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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has faced its greatest challenge in a generation as officials have struggled to modernize New York City’s failing subway. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has responded by promising bold solutions to fix the troubled agency and regain the trust of angry riders.

But here are the changes Mr. Cuomo and state lawmakers unveiled this week as part of the new state budget: A reorganization plan due in June, a “forensic audit” of train cars and signals, a group of outside experts who will review major projects and a “debarment process” that would ban contractors who do not finish projects on time.

And even though state leaders have vowed more transparency, the authority’s new chairman — among the most powerful positions in New York government — was confirmed by the State Senate around 2 a.m. on Monday when most New Yorkers were asleep.



Transit advocates have praised Mr. Cuomo for persuading state lawmakers to approve congestion pricing, which will raise billions of dollars for the subway by establishing tolls to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan. But they were less enthusiastic about his changes at the transit agency, which appear to be more of a bureaucratic reshuffling than a radical transformation.