03.13.2026 M.T.A., Not A.T.M.: Transit Chief Backs Hochul’s Auto Insurance Reforms
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said on Friday that auto insurance changes that Gov. Kathy Hochul is seeking could save the agency nearly $50 million a year in car-crash litigation — money that could help pay for better bus and subway service.
“Money we should be spending on great service is going to payoffs to well-connected billboard lawyers instead,” said Janno Lieber, the chief executive of the M.T.A. “Guys who actually think the M.T.A. is spelled A.T.M.”
Mr. Lieber, who joined Ms. Hochul at a bus depot in Harlem, said the city’s roughly 6,000 buses are often implicated in traffic collisions in which the bus drivers are not at fault, but the agency is nevertheless targeted, because personal injury lawyers know the agency can pay.