The chairman of the MTA, Joe Lhota, has resigned his post.
Lhota's resignation Friday comes after Governor Cuomo clinched a third term in Tuesday's midterm elections.
He was picked to chair the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last year for a second time, after leading the agency through Hurricane Sandy during the year he served in 2012. Fernando Ferrer, the vice chair of the MTA board, will serve as acting chairman.

These webinars will cover aspects of BraunAbility Dual Parallel Arm (DPA) lift products, including identification, maintenance and repair procedures. BraunAbility Lifts covered are Century, Millennium, and Vista. It is intended to provide you the information to properly maintain and repair BraunAbility DPA lifts. This course is not a BraunAbility certification or recertification course.

Battery and electric vehicle pioneer and global leader BYD (Build Your Dreams) announced the recent addition of two new North America transportation professionals, Randy Premo and Karl Wheeler, for its East Coast team.
Premo will serve as BYD’s Regional Sales Manager, Northeast, which includes Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Wheeler, as BYD’s Regional Sales Manager, Mid-Atlantic, will cover Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia.


KEY SUPPORTERS

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced next year's priorities for his Democratic conference in a release sent out last week. Most of the issues, including election law reform and the Reproductive Health Act, are items that perennially pass his chamber only to stall in the Senate.
But with Democrats now firmly in control of both houses of the Legislature, Heastie said it is time "to craft an action agenda that puts New York's families first."
His call for action on transit read, "New York is home to one of the hardest working transportation networks in the country. For the MTA to keep New Yorkers and the millions of people who come to our city moving, we need to identify new sustainable funding sources that will support critical capital and operating needs.
"But it is not just the MTA – we must focus on transportation systems upstate and in every region. Our infrastructure is aging and in desperate need of repairs. We will continue to support funding for maintenance so our state and local roads, railways and bridges keep us moving forward safely and efficiently."
Bill Carpenter, president of the New York Public Transit Association and chief executive officer of Regional Transit Service in Rochester issued a statement applauding the Assembly Speaker for his leadership on transit needs:
"As the demands of transit riders statewide have increased, it has never been more important to look for new, long-term solutions that will ensure transit remains a key tool for supporting our economies and communities. We thank Speaker Heastie and his colleagues in the Assembly for their leadership on investments in transit services across the state and look forward to working with them in the coming year to achieve success."
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced a final rule to amend Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that will accelerate project delivery. To date, the new rule is one of the department’s most expansive regulatory realignments of federal environmental transportation policy.
Last week, Cleveland celebrated the 10th anniversary of its famous Bus Rapid Transit line, the Healthline. Inspired by the success of Curitiba, Brazil’s BRT line, the project was meant to serve as a demonstration project for bus rapid transit in U.S. cities.
The “demonstration” worked as planned. Cleveland’s $200-million, nine-mile project has inspired cities around the country, including Albuquerque’s soon-to-open ART and Indianapolis’s under-construction Red Line, and Richmond’s just-opened “the Pulse.”
The anniversary of the Healthline made us wonder: How are the earliest bus rapid transit examples in the U.S. performing?

Every day in the Seattle region, Uber and Lyft provide more rides than:
- Sound Transit light rail (77,576 rides on a typical weekday)
- The population of Bellingham (89,045)
- The number of votes that decided the 2016 presidential election (77,744 combined in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania)
The two ride-hailing giants provided more than 91,000 rides on an average day in the second quarter of this year, according to ridership reports the companies filed with the city, recently made publicly available for the first time.


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