The Capital District Transportation Authority has welcomed its new CEO aboard.
Frank Annicaro, who most recently led New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, is now CDTA's Chief Executive Officer. The transit agency's Board of Directors unanimously voted to appoint Annicaro as CEO in March. He started May 12th and tells WAMC the workforce is among his top priorities
"We're in an industry now, that the industry is across the country, is struggling for workforce," said Annicaro. "And so for me, we want to be the actually preferred employer. I want us to improve our recruitment. I want to retain employees, and I want to develop our employees so that we, you know, the people we have just keep, keep, stay here. Another, you know, a priority of mine is definitely going to be, we're all facing sustainability goals, you know, something that we're facing across the industry. And, you know, meeting those goals customer experience. I really want to know what the customer experience is, so to improve it."
Annicaro succeeds Carm Basile, who retired at the end of 2024 after more than 43 years with CDTA. Under Basile's watch CDTA saw soaring bus ridership and rolled out upstate New York's first electric buses. 400 new e-bikes were put into service. Mobility hubs were built and Basile said his mission was to reimagine transportation across the region. Part of that mission was 40 miles of new bus rapid transit routes, which Basile spoke about during the March 2024 "State of CDTA” presentation.
"BRT lines, though, are really public works projects, because they include new sidewalks, crosswalks, traffic signal priority systems, and with the purple line, we built a roundabout at Crossgates mall 10 years ago that CDTA would construct a roundabout, I'd look at you like you had three heads, and say 'you got to be kidding'," Basile said.
Annicaro said "Carm has built a an amazing legacy here. He brought CDTA to a new level, you know, and really integrated CDTA with the community. So, you know, I think everybody you know owes a lot of gratitude to Carm, and certainly, he has, it's tough shoes to fill, but, you know, I'm up to the challenge. So, yeah, I spent the past 22 years with MTA in New York, and more recent past four years, I was a senior vice president of the bus operations, right? So we, we served over 2.4 million passengers a day across the five boroughs, you know, the largest bus fleet or a bus agency in North America."
According to CDTA, it has 775 employees, a budget of $147 million and a fleet of 365 buses and vehicles.
Annicaro says he'll see you on the bus... "Stay tuned. You'll see me out there. I'm going to be using the system. So I want, I want to know what their experience is, but I'm going to experience it too."
