The New York Observer » Andrew Cuomo

Chris Ward Responds to Port Authority Audit and New Role as Dragados Exec

It’s the day after the Port Authority released an audit of the agency and Chris Ward is sitting calmly in his new office above Bryant Park.

Coming off of more than three years as its top New York executive, Mr. Ward has no illusions how the bi-state agency is run.

The audit last week cited mismanagement at the Port Authority and spiraling costs at the World Trade Center site, findings that aren’t exactly revelatory. Swelling budgets have been a long-running problem at the complex site and criticisms have been lobbed before at the sprawling agency’s byzantine structure.

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Chris Ward Could Rebuild Cuomo’s Cherished Tappan Zee

Before he even took office, Governor Andrew Cuomo went and visited the Tappan Zee Bridge, and he has made the Hudson span an important policy priority—one that has angered some locals and transportation advocates as the project was fast-tracked at the same time that mass transit was stripped from the reconstruction plan.

Last week the Throughway Authority selected four partnerships in the running rebuild the bridge. Among them is a familiar face: Chris Ward. Read More

Port Authority Turnover to Blame for World Trade Center Overruns: Report

The frequent turnover at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s top position has helped contribute to escalating costs at the yet-to-be-completed World Trade Center site, according to a committee report released yesterday.
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Chris Ward Tapped as Executive Vice President of Dragados

Chris Ward, the former New York head of the Port Authority, is stepping into a new role, as an executive vice president of the large international construction company Dragados.
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Leading His Charge

Since 1986, Steven Spinola has served as president of the Real Estate Board of New York, the powerful lobbying arm that he has captained through two recessions, property tax reductions and a series of battles against the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Commercial Observer spoke to Mr. Spinola, 63, about what he learned in 2011, new battles for the New Year, his weakness for skiing and whether he’d rather be drinking with Robert Moses or Jane Jacobs. Hint: His answer probably won’t surprise anybody.
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The 1 Percent Shrug: New York’s Rich Are Cool With Cuomo’s Tax Tweak

In light of the passage of Governor Cuomo’s tax bill last week, The Observer decided to informally poll the rich. What’s your take, you happy few? Read More

Occupy the Toll Booth! Could OWS Revive Congestion Pricing?

Charles Komanoff, the hound of Manhattan traffic, penned an interesting column yesterday for Streetsblog arguing that the Occupy movement had the potential to bring congestion pricing back to life.

After all, the protesters, with their message of pervasive inequality, arguably helped put enough pressure on the Cuomo administration to embrace some form of higher taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers. Why couldn't some form of populist support do the same for tolls on East River bridges and the subsequent boost to clean air and mass transit that would come with it? Read More

Has Andrew Cuomo Killed Mass Transit on the Tappan Zee?

This week, The Observer looked at the loss of visionary planning and infrastructure investment in the country. We held up the Tappan Zee Bridge as a prime example of the conflicts of building in this day and age. On the one hand, Governor Andrew Cuomo deserves a lot of credit for finally kick-starting a project that has been debated for almost a decade as its structural integrity continued to deteriorate.

Yet to keep the project within the budget parameters he set out, the governor cut mass transit out of the project, a setback for locals already frustrated by congestion on the thoroughfare. The Cuomo administration has stressed that the bridge will still be able to add mass transit in the future. As Streetsblog thoughtfully explained yesterday, the odds that will ever be realized is now all but impossible. Read More

Raiders of the Lost ARC: Christie, Cuomo and the Collapse of American Infrastructure

Robert Moses built as often with expressions and syllogism as with stone and steel. “The important thing is to get things done.” “If the end doesn’t justify the means, what does?” “Either you want it or you don’t want it, and either you want it now or you don’t get it at all.”

They peppered his conversations and correspondence and were bellowed at rooms full of subservient staff, intransigent politicians and hostile citizens. The most influential and enduring of his maxims is undoubtedly: “Once you sink that first stake, they’ll never make you pull it up.”

More than the thousands of miles of roads and bridges and tunnels, the grand parks and parkways, the exhibition centers and fairs, more than the innumerable demolished homes and displaced families, the congestion and pollution, the social unrest—more than anything that Moses built or destroyed, this idea, get the shovels in the ground and there will be no stopping us, shaped the country’s public works ethos.

While his projects were largely confined to New York, his ideas about how, and why, to build persisted across the country. Sure, there were the acolytes who parroted Moses ideas' of urban renewal in cities across America, but they fell out of favor not long after their patron fell from power. How to build, and more importantly how to keep building, persisted for decades after Moses was deposed. For almost 30 years after he was laid to rest in 1981, Moses’ spirit lived on in infrastructure.

Sink those stakes, and the money will follow for more. It always does.

Then, almost over night, we gave up the ghost. It did not start with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his decision to cancel the ARC Tunnel—recall the Congressional fight over much-maligned stimulus spending—but that was certainly the clarion call. Read More

Governor Cuomo Could Care Less About the M.T.A. and the Port Authority

Just not much less than he already does.

At least that is the impression given by our former colleagues over at Capital and WNYC, who point out that in the governor's recently released schedules, no mentions are made of meetings with either agency's head, Jay Walder or Chris Ward. As The Observer has previously reported, the governor has had limited contact with either Mr. Walder or Mr. Ward, despite their being in charge of two of the state's most important and powerful agencies. Read More

The Official 9/11 Flag, Newest Piece of the Memorial Economy

The 9/11 memorabilia economy has generated millions, perhaps even billions of dollars over the past decade. There have been snow globes and statuettes, posters and flip books. Flags are not uncommon, but typically they are of the red-white-and-blue extraction. Now, thanks to Governor Andrew Cuomo and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, we have an official 9/11 flag, which was unveiled at the museum yesterday. Read More

Legalizing Online Gambling Is a Good Bet

It’s no secret that local and state governments are starved for revenue. Fortunately, most have avoided broad-based tax increases that kill economic growth and the jobs that come with it. But governments have been less wise and less creative when it comes to producing new revenue streams. With any luck, that’s about to change. States Read More

No Time for Toll Hikes

Talk about lousy timing. As fears spread about the possibility of a double-dip recession and elected officials struggle to deal with a sluggish economy, the Port Authority announced that it would like very much to raise tolls and fares by about 50 percent, thank you very much. Not a chance. Govs. Andrew Cuomo and Chris Read More

If I Were Driving This Train: One N Rider’s Platform for Fixing the M.T.A.

The first thing on my platform is that the next M.T.A. chief need not be a train buff. He or she—or me specifically, since I’m hereby throwing my name out there—has to appreciate the economic essentiality of the authority, which moves the equivalent of New Jersey’s population (8.5 million, give or take) every weekday. But this is not a Lionel set; this is dollars and nonsense.

The next chief should know more about transit financing, particularly the warren navigated in simply keeping the four-pronged monster afloat. As it stands now, it’s a ready-made punch line, with the nation’s largest transit system held hostage to a dysfunctional Albany. Read More

Governor Cuomo’s Congestion Pricing U-Turn

Transit wonks are hoping Governor Andrew Cuomo might still be their secret savior, and it's starting to look like he might be. Not only has the governor selected a crack team to replace outgoing M.T.A. chief Jay Walder, but he is even said to be considering the impossible—congestion pricing. Read More