it's a Changing of the Guard at New Jersey Transit at least temporarily Governor Murphy today officially announced and nj's board of directors unanimously approved Chris calori as caretaker president and CEO stepping in to fill the remainder of current CEO Kevin Corbett's tenure until Murphy leaves office Corbett is resigning in January after seven years at the Helm of the troubled agency as senior political correspondent David Cruz reports his time was marked with a handful of aom lishments but still much more work to be done if it kills me we'll rebuild LJ Transit it has not been an easy seven years for Kevin Corbett given the Mandate of both saving NJ Transit from being the death of Governor Phil Murphy and getting positive train control installed today in his final NJ Transit board meeting as CEO Corbett did as he has always done stuck to the prepared text when we came in with a seemingly possible PTC deadline uh that uh obviously we accomplished to hiring hundreds of locomotive Engineers to stabilize service through keeping our state moving during the covid crisis really still the best of Public Service in in our organization uh maintaining full service and launching our first ever 10year strategic plan 17 billion first ever 5year Capital plan in 2020 but board members and even usual critics praised Corbett whose resignation is official next month for just sticking in the job for for seven years I know that you are a lightning rod for the criticism for this agency and you have taken it and uh you have uh accepted uh criticism when it's been constructive and valid and tried to address issues and when it has not um you have kept your chin up and I very much appreciate that and there has been plenty of criticism late trains cancelled trains consecutive Summers from Hell remember WrestleMania and don't forget annual Fair hikes in perpetuity Larry higs covers commuting for nj.com he said critics gave Corbett credit for handling some tough issues for the major projects for getting a capital budget going that sort of thing where they had problems with him was in some of the day-to-day things that affect communter lives obviously the fair increase they're not happy with that so with the decisions such as closing Kingsland station the truth is that your trains are still getting cancelled it's just more likely that it's because of a breakdown and not a shortage of Engineers buses run late frequently yes but the agency has also picked up service where private carriers have left and yes you should probably prepare for some sort of commuta hell again this summer but federal dollars are on the way to address that say officials it has not been an easy time said the governor this week 7 years probably the most difficult job in our government maybe with the exception of mine inherited a mess former Transportation commissioner Chris Kari will take over as CEO next month he recently stepped away from his role as CEO at the Gateway development commission his connections to the agency the dot commissioner serves as board chair made him a popular choice but Transit Advocates say he needs to bring all that experience to bear on commuter service they need to continue to shepher Federal funding into New Jersey such as Gateway and other ija and Ira opportunities to cut down on costs for our state and Chris calori has plenty of experience in bringing that funding into New Jersey especially with Gateway and finally they need to focus on expanding service and improving reliability Riders know where we need more buses where we need more frequent trains and they need to be heard and believed the record book will show that Corbett who's reportedly heading to Academia next staved off disaster but couldn't perform Miracles the next CEO will have his hands full as the agency not only prepares for the World Cup in 2026 but tries to figure out how to get you from point A to point B on time a little more consistently I'm David Cruz andj Spotlight news