Richard Davey to Lead NYCT

Richard Davey, incoming President, MTA New York City Transit

Former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Richard Davey has been named President of MTA New York City Transit (NYCT), effective May 2.

Davey succeeds Craig Cipriano, who has served as interim President since August 2021 and will assume the role of NYCT Chief Operating Officer.

At NYCT, Davey will oversee a 54,000-person workforce, as well as operations for New York City subways, buses, paratransit services and the Staten Island Railway. He is currently serving as Partner and Director of Boston Consulting Group.

Davey’s transit career began in 2003 at Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company (MBCR). In 2008, he was promoted to General Manager, and in 2010 took on the General Manager role at Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). He has also held the positions of Vice President, Public/Private Partnerships and Senior Advisor to the CEO at Transdev (2016-17); CEO of Boston 2024 (2015), which led the campaign for Boston to host the 2024 Summer Olympics; and Secretary and CEO of MassDOT (2011-14), where he was responsible for the operation of the state’s highways, bridges and tunnels, and freight and passenger rail programs, as well as 15 regional transit agencies and 36 airports.

“To take over an operation as large as New York City Transit, the goal was to find someone with a diversified transit background and strong leadership skills,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said during the March 23 announcement. “Rich is someone New Yorkers should feel confident in as the agency moves forward with major accessibility improvements and other capacity and reliability-oriented upgrades like signal modernization, as well as megaprojects such as Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway and, in years to come, Governor Hochul’s Interborough Express.”

“I share the same principles as Chair Lieber—delivering on-time and efficient service, welcoming customers to a safe environment, and constantly looking at ways to improve the system,” said Davey, who noted that “[l]iving in New York during 9/11 was a seminal moment in my life. My experience being a New Yorker that day at that time is why I am coming back, because public service and more importantly public transportation is so important to me.”