NYC Mayor Taps Three for MTA Board

New York City is poised to get three new representatives — all known as outspoken transit advocates — on the MTA board.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has nominated David Jones, Ydanis Rodriguez, and Veronica Vanterpool to serve, according to a city official who spoke on condition of anonymity because their nominations have not been announced publicly. Along with city Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, they round out the four seats that the city's mayor can name to the MTA board.

Currently, one city seat on the board is vacant, and two mayoral appointees — John Banks III and Jeffrey Kay — are holdovers whose terms have expired.

As head of the Community Service Society, David Jones has advocated for subsidized fares for low-income New Yorkers. City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez is chair of the Council's transportation committee; he's a supporter of Mayor de Blasio's Vision Zero street safety plan. (He also wants the MTA to study building a subway between Washington Heights and the East Bronx.) Veronica Vanterpool is the executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. Last year, she served on the governor's MTA Reinvention Commission.

The mayor's picks must be approved by the governor, who then must submits the names to the New York State Senate for confirmation. It wasn't immediately clear if the Senate would take up the nominations Wednesday, the last scheduled day of the session.

Governor Andrew Cuomo also recently named two people to the MTA board: his political ally Larry Schwartz, and Peter Ward, the president of the New York Hotel & Motel Trades Council.