Posted by Howard H. Roberts Jr., the avuncular boss of New York City’s buses and subways, resigned Wednesday after a tenure of two and a half years.
His departure raised few eyebrows inside the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where officials had been speculating about Mr. Roberts’s fate for weeks, according to several people familiar with the situation.
Mr. Roberts had been blamed internally for allowing the Transport Workers Union to gain back ground during this year’s contract negotiations, they said. But others believed that Mr. Roberts, a veteran manager who also led the transit system in Philadelphia, had been unfairly cast as a scapegoat.
The move came just weeks after Jay H. Walder took over as chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
