Andy Byford Resigns as New York City’s Subway Chief
He arrived two years ago to turn around the city’s failing subway, making significant progress.
After being lured to New York two years ago to help revive the city’s subway, Andy Byford earned praise from riders and mass transit advocates for bringing about improvements on an antiquated system that had been undermined by breakdowns, delays and mismanagement.
But as Mr. Byford rose in stature, even earning the nickname “Train Daddy” among rail enthusiasts, he increasingly clashed with the one official who has the final say over the subways: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who considers himself something of a modern-day master builder.
On Thursday, Mr. Byford resigned, sowing doubt about the future of extensive plans that are intended to modernize the nation’s largest subway system. Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, responded with one word on Twitter: “DEVASTATED.”
Mr. Byford suggested in his resignation letter that he had chafed over a plan supported by the governor to scale back his duties as part of a reorganization for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs the subways and is controlled by Mr. Cuomo.
Mr. Byford’s new role would “focus solely on day-to-day-running of service,” instead of more ambitious projects, Mr. Byford wrote. There were other leaders, he said, who could “perform this important, but reduced, service delivery role.”
Interviews with transit officials and lawmakers and others indicate that Mr. Byford’s departure capped months of escalating tension between the two men: a hard-charging governor from Queens who frequently mocks the transit bureaucracy versus a self-described subway nerd from Britain who has spent his career reviving and running transit systems around the world.
Mr. Byford’s colleagues at the M.T.A. believed Mr. Byford’s high profile may have irked Mr. Cuomo. The governor’s aides said that Mr. Byford often tried to take credit for improvements that were unrelated to his own work.
Mr. Cuomo dismissed claims that disagreements led Mr. Byford to resign, indicating that plans to reorganize the transit agency — and take some responsibilities away from Mr. Byford — might have contributed to his decision.
“He did the job for two years,” Mr. Cuomo told reporters. “Nobody does these jobs for a lifetime.”
Over the last year, the two men quarreled over plans to fix the L train, a major line between Manhattan and Brooklyn, and new technology to upgrade signals.
When Mr. Byford publicly questioned Mr. Cuomo’s decision to call off the shutdown of the L train tunnel between Manhattan and Brooklyn, Mr. Byford suddenly found himself sidelined. The two men did not speak for four months in 2019.
Mr. Byford had considered quitting since last spring as he struggled to get along with Mr. Cuomo, who controls the flow of money to the system.
Mr. Cuomo was angry after Mr. Byford tried to resign in October, according to officials familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues. His bosses at the transit agency convinced Mr. Byford to stay, but the détente did not last long.
At that point, the governor signaled to state officials that the rocky relationship had reached its end point and that he expected Mr. Byford to be gone by the first quarter of 2020, the officials said.
By December, Mr. Byford made up his mind that he would leave after completing his second year, those officials said. Another likely departure, the officials say, is Pete Tomlin, who was brought in by Mr. Byford to run a multibillion dollar overhaul of the signal system, which is considered the linchpin of efforts to transform the subway.
Mr. Cuomo said the subway system was making significant progress and would continue to do so under a new leader.
Mr. Byford had been hired after the governor had declared the subway to be in a state of emergency. His sweeping plans and dogged work ethic made New Yorkers rally around him. Mr. Byford’s arrival in January 2018 was celebrated as a turning point for the subway, and profiles in The New Yorker and on 60 Minutes followed.
When Mr. Byford took over running the subway, only 58 percent of trains were on time. There were near constant meltdowns and several train derailments raised safety concerns.
Mr. Byford helped push the on-time rate over 80 percent through a series of operational changes and a focus on the basics, including repairing faulty switches and increasing train speeds. He said he wanted to bring the on-time rate into the 90s and proposed a major overhaul of the subway’s ancient signal equipment.
