The following remarks were delivered on June 26, 2023, at a joint meeting of the MTA Board's Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad Committees.
“Dick Ravitch, for everybody in the transportation business, was a giant. He was the chairman of the MTA at maybe the lowest moment in the history of at least the subway system, and certainly the mass transit system in New York. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, he led the beginnings of the turnaround of our great mass transit system. I knew him from those days, coincidentally, when I was still a kid in high school. He was one of the reasons that I got excited about transit, it was the area that was most representative of New York’s incredible revival, starting in the late 1970s. And in many ways, he is one of the fathers of the mass transit system that we have today, which we celebrate in so many different ways and try to continue to improve in his spirit. So, I just needed to say to all of us who are passionate about this issue, and who some of us who knew Dick, he was just a huge impact to everything that this group works on. And part of his legacy is that he stepped up to the plate yet again in this last episode for helping the MTA, under the Governor's leadership, to get its budget deficit addressed. Dick wrote a couple of op-eds, which had impact in Albany – one in the Times-Union, one in the New York papers – and he was right there with us talking to me and to Kevin Willens about how we needed to make sure the MTA’s budget was balanced because he was passionate about maintaining service for the public. So, we all say together, God rest his soul, and thank you for what you did for New York and for the MTA.”