The MTA is not working, according to a report. View Full Caption Spencer Platt/Getty Images

By Adam Nichols

DNAinfo News Editor



MANHATTAN — The MTA is a train wreck which needs a top-to-bottom shakeup, according to a damning report.

The evaluation, written by consulting firm Accenture, found the agency was mired in fights and bad management, according to the New York Post.



The report said MTA brass promoted people based on "friendship and familiarity" rather than ability. The agency has a poor system of evaluating employee performance and wastes time by sending staff to discuss decisions that only top level executives can make, the report said.

The agency lacks "any demonstrated desire" to improve itself, and displays a "horde" mentality that encourages time-wasting and expensive turf fights.

Straphanger advocates told the Post they believe the failings highlighted in the report were standing in the way of the MTA advancing its transit system.

"Things don't get improved, or the decisions just don't get made," William Henderson, of the MTA's Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee, told the Post. "There is a lot of inertia."

Accenture's report recommends the MTA reduces its four tiers of management, slashes the $560 million it paid in overtime last year, and freezes travel and entertainment spending.

The report itself cost the MTA more than $3 million, according to the Post.

An MTA spokesman told the newspaper the agency had already adopted some of Accenture's recommendations, which had resulted in $381 million of savings this year.

