Former New York City Transit executive Joseph Leader has joined the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) in Washington, D.C., as chief operating officer of regional rail, bus and paratransit services, effective Aug. 1.
Leader—whose nearly 30-year long career in New York included managing an 800-mile subway—now will run a transit system beset by high-profile operational, safety, and service issues, including a 2015 smoke incident that killed a passenger. He had been senior vice president of the NYC transit agency’s subways department.