MTA Offers Top Job to N.Y. Transit Official

After a frustrating months-long search and a disappointing rejection by its first choice, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board of directors voted unanimously Tuesday to offer the troubled agency’s top job to New York City transit executive Michael C. Ascher.

Though Ascher--unlike Theodore Weikel, the board’s initial selection--is expected to take the job, the prospective chief executive officer harbors no illusions about the politically difficult task ahead of him.

“This may be the last time I’m seen smiling,” Ascher joked shortly after the board’s vote.

An employment contract still must be negotiated. But Ascher, who oversees bridges and tunnels for New York’s MTA, is expected to be offered a compensation package worth at least $185,000 a year to become the third CEO in the Los Angeles County agency’s four-year history.

Though Ascher was Mayor Richard Riordan’s third choice for the job, the board chairman praised the 53-year-old executive as a “strong, no-bull CEO” who will bring order to the problem-plagued agency.

The new CEO will be responsible for implementing court-ordered improvements in a bus system with more than 1 million boardings a day, for rescuing the agency’s much-maligned $6.1-billion subway construction project and for overseeing development of the county’s transportation system for the 21st century.

In a brief interview after his selection, Ascher said one of his first priorities will be “to restore confidence on the part of the MTA board in what the agency is capable of doing.”

Ascher also said “the bus system needs to be freshened up. We need to bring some of the rail projects to successful completion. We need to sort out some spending priorities.”

MTA officials were eager to fill the CEO job, which has been vacant since January, when Joseph E. Drew resigned, citing political infighting and “public hypercriticism” of him and his staff. The first MTA chief, Franklin E. White, served 32 months before he was fired in 1995.

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Asked why he would want the job, Ascher responded: “This is clearly the ultimate challenge.”

His first test will come when he attempts to meet federal demands for a new plan showing how the agency intends to fund bus improvements and all of its promised rail lines. The MTA must win back Washington’s confidence in its operations or risk losing the federal dollars, which fund about half the subway construction. A new “recovery plan” could include delays in rail projects favored by some of his new bosses.

County Supervisor and MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky said Ascher gave the board a “straightforward and sobering assessment” on how to deal with its fiscal problems, including slowing down or stopping new rail construction until the MTA has put its fiscal house in order.

“Ascher is not going to be the messiah. He can’t do it alone,” Yaroslavsky said, adding that the board must “surrender some of its appetite for doing everything.”

Riordan, who reportedly wants the next CEO to shake up the agency’s top ranks, said he believes Ascher will scrutinize the $2.8-billion MTA budget to find out how much money is available for various programs. “He wants the truth to come out as to what the true budget is,” Riordan said.

Ascher, a former chief engineer of the New York City Transit Authority, said he believes he is up to the task, telling the MTA board that the problems in Los Angeles are nothing like the ones he faced in New York.

Ascher--a boating enthusiast--compared the transit system he was asked to rescue a decade ago in New York to a ship that had sunk.

“He said that here, the ship is still afloat,” said an MTA official who sat in on the interview with Ascher.

While Ascher has received high marks in construction, the MTA executive search firm raised concerns about his lack of experience in bus operations.

Ascher said he was surprised by the comment. “In undertaking a $6-billion capital construction program, we did an extraordinary amount of work in freshening up bus operations,” he said. “While it is true I did not have accountability for operations of the bus system in New York, the working relationship with the operations folks in helping rescue a system, frankly larger than the one here, certainly has given me the exposure I think is needed to understand the bus business as well as the rail side.”

Ascher impressed board members by doing his homework on the MTA, including speaking with previous CEOs and officials in Sacramento and Washington and touring the Los Angeles subway.

During Tuesday’s closed-door session, MTA board member James Cragin said he asked Ascher what he expects from the politically fractious board.

Ascher responded, according to Cragin, that once MTA directors make a decision, everybody should get on board.

“His promises are outstanding,” Yaroslavsky said. “The test will be whether the performance meets the promise.”