As Subway Riders Fume, City and State Leaders Are Mostly Mum

By Emma G. Ftizsimmons and J. David Goodman 

A signal malfunction at the height of the morning commute in New York City upends subway service from Brooklyn to the Bronx. Switch problems leave riders stranded across Brooklyn. A power failure at just one Manhattan station snarls nearly a dozen of the system’s 22 lines.

Through this list of recent woes, the person most responsible for ensuring that the trains run on time, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, has remained mostly silent as subway service gets worse by the day.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who may be weighing a presidential run in 2020, has eagerly sought to burnish his legacy by focusing on infrastructure, from personally unveiling the first part of the Second Avenue subway to taking an inaugural joy ride across the new Kosciuszko Bridge. But the subway, the lifeblood of the city and arguably the most critical piece of infrastructure Mr. Cuomo controls, is falling apart on his watch.

“Governor Cuomo shows up to open the Second Avenue subway, but he’s missing in action for the day-to-day disaster that transit riders are experiencing,” John Raskin, the executive director of Riders Alliance, an advocacy group, said after the last major disruption.

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Source: The New York Times (via The Empire Report)