NJ Transit Chief Will Take Over NYC Transit

Just months before NJ Transit enters what may be its most challenging budget fight in a generation, and after less than two years on the job, Veronique “Ronnie” Hakim announced Tuesday that she will resign as the agency’s executive director. Hakim will return to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where she has spent much of her career, to lead New York City Transit, which operates subways and buses.

Hakim leaves with no obvious replacement inside NJ Transit to take her place, transit advocates said. That adds to what many experts describe as a leadership vacuum at New Jersey’s transportation agencies — the Department of Transportation lost its director in October — just as they face challenges on all fronts, including a looming financial crisis and a rail network in urgent need of expensive improvements.

For example, Hakim’s announcement came five days after Governor Christie and Sen. Cory Booker announced a funding structure to build a new tunnel called Gateway under the Hudson River, which Amtrak estimates will cost $20 billion and take more than a decade. NJ Transit is performing the project’s environmental review. The MTA is not participating in the project.

“It means that you have another leadership vacuum,” said Ingrid W. Reed, a policy analyst formerly with the Eagleton Institute of Politics. “There really is something important to having knowledgeable and trusted leadership. It takes time to develop, time that probably should be going to other things, like getting the tunnel done.”