Janno Lieber

Listen, ice is the enemy of good service on rail, right?

So you have to run your de-icing trains constantly, make sure that the switches don't actually freeze up.

And we have maintainers literally standing by our major switches, our major interlockings to constantly de-ice.

But we got all the snow by running service yesterday right through the system.

We got the snow off of the third rail.

We've been maximizing our use of diesel engines on the commuter rails, which don't depend on the third rail.

And we're going to keep at it.

So there are new challenges brought on by icing, especially for the bus system, which is 100% chained.

All the wheels are chained.

But we're going to keep managing through.

You know, today is today's really about the muscling through the storm, honestly.

But but, you know, I'll just say this is that the mayor, the new mayor, Mamdani, is very pro transit.

And I welcome that.

I've also made clear that, you know, if we're going to talk about something as radical and as as impactful as making a whole section of our system free,

We need to do a ton of study and it's not a flip the switch type thing.

So I'm sure that, you know, the governor who is leading, you know, with her state of the state message, making a lot of investments, but also mindful of the we've brought the MTA back to financial stability under Hochul's leadership.

And we don't want to mess with that.

So we'll be moving methodically under Governor Hochul on addressing this idea.