Also, how does the Governor have any say over the city subway system?

The MTA is a state run agency that was formed in part to undermine the downstate political machine led by Robert Moses who is like the archetypal 20th century carbrained racist that was instrumental in the destruction of poor and minority neighborhoods to build highways and who purposefully sabotaged the development and operation of New York’s mass transit systems for literal decades. His legacy lives on in the lack of rail connections both in NYC proper but also across most of Long Island. There’s also a rich history of belligerence between the state government and city government, and like a lot of places especially in the northeast US a product of that is a spaghetti bowl of adversarial, duplicative, and parochial governing and rulemaking bodies that all get to have a say and dip their beaks.

Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo constantly fought over shit like petty children. Cuomo’s enormous ego tripping was especially noxious, leading to high-profile controversies like the last-minute shitcanning of the repair of an old but crucial subway tunnel that ran under the East River that got flooded during Hurricane Sandy. This also resulted in nixing a really promising busway pilot the MTA had planned after an extensive, nasty community engagement process that would’ve seen 14th Street in Manhattan closed to mostly everything but buses that would replace subway service during the 18 months it would take to do the repairs. This, among other political encumbrances, was likely a large factor in Andy Byford’s resignation barely two years into the job. Cuomo is that much of a shitheel that he sandbagged and ostracized a guy his own board appointed either as a way to stick it to the NYC mayor or because Byford was actually trying to turn things around, getting recognized for it, and putting pressure on Albany to act.

All of this type of shit has left scars all over the state and it’s just sad in the end. So many communities decimated by poor planning and political dick-swinging. As much as I miss living there—because it is truly a cool place to live/work/visit and riding trains and buses everywhere is dope and it’s one of the only places in Amerikkka you can actually do that—I don’t think I could ever hack it in NYC today. It just seems like it’s become so much more of an oppressive place since I moved out a decade ago, but maybe it’s also that I’m not a carefree lib anymore lol. Either way, fuck all these pigs and fuck this absolute clown shit.