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| Hong Kong bound Jay Walder cites budget crunch for widespread service cuts during tenure (1106112) | |||
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Hong Kong bound Jay Walder cites budget crunch for widespread service cuts during tenure |
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Posted by Gold_12TH on Wed Sep 28 18:37:22 2011 It’s not just straphangers that wish subway service was better — so does outgoing MTA chairman Jay Walder.The departing transit boss — sounding a little wistful at his last MTA board meeting — said that he would’ve liked to have done more to improve the city’s mass transit system but was hampered by severe budget problems. “In a different world, in a different way, all of the energy would’ve gone to improving services and that would have been great,” Walder said after the meeting. “You have to play the hand you’re dealt and the hand we were dealt was one that this was a very, very difficult time financially and we had to focus a lot on dealing with those financial uncertainties.” During his tenure as MTA chief, Walder oversaw some of the worst service cuts in a generation in order to close a $900 million budget gap. His last day at the agency will be Oct. 21. Walder — who is going to head the Hong Kong subway system — said he will spend some of the next few weeks studying Chinese. “I’m probably going to go down to the Rosetta Stone store downstairs,” Walder said after admitting he speaks neither Cantonese or Mandarin. He took pains to praise the MTA and said he was proud of his tenure there. “I’m proud of what we have done to make our city, our region, a better place,” Walder said. He had especially kind words for the transit agency heads and all of the over 60,000 MTA workers who run the system every day. “When . . . we say we’re going to get something done, the results are truly incredible,” Walder told the MTA board. The agency’s response to Tropical Storm Irene proved that they could mobilize quickly and efficiently, he said. “When we started [the subway] up, New York started up again,” he said. Gov. Cuomo has not yet chosen a successor to replace him. --- http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/outgoing_during_head_cites_budget_yFYRCf47J46xYNU6y37hUJ#ixzz1ZI0PkuL1 |
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