It’s peak morning rush hour at the 23rd Street station on the 1 line, and Andy Byford can’t help himself. He’s so detail-obsessed that he is in danger of being trampled by fast-moving straphangers as they rush for their train.
The recently installed president of the New York City Transit Authority bends down to pick up scattered copies of Metro newspapers and place them neatly back on their rack. He points to the floorboards at the 23rd Street station that are fading.
“We could paint those black and at least show customers that we are on top of the details,” he says while pointing out a dingy stairwell. “It’s grubby, just not acceptable.”
When he stops dead in his tracks to stare at a jumble of crisscrossed yellow safety tape precariously holding together a broken barrier (“That looks so hokey. We need to change it!” he says), one commuter angrily shoves him from the back.
“Move!” he barks at the startled Byford, who is clearly not yet accustomed to the sharp elbows of his newly adopted city.
Byford, 52, hails from England, and his Commonwealth manners are impeccable.
“I’m so sorry,” he mutters, slightly rattled by the experience.
It’s a reflex apology, and it’s addressed to no one in particular because the exasperated commuter has already maneuvered around him, hell-bent on catching his train.
Dressed in a black suit under his Canada Goose parka and sporting the worn black leather shoes that have seen him through his previous tour of heading up the transit system in Canada’s largest city, the lanky Byford has the air of a mild-mannered accountant heading to a Midtown office.
But it’s the bold blue and white oversize name tag pinned to his coat that gives him away. “Andy Byford, President New York City Transit,” it reads.
Last month, as he set out to observe the morning rush-hour commute in Brooklyn and Manhattan, Byford was greeted by some as the subway messiah, the man who would finally fix the New York City commute. Smiling riders approached him to shake his hand and wish him well.
That same morning, as he stood near a subway station in East New York, a passing motorist honked and yelled out, “Good luck! We really need you!”
Here’s how that city’s system stacks up against New York.NY Post/Mike Guillen
New York’s sprawling, rickety subway system, which dates back to 1904, is a mess, plagued by aging equipment, legions of rats, frustrating daily delays and increasing numbers of homeless taking up residence in stations and on subway cars.
“We’ve got to take radical action,” Byford tells The Post, adding that his first priority is to get the entire system “running in a reliable fashion” before moving on to bigger projects such as modernizing an ancient signaling system, introducing new trains and installing payment systems that allow riders to swipe debit cards at turnstiles.
In January, there were 76,287 delays in weekday trains, up from 60,455 at the same time last year, according to an MTA report. The increase in delays was attributed to a combination of emergency repairs, homeless people seeking shelter from extreme cold and commuters trespassing on subway tracks.
Among Byford’s priorities are the much-needed repairs of the L-train tunnel that was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. That project, scheduled to begin in April 2019, is expected to shut down the L train — a major artery between Manhattan and Brooklyn — for 15 months. Byford has already convened town halls in both boroughs, promising residents express buses, a ferry and new bike routes to replace the train route once construction starts.
He is also in the midst of revamping the routes of Staten Island express buses, which are taking too long to get commuters into Manhattan. Byford said he is working with Borough President James Oddo and local residents to make sure the new routes are less circuitous and more efficient.
Byford says he will unveil a bold corporate plan in May. Right now, he is reluctant to say how long it will take him to address the most urgent problems but says he is already trying to shave three months off the planned 15 months to repair the L-train tunnel. Other repairs and the purchase of new equipment will also depend on how quickly government moves to provide him the financing he needs.
There is a risk to fail, but I don’t intend to do that
- Andy Byford
Last month — on the same day Byford set out on his weekly transit reconnaissance (“You can’t manage a transit system from behind your desk,” he says) — commuters could be forgiven for imagining the entire system was on the verge of collapse. Just before 6 p.m., the F and G trains were running with significant delays because of signal malfunctions at Bergen Street in Brooklyn. Some commuters reported being stuck between station stops for two hours. Service on the R, 7 and D lines were also disrupted after three people were hit by trains.
One woman who was stranded on a Brooklyn-bound G train took to Twitter to complain: “Stuck on the G train for almost two hours now like it’s the new home I never asked for,” she wrote.
Actress and playwright Zoe Kazan tweeted, “hey @MTA i just waited almost an hour for an F train to Brooklyn before giving up & taking a cab. at rush hour. do. your. job. better.”
Byford, whose grandfather was a bus driver in England, says he plans to do just that, although he concedes fixing New York City’s transit is the biggest challenge of his career.
“There is a risk to fail, but I don’t intend to do that,” he says. “I’m a very determined person, and I’m not afraid to tackle difficult jobs. I’m comfortable taking on hostile situations.”
Byford was hired in November and began work in New York in January. His salary is $325,000, which he points out is pretty much the same as he was making to run a much smaller system in Toronto.
During the transit meltdown a few weeks ago, Byford and Sarah Meyer, his newly appointed chief customer officer, took to Twitter to grapple with questions and complaints head on. In some cases, they responded directly in real time.
“Together, we agreed to the messaging,” Byford says. “I specifically asked that we be candid and sincere in saying that, with the signal issue at Bergen Street . . . we let people down.”
Byford is no stranger to controversy. Before his arrival in New York, he headed the Toronto Transit Commission for five years. He has also headed the transit commission in Sydney, Australia, and held several high-level positions with Transport for London.
The TTC was named transit system of the year by the American Public Transportation Association last year, and six new subway stations were completed under his watch. But transit critics in Toronto say Byford had it easy because the system was not in dire need of repair.
“Two of the major projects Andy did in Toronto were already underway before he arrived,” said Steve Munro, who has been a transit advocate in Toronto since the 1970s.
And the six new stations and updates to the signaling system were also in progress when Byford took over in 2012, Munro added.
Byford also was able to take full control in Toronto because his appointment coincided with the retirement of senior executives at the TTC. “He took organizational control right away,” said Munro. Despite his successes in Toronto, two transit workers were killed on the job.
“I had to tell the wives and visit the families and go to face their colleagues who wanted someone to blame,” Byford says.
He also had to contend with a meddling mayor who, in the early days of his term, regularly called Byford at home at 3 a.m. with transit-related questions.
“Hey, buddy, this is Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, and I’m standing at the corner and I’ve got someone here who wants to know where their bus is,” said Ford, whose tenure was marred by abuse of crack cocaine and alcohol before he died of cancer in 2016, aged 46.
Byford would gamely agree to speak to the person that Ford was standing with, adding that Ford never sounded drunk or coked up when he called. In the end, Byford said he didn’t mind the late-night calls.
“Rob Ford was obsessive about customer service,” he says. “He looked after the little man.”
Byford intends to do exactly the same in New York, even though his hectic first few weeks had him admitting it was a bit like “drinking from a fire hose” because of the sheer enormity and complexity of the job.
In Toronto, a city of just over 3 million people, he dealt with political fallout from two unions and managed 15,000 workers. The transit system moved 1.1 million riders every day. Bus riders made up 700,000 per day on a fleet of 1,900 buses.
In New York City, there are 20 unions, 50,000 employees, 5,750 buses, and the transit system moves more than 7 million on a daily basis. Of those riders, 2.3 million take the bus.
In an effort to learn the system, Byford has already started vetoing meetings at the head office at 2 Broadway so he can ride and get a firsthand look at problems on buses and the subway. Byford, who has degrees in German and French and began his transit career as foreman of Regent’s Park tube station on the London Underground, plans to ride every bus route (there are 300 in the city) and visit every subway station in New York.
We need to develop a team ethos and a real can-do spirit that we can leverage as a team.
- Andy Byford
He wants to hold executive meetings throughout the system — at bus depots, training facilities, repair shops — so that he and his staff can meet as many employees as possible and hear their concerns.
“I want to meet the janitor,” he told Frank Jezycki, acting senior vice president in charge of subways, who accompanied Byford on his recent tour.
In fact, Byford wasn’t satisfied until he met the entire cleaning crew of the Broadway Junction station in East New York, shaking hands and outlining his plans.
“I want people to catch my vibe early on,” Byford says. “We need to develop a team ethos and a real can-do spirit that we can leverage as a team.”
In Toronto, he attended 83 employee town halls, sometimes showing up for meetings at 3 a.m. to meet workers on the night shift.
“To people who sat in the back with their arms crossed — the errant wreckers, I like to call them — and said they’d heard it all before, I asked them when was the last time your CEO showed up at 3 a.m. for a meeting with you,” he says.
Byford says he’ll repeat this strategy in New York, although he and his wife, a bank-systems analyst from Ottawa, are still coming to terms with their new life.
“We’re really homesick for Toronto,” he admitted, adding the couple had been to New York only a few times (the first on their honeymoon in 1994) before he decided to take on his new job. They are living in temporary quarters in Chelsea, and his wife, Alison, has been “trolling” real-estate sites searching for an apartment. They do not have any children.
But despite the personal challenges, Byford says he loves his new job.
“I pinch myself every once in a while,” he says, a broad smile on his face. “I still can’t believe I’m here.”
Byford’s top priorities during his first year as president of NYC Transit
- Update deteriorating signal system, which causes delays
- Clean debris from train tunnels, which causes delays
- Fix L-train tunnel damaged during Sandy
- Update subway cars and other equipment