William Wheeler, New York Mass Transit Visionary, Dies at 69

William M. Wheeler, who as a New York mass transit official oversaw the strategic planning that inaugurated the MetroCard, belatedly spawned the first phase of the Second Avenue subway and dared, by recommending countdown clocks, to introduce the presumption that subways and buses would arrive punctually, died on Saturday at his home in Tarrytown, N.Y. He was 69. As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's deputy director of strategic planning from 1986 to 1992, director of planning and development for the next decade and, since 2002, director of special project development and planning, Mr. Wheeler did not have much of a public profile, but he was persuasive privately within the agency and before its board.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/obituaries/william-wheeler-dead.html?partner=rss&emc=rss