Richard Ravitch, MTA savior and former lt. gov., dead at 89

Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor credited for helping save the city from bankruptcy and bringing the MTA up to speed, is dead at 89.

The former MTA head died in a Manhattan hospital Sunday, his wife, Kathleen Doyle, told The New York Times.

Gov. Hochul thanked Ravitch for his “wisdom and thoughtful advice” in a statement sent to the Daily News on Monday.

“Dick Ravitch was a titan of New York’s civic world who left an indelible mark on our state, and he will be greatly missed,” Hochul said. “From steering the MTA through a critical time to serving as lieutenant governor, he was a steady, savvy and brilliant leader and a public servant in the truest sense of the term.”

The New York City native, who led the MTA from 1979 to 1983, made a career of finding inventive solutions to complex financial issues.

It was his plan in the 1980s to sell MTA buses and train cars to private corporations that would in turn rent them back to the city in exchange for tax incentives. He also convinced administrators that generating new revenue was the best way to minimize fare increases and keep public transportation affordable.

Ravitch penned a January essay for The News stating that in the wake of the pandemic, “It is evident that we need to rethink how we fund the MTA.”

His time as MTA chairman followed a four-year stint running the nearly insolvent New York State Urban Development Corp., which he brought back from the brink of collapse.

Ravitch ran for mayor in 1989, but was defeated by David Dinkins in the Democratic Party primary. He found his way to public office in 2009 when Gov. David Paterson brought him on as lieutenant governor to steady the ship after disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned the state’s top spot amid a prostitution scandal.

Ravitch was born into a construction family co-founded by his father. He ran HRH Construction before selling it in 1977, according to The New York Times. The Real Deal reports that shortly after graduating from Columbia University, Ravitch oversaw HRH Construction’s development of the university’s law school. He got his law degree from Yale Law School.

Ravitch’s diverse portfolio also includes a few innings as Major League Baseball’s head negotiator. His proposal to cap players’ salaries preceded a 1994 strike lasting 232 days. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found “the biggest strike ever in professional sports” led to lost revenues for players and owners, while also driving away fans.

“I just hope that when it’s all said and done, I will have made baseball an economically healthier place,” Ravitch told the Times during that work stoppage.

MLB entered the 2023 season thriving under a new labor deal reached last year. Forbes puts league revenues around $11 billion annually.

Ravitch also survived an 11-day MTA strike in 1980 while getting the city’s transit system on the right track during his time as chairman.

MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber grieved the passing of a significant figure who moved New Yorkers.

“Dick Ravitch, for everybody in the transportation business, was” a giant, he said in a statement.

Ravitch’s accomplishments as MTA chairman were inspirational to officials including Lieber.

“He was one of the reasons that I got excited about transit,” Lieber said. “It was the area that was most representative of New York’s incredible revival, starting in the late 1970s.”

In Ravitch’s 2014 memoir “So Much to Do,” he apparently concluded that playing ball is how one gets things done.

“In a democracy, if you insist on being above politics, you cannot govern well,” he said.

But in an essay opposing a 2022 redevelopment plan for Penn Station, he warned against throwing taxpayer money at problems.

“In my more than 60 years in and around government in New York, I’ve learned one thing for sure,” he wrote. “When it comes to spending taxpayers’ money to score political points, very few elected officials care about the price tag.”