Metro CEO planning to retire at end of year
After 44 years, Tom Lambert is hopping off the Metro bus.
Lambert, president and CEO of Metropolitan Transit Authority, is retiring at the end of the year after leading Texas’ largest transit system for 11 years.
“We have a lot of things we are working on that we are going to get done by the end of the year,” he said.
Lambert, who turns 70 in May, said his decision to step back was “the right time personally and professionally.”
His departure comes as the agency accelerates work on its long-range transit plan, approved by voters in 2019. The plan includes adding bus rapid transit along Interstate 10 west of downtown within Loop 610 and a lengthy rapid line that will go from northeast Houston to near the University of Houston and then along Westpark to western Harris County.
Metro Chairman Sanjay Ramabhadran said the board is expected to hire a search firm and discuss its priorities for seeking Lambert’s replacement. But he said there are no deadlines for the decision.
“We will have our conversations on what the agency needs in 2024, but those conversations take time,” Ramabhadran said. He added the focus now is on accomplishing the planned projects and “celebrating all that Tom has done.”
Lambert, who began at Metro as a security investigator in 1979, became the agency’s first police chief in 1982, serving in that role until 2010. After less than three years as executive vice president, he became interim CEO in January 2013, when previous transit agency head George Greanias resigned. He was made the permanent replacement about a year later, following a national search, af
ter initially saying he was interested in the top job only temporarily. During Lambert’s tenure as CEO, Metro added roughly 15 miles of new light rail, redesigned its bus system and opened the region’s first bus rapid transit line along Post Oak in Uptown.
Despite the additional services, however, transit use has not fully rebounded after cratering during the COVID pandemic, and the Silver Line rapid transit continues to perform below initial expectations.
Lambert said it was daily performance over projects that he wanted as his legacy.
‘I think the users and the broader community will say this agency has been responsive,” he said, noting Metro’s role in major events such as Super Bowl LI and two Astros victory parades as well as responding to disasters such as the COVID pandemic and Hurricane Harvey flooding.
“These employees fully supported this community and quite frankly brought the system up faster than anybody thought possible,” Lambert said.
Lambert’s last contract, which was set to expire in October, paid him $369,495 annually. Officials agreed last month to negotiate an extension, signed Wednesday, that raises Lambert’s annual salary to $404,228 as of Feb. 1, with more than $17,000 of that paid in January 2024, provided Lambert stays until the end of the year. A Houston native, Lambert said he will remain in the area upon retirement.
“I am going nowhere,” he said when asked about retirement plans.