Andrew Cuomo's naked hostility drives out MTA president Andy Byford, the "Train Daddy" who has transformed the world's rail systems

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/26/micromanaging-dick.html

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More like Boss Tweed. How he keeps getting re-elected by the supposedly progressive New York electorate after all his petty hissy-fits have cost them escapes me.

And yes, I know Texas politics is fucked up. But I also know why Texas politics is fucked up.

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Yup. This is bad.
He was liked by both the transit employees and the riders.
I feel like service has already declined in the past few days.

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Can somebody from NYC name a good mayor?

The only ones I can think of are enormous assholes.

Rudy Guiliani is a waste of life

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Nope.

But also, Cuomo is the governor of New York State, not mayor of New York City. The MTA is a state-level organization, with transit lines extending out of NYC, into the suburbs and onward into New Jersey and Connecticut.

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He was also instrumental in counseling Mayor Lenny Clotch on who you gonna call to deal with Vigo the Carpathian…

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Why do the 1% continue to massively screw up public transit?
Don’t they realize this is how their cooks and cleaners get to work?

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I was gonna jump in with La Guardia, also. A 5’-2" powerhouse of a mayor!

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Because they know that having their cooks and cleaners angry at public transit means they won’t be angry at…other things.

Because it serves as a daily reminder to the masses that governments are ineffectual, and can’t be trusted with healthcare, welfare, education, or pensions.

Because it is something they don’t use, and so it is ‘waste’ and ‘inefficiency’ and can be cut with no impact on themselves. (If the help has to leave an hour earlier to arrive on time, well, that’s their problem. And just shows how much of a waste public transit is…)

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Have you seen the other option’s we’ve had? Right wing knobs, billionaire 3rd party bids. And the most recent primary challenger of any note was Cynthia Nixon. Who’s campaign focused almost exclusively on national politics and NYC, and was pretty obviously propped up by Bill De Blasio as a test case for his own ambitions.

Cuomo has a lock on the state level party, which tends to keep challenges to a minimum. To the point that he’s pretty constantly at odds with the national party, and politicians associated with it (this is a big part of the constant fight with De Blasio). So to a large extent it boils down to this guy or whoever the fuck the GOP is gonna throw at it. And here’s the thing the “supposedly progressive New York Electorate”. Is the electorate of New York City.

It’s a big state. And the bulk of it is deep red.


My own congressional district, on the east end of LI has Lee Zeldin as our congress critter. So it wouldn’t take much for the state to flip.

Basically the thrust for in state politics for the last few elections has been to flip our legislature from GOP control. Cause till 2018 we had a GOP controlled legislature, both houses. Despite technically having a 2 seat Democratic majority in the senate. Cause Cuomo spent most of his time in office being “bipartisan”, IE starting fights with NYC and passing whatever the state GOP wanted. Dems took control in 2018, now he’s a vocal champion of the progressive movement. And we’re finally doing things like reforming our election laws.

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They like their politicians corrupt in NY. I don’t really know why, buy it is a defining feature of the political climate there. They also like to have overbearing and unaccountable bureaucrats involved in everything.

I’d be very curious to see the details of the appropriations and bidding process that led to this.

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Byford is the person who, when asked his favorite seat in that recent viral image, said:

I don’t usually use seats when I ride because they are for customers

This guy. This F Train—ing guy.

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Cuomo is a serious sack of shit. Frankly I’m giving the Dems a few more years, and if they continue to fail en masse, I will finally support third-party or preferably non-party-aligned disrupters. The parties probably need to be burned to the ground at this point.

Cuomo ruins everything. The guy can’t even smile without looking like he’s trying to pass a particularly gnarly stool. Losing a treasure like Byford, possibly the only person on the planet capable of saving the MTA, due to ego is typical (with the expensive self-justifying management consulting report being the cherry on his sh"t sundae).

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I’d love to ask him: Rob & Doug Ford or Cuomo: Which is worse?

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Who is this?

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Please come to Boston MA, Mr. Byford.

Please.

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Free Charlie!

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