that means our obliteration of the planet is running full steam ahead, and average workers are being appropriately repressed and held down, hoping to collect enough food stamps to papier-mâché a cast on their broken arm. In fact, The Washington Post admitted it this week—but acted surprised when they said it: 'Many analysts pointed to a seemingly unusual cause for the turbulence: rising wages.'❞
❝No, it’s not an 'unusual' cause at all. When we start doing better——when wages start going up–Wall Streeters shit themselves.❞
❝To do a great right—do a little wrong ... and, curb this cruel devil of his will.❞ ——Shakespeare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK7FPSFdkEc
"Fuck the MTA, the worst transit system in the universe"----JQ LLC
"Wait and see as the improvements stop"
-----------------------------
That would be good news.
Byford was building a system too reliant on computers and shitty Canadian and European equipment nobody knows how to work on.
You can bet special interest was involved to put people out of work. Calling everybody stupid then bringing in Canadians and French in with special equipment to work on this garbage was coming next.
All these trains built by France owned Bombardier in Canada have some problem every couple days. Sticking doors, Sticking brakes, Computers over-riding motorman's commands to even move a train out a tunnel with a burnt out door motor making riders hostages
This "upgrading" has been a disaster.
Need go back to the old tried and true simple block signal, motorman and conductor operators in charge of simple proven roomy train car designs such as the R-33 and R-36
Also: How can a R-33 Redbird last 50 million miles+ yet a new French Bombardier R179 holds half the people & weight yet fails after 18 miles? Shit, over 300 of these super expensive Bombardier cars were yanked earlier this month due to safety concerns alone.
This is what some people call progress?
Can't wait for the brand new taxes that our money hungry politicians deceivingly call "congestion pricing." Counting the days to move the hell out of here!
Don't let the door hit you on the way out ! Oh wait the doors don't work...
I don't fault him. The corruption & pocket-lining. The massive crowds using it daily and homeless people living in a century-plus old system is just more than any one person can resolve. When it collapses, many will be trapped in there and die.
I don't fault him either; I fault his mother!
The arrogant, soulless, crooked and criminally insane sociopaths at the sordid helm of the MTA belong at the end of noose, forthwith! They are the quintessential, class A narcissists: Arrogant, deceitful, manipulative, greedy, selfish, cowardly, massively wasteful, INTENSELY INCOMPETENT, COMPLETELY UNACCOUNTABLE and monstrously self-serving.
They also suffer from extreme 'NAKED GREED,' cognitive dissonance and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), three forms of mental illness for which there IS no cure - and, the two terminally infected shitheads, Bill de BLASS-hole AND Andy ('CUOMIGULA') are the latest predatory and rapacious scourges who destroyed New York City and New York State in ways that are worse than nuclear proliferation - and, a hundred trillion times more LETHAL!
Men (REAL men, that is), have been hanged for LESS!
I hope he writes an opinion piece on why he resigned. It would go viral. It would also be the moral thing to do, because we can't go through another 4 years of Cuomo.
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