(The following column by Michael Lavitt appeared on the Trenton Times website on January 1.)
TRENTON, N.J. — It’s possible that no one had a bigger impact on mass transit along the Northeast Corridor than George Warrington, the former executive at NJ Transit, Amtrak and the Delaware River Port Authority who died on Christmas Eve.
Warrington spent his career in public service before embarking on a new career as a strategic consultant last year.
Most recently, Warrington won support in New York that will be critical in getting the Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel built. He also pushed through the development of the multi-level train cars that NJ Transit started running just a little over a year ago.
Warrington was a special assistant to Dept. of Transportation Commissioner Louis Gambaccinni in the 1970s, helping to create NJ Transit by managing the successful bond issue referendum that provided its initial capital funding. Warrington went on to serve as vice president and general manager of NJ Transit’s rail operators in the 1980s.
He took NJ Transit from a broken-down system to one of the nation’s best, said Martin Robins, a senior fellow at the Voorhees Transportation Policy Institute at Rutgers University.
“He always told me that what he really loved to do was strategic management of issues,” Robins said.
Warrington’s biggest success in that area may have been getting New York Gov. Elliott Spitzer, his predecessor George Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg all to support the tunnel. He did that by getting them to recognize the Garden State would be a key source of the work force needed to make New York an economic success over the next 20 years.
He also got the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to commit $2 billion to the project and won $1.5 billion from New Jersey’s Transportation Trust Fund, putting the project about halfway toward its full cost of $7.5 billion years before the first spade of dirt will be turned.
There’s no doubt that Warrington saw the big picture. But he also took pride in paying attention to the small details, noting that in designing the new multilevel train cars he insisted on having coat hooks on the lower level.
And when project manager John F. Squitieri demonstrated features of the new trains during a proving run, he noted that Warrington had pushed for the large button that allowed riders to open trash cans without touching the lid.
Warrington said he applied many lessons learned from implementing Amtrak’s Acela Express high-speed trains in developing NJ Transit’s newest rail cars. At Amtrak, Warrington initially was the general manager for the Northeast Corridor and went on to serve as its president when Acela service began.
Robins said Warrington also played a critical role after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks cut PATH service to lower Manhattan. Warrington implemented changes that sharply increased the number of NJ Transit trains carrying people into New York. “He really pushed everybody, which was typical of him, to try to implement anything that he conceptualized,” Robins said.
Warrington took some heat from rail advocates for limiting the scope of the tunnel project rather having it include a direct rail connection to Grand Central Station. But part of being successful is knowing how much you can accomplish.
Warrington likely knew that he wouldn’t get the bi-state support that such a huge project needs if he’d kept the East Side rail connection. In such cases, it makes sense to build what you can while allowing for extensions later.
Albert Papp, secretary of the National Association of Railroad Passengers and a New Jersey rail advocate, said those limitations may actually have played a factor in Warrington’s decision to enter the private sector last year. “It may have been that he too got frustrated,” Papp said.
After announcing in January that he planned to leave NJ Transit, Warrington said he wanted to try working in the private sector and didn’t know how many more opportunities he would have. He left NJ Transit on March 31 and soon after announced the formation of his consulting firm, Warrington Fox Shuffler, along with partners Jamie Fox and Eric Shuffler.
The three partners planned to focus on policy issues, often involving public-private partnerships, while helping clients get approval for land deals and complete projects, said Fox, a former congressional and gubernatorial aide and deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
“It was no mistake that his name was first on the firm,” Robins said.
NJ Transit said in a statement that Warrington had been fighting pancreatic cancer for eight months, indicating it was detected just after he left there and started the consulting firm.
It’s a shame Warrington won’t be able to help turn over that first shovelful of soil. But maybe when it comes time to name the tunnel, someone will think of George Warrington.