Jay Walder resigns, heads to Hong Kong MTR

[Bombardier01800]

What? care about what? They care about a good transit system that meets their expectations and paying the expensive fares

[Dj Hammers]

I have been commuting in to the city for summer classes for 2 weeks now, and I can personally attest that the
new things that Walder implemented in his short 2 years are really great.

From the firsthand view of a rider, Walder was pretty good.

[Lance]

He did his best with what he had.  Albany screwed the MTA over, the Union and its members get pay raises screwing the MTA again.  You have 2 groups pulling the legs of the MTA, I think Walder did an exceptional job trying to balance them.  There is no way you can satisfy everybody in that sort of situation.  The service cuts were inevitable really.  Perhaps the money used to innovate the technology in the system could've been used to hold back the cuts or a fare hike, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't enough being that the countdown clocks were relatively inexpensive, and the new website job and advertising campaigns are merely specks of dust admist the whole financial crisis.

RE: Countdown clocks:
The clocks were paid for in the 2005-09 capital budget and a good chunk of the boards were installed in 2008, so that wouldn't have saved much money. All the MTA did starting last year was turn them on. Plus, the clocks are just a minor (and less expensive) part of the ATS system that was installed a few years ago.

[coneyislandDFNQ]

To add to what Lance said if you take a nice gander down at Stillwell Avenue they finally put up the actual LCD screen that was proposed about the same time those countdown clocks were ordered.

[Rayvon]

walder didn't really do anything, I think he wasted more money than he should have and the stuff I've seen in the works is not promising.

[Lance]

What could he do? He was brought on board in 2009.  At that point, the budget was already in the toilets and as you may remember, we were facing the '09 service cuts ((W), (Z) eliminated; (M) cut to Chambers St, rush hrs). You can't really do much when you don't have any money and the stuff he did do, like the station rehab projects on the Pelham and Brighton lines or the implementation of the ATS system on the IRT lines, was already paid for in the previous capital budget program.

[Rayvon]

What could he do? He was brought on board in 2009.  At that point, the budget was already in the toilets and as you may remember, we were facing the '09 service cuts ((W), (Z) eliminated; (M) cut to Chambers St, rush hrs). You can't really do much when you don't have any money and the stuff he did do, like the station rehab projects on the Pelham and Brighton lines or the implementation of the ATS system on the IRT lines, was already paid for in the previous capital budget program.

Which is why he didn't really do anything up until now, Retrofitting Old cars with FIND is a stupid idea though that he signed off on and is already in the works.