Train Daddy vs. Sexual Harassment Cuomo

Hello friend!

We’re back with another newsletter and also some good news: we’re doing another live Climate Town Town Hall show at one of the best comedy venues in the country, the Bell House in Brooklyn. But the bad news? The show was last week, so if you wanted to go, that’s too bad, you missed it. It was a great show, hopefully we’ll catch you at the next one (photo by the very talented Noah Eberhart).

We’re furiously cranking away on the edit for our next episode, which should be out by the end of next week. So let’s get right into it.

And as always, if you’re desperate to click something, the unsubscribe button is higher in the scroll than any local garden center would dare dream of. They’d rather burn the tomato starts to the ground than put the unsubscribe button as high up as we did.

For everyone else sticking around:

The War on the War on Traffic

For the past few months, drivers entering the lower part of Manhattan have been charged a congestion relief zone toll of $9 ($2.25 off-peak) once a day, to come and go as they please. It’s generally referred to as congestion pricing and here’s how advocates thought it would work:

1. A relatively small toll (cheaper than round trip on most tolled bridges and tunnels in NYC) will deter drivers who have other ways of getting to Manhattan.

2. With less traffic on the road, the cars that do enter the congestion pricing zone will be able to move faster, shortening travel times.

3. And also with less cars on the road, buses will move faster, there will be fewer accidents, cyclists won’t have to worry about being squished, etc.

And it’s going to be hard to believe because the same exact thing happened in London, an extremely similar city, but so far:

Congestion pricing in NYC is off to a great start.

Don’t believe us? That’s fine, here’s a helpful chart from the New York Times, good lord they really have some of the best graphics people in all of print media:

We also made a whole video about this, you can watch it and see what you think for yourself. But since we shot that video in mid-March, there’s been a new development.

While on the campaign trail, Trump vowed to end congestion pricing if elected, and about a month into New York implementing the traffic program, the Trump-led U.S. government decided that was a promise the Donald would keep. Technically this is the same U.S. government that had already signed off on congestion pricing months earlier, after years of discussion.

So the new U.S. Secretary of Transportation and former Real World Boston cast member Sean Duffy sent this letter to NY Governor Kathy Hochul, telling her that they’re pulling federal approval for congestion pricing. And even though the letter was pretty long and sounded mostly official, a good number of legal experts said it didn’t make much sense. Unfortunately for Duffy, some of those lawyers were ON HIS OWN LEGAL TEAM.

That’s right, imagine the absolute worst move you could make at your job. Okay, keep that in your head as you’re reading this: A few weeks after we released our video, a letter from federal lawyers defending the U.S. DOT was accidentally filed in court, making it public. And the first section is simply entitled The Court Is Unlikely To Uphold FHWA’s Stated Rationale for Terminating the CBDTP Agreement. It’s a lot of legalese, but imagine butt-dialing someone you were actively trash-talking, and you’re in the right ballpark.

But unfortunately, if you try and ask Sean Duffy about something that’s not going well for him, you might get this powerful evasive maneuver:

I’ll be specific on things that I want to talk about.

But despite its early success and advocate support, congestion pricing in NYC didn’t just come from a pure desire to enact totally reasonable urban planning policy. In 2017, the late Governor* Andrew Cuomo dug up the Bloomberg-era congestion pricing proposal as a way to fund the MTA (the same MTA Cuomo had diverted money away from in his first 6 years as governor).

*Note: by “late Governor”, we do not mean that he’s not alive anymore. Andrew Cuomo is still alive. But Andrew Cuomo did pass away politically in 2021 after back-to-back massive scandals. But then, somehow, he has been politically resuscitated and he’s, somehow, running for NYC mayor, despite trying to be seen as little as humanly possible.

But years before congestion pricing launched, there was another way to help save the largest mass transit system in the world:

Get someone who’s actually good at running the subway.

But there was about to be a problem with that: Cuomo didn’t seem to like it very much when someone else succeeded.

But first, a word from our sponsor:

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Train Daddy vs. Sexual Harassment Cuomo

The year was 2017 and the subways were such d***g sh*****t that everyone called it the Summer of Hell.

And after an exhaustive search for hope, New York state officials believed they’d found the man who could finally turn things around:

Andy Byford.

A very British man in his early 50s at the time, Andy Byford loves trains. We don’t want to say he loves trains more than anything else, we don’t know that much about him personally. But he definitely f*cking loves trains and is also very good at them.

• Byford got his start as a graduate trainee (good start already) for the London Underground in his early 20s, then he worked his way up through the ranks of the Underground and regional train systems in Britain over the next couple decades.

• After a stint in Sydney, Byford was hired to turn around the struggling Toronto subway system in 2012. And after 5 years as Toronto Transit Commission CEO, they received the award for Outstanding Transit System of the Year from the American Public Transportation Association, which Toronto hadn’t won in over 30 years.

• Andy’s also the third Byford generation in a row to work for London transport, after his father and grandfather.

So it was this transit-obsessed Andy Byford who was hired as the president of New York City Transit Authority, taking over the operations of 50,000 employees and a seriously struggling subway system.

The crowd goes wild and screams: how seriously struggling was it?

Well, in early 2018, the New York Times put out a series of very well researched pieces detailing the subway issues - and instead of just parroting their work, here are three quotes and a nice chart:

New York’s subway now has the worst on-time performance of any major rapid transit system in the world, according to data collected from the 20 biggest. Just 65 percent of weekday trains reach their destinations on time, the lowest rate since the transit crisis of the 1970s, when graffiti-covered cars regularly broke down.

For years, officials had only partly funded signal repairs and replacements. Much of the subway’s signaling equipment was decades beyond its life span. Just a few months before Ms. Muteba’s ill-fated commute, the M.T.A. had cut signal funding by $500 million to support projects favored by Mr. Cuomo. Internal M.T.A. records show that on the morning of July 17, at least 124 delays were caused by signal issues on the 2, 4, E, F, G, J and M lines.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said David L. Gunn, a former transit system president who helped drag the subways out of the 1970s crisis only to see the system deteriorate again. “I actually lose sleep over it. I get so mad when I see what’s happening.”

After just a few months, the Byford-led NYCTA developed and released his opus, the 75-page Fast Forward: The Plan to Modernize New York City Transit.

And while Fast Forward was a massive plan requiring billions of dollars to complete, Byford also led more targeted initiatives, like focusing on accessibility at stations and launching the Save Safe Seconds program, which focused on signal improvements to get trains running faster and more efficiently.

The subway system last month had an on-time rate of 84 percent … up from 58 percent in 2018.

When there was a series of assaults on conductors, Byford rode the trains himself to show solidarity:

Byford became a beloved figure across the city, which you would have thought was almost impossible for the head of NYC Transit just a couple years after the Summer of Hell. A writer in Brooklyn even made these absolutely terrifying stickers, which debuted the nickname that would go on to define Byford’s time in NYC:

Train Daddy.

But in the midst of all of this success and praise, Andy Byford seemed to forget one critical aspect of his new job:

He needed to make Andrew Cuomo happy and feel good and not feel threatened.

According to Byford himself (in an interview from 2024), he made two fatal errors that were instrumental in his downfall: he got good publicity. Twice.

“One of the mistakes I have to say was not really of my own making. I was asked - I didn't ask to do this - I was asked by the comms team, because we were really trying to promote what we were doing to improve service, I was asked to do two things: one, would I accept being profiled by the New Yorker magazine and so you okay I'll do that. I didn't know how big a deal that was and I was followed around by a fabulous journalist for maybe a month and then this quite extensive profile was written of me.”

That New Yorker piece, written by William Finnegan, is in fact fabulous. Imagine if Paddington got hit by a train, but instead of hurting that little bear, it’s like the spider in Spider-Man and the train infects Paddington with a deep, unassailable connection to anything on rails. Maybe that’s more like the basketball in Space Jam. Either one really. In any case, that’s how Byford comes off in this piece. You should really read the whole thing.

And then there’s the second mistake AKA the big one:

“The other big deal - and I didn't realize this at all - was I was asked to go on 60 Minutes.”

BIG MISTAKE ANDY. THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ANDREW.

“It turns out the governor had always wanted to be on 60 Minutes and I think, couldn't believe, and was very annoyed by this upstart, this newbie, this person not even from here who's suddenly garnering all this attention.”

Here’s a two minute clip of the 60 Minutes piece that apparently personally devastated Cuomo, including reference to the completely crazy plans from Cuomo and former NYC mayor Bill De Blasio to implement congestion pricing and also tax very rich people more. You simply can’t do both!

Even though both features on Byford were very nice and quite normal, the popularity damage was done. As Byford’s second year was swinging along, things started to turn behind the scenes. Or, as one sick and likely twisted local news anchor put it:

To use a transit analogy, Andy Byford fled the MTA because he felt like he had been tied to the tracks while a train driven by Andrew Cuomo cut his legs off.

The two men didn’t speak for months at a time. They fought over an abrupt Cuomo-led reversal in the high profile plan to shut down the L train for repairs. Cuomo and his aides started cutting Byford out of decision making where they could, before they officially restructured his role at the NYCTA, reducing his oversight of the division. Once again from the Byford himself:

I had to make my own mind up, as a person with very strong principles. Can I accept a situation where I'm in a safety critical role and people are being given direction on operational matters behind my back?

So in October 2019, after less than two years on the job, Andy Byford submitted his resignation. Then apparently the chairman of the MTA and the president of the Partnership for NYC begged Byford to have lunch with them at the oldest bar in NYC, so they could beg him to stay. This very old restaurant serves steak “on a hot lava stone”, which does not sound very good. But perhaps Andy Byford got the Jumbo Pretzel, because he agreed to stay.

Until just a few months later, in January 2020. When Andy Byford resigned once again. But this time for good. Hot rock steak.

The Byford-Cuomo estrangement was highly unusual. Governors have always held considerable power over the M.T.A., but until the last four years, they had so little to do with transit leaders that a feud between them was no more likely than a couple who had never met announcing their divorce.

On Byford’s final day, a huge crowd of people gathered in the lobby of the NYCT building to send him off. He had no choice but to speak to the crowd for a bit, then finished with this:

Train Daddy has left the building.

From there, Byford went to lunch with Pete Tomlin, the lauded engineer he had picked to run the resignaling program, which Byford intended to oversee during the 5-10 years he planned to work in NYC. Tomlin resigned the day after Byford.

“When was the last time an average New Yorker on the street knew the name of the head of a transit agency?” It really was an unusual blow.

A year and a half later, Cuomo would also resign. And we do want to acknowledge that there are at least two sides to this coda. Cuomo had this to say: “in my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone.” But then the Department of Justice took a few years to investigate and had this to say:

At the conclusion of the investigation, the United States found that former Governor Cuomo subjected at least thirteen female employees of New York State, including Executive Chamber employees, to a sexually hostile work environment.

The United States also found that Cuomo’s senior staff were aware of his conduct and retaliated against four of the women he harassed.

And it is hard to know if Cuomo was saying that he never sexually harassed the thirteen female employees, or if he was actually saying that his senior staff never retaliated against four of the women. Or maybe he’s talking about some other lines he also never crossed. One thing’s for sure, he is definitely somehow running for mayor of New York City right now.

Did I always do everything right in my years of government service? Of course not. Would I do some things differently knowing what I know now? Certainly. Did I make mistakes, some painfully? Definitely and I believe I learned from them and that I am a better person for it.

As for Byford, he’s once again right where he should be: back in the U.S. and in charge of expanding high speed rail for Amtrak. This man loves trains.

Official Rollie (no prize)

For this installment of Official Rollie (no prize), we want to keep things simple.

You have one (1) week (week) from the release of this newsletter to take a photo from inside a train and send it to us.

1. You are not required to be in the photo yourself, although that could be nice.

2. The train does not need to be actively moving at the time of the photo.

3. It must be a photo, not a video, we don’t like videos and we won’t watch it, we don’t even watch our own videos.

As for last edition’s Official Rollie (no prize), we tasked you all with finding a copy of the movie Sling Blade. We thought this would be difficult, because it’s not readily available on streaming services in the U.S. But it was actually pretty easy for a lot of you. Fortunately for us, there is no prize.

Here are your honorable, tech-savvy Official Rollie (no prize) recipients:

• Michael Anderson

• Gilbert Dowding

• Matt Hummel

• Juan Ignacio Serra

• Inigo Montoya

• Loren Naegle

• Jay Speights

• Kyle Van Klompenburg

• Hermanth [Redacted]

• Justin [Redacted]

• X X [Redacted]

How about that, friend?

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Well that's the end of the newsletter. If you want to send in a question, all you have to do is respond to this email. Or contact us directly at newsletter@climatetown.tv. We may never answer it, but you never know.

Also, if you think you found a mistake, let us know. We try our very best to research and review our way to full accuracy, but it's a big world out there.

Edited by: Caroline Schaper

Legal support from: The Civil Liberties Defense Center

Executive produced by: Matt Nelsen and Rollie Williams