BY SAMANTHA LIEBMAN
PUBLISHED 6:00 AM ET MAR. 25, 2024
She may be behind the scenes, standing just to the side of MTA leadership at press conferences, but Siu Ling Ko may be one of the most important people right now at New York City Transit. She is in charge of making sure every subway car has cameras installed inside of them by the end of the year.
“With all the crimes and things that are happening, one of the tasks is to put in cameras in the cars. That’s a huge task that’s on us, car equipment,” Ko said. “So the people who work for me have a huge job ahead of them.”
What You Need To Know
In 2021, Ko became the first woman in New York City Transit history to oversee subway car maintenance
There were so few women working in the transit shops, there wasn’t even a women’s bathroom
Only 19% of the current MTA workforce is made up of women
In 2021, Ko became the first woman vice president and chief mechanical officer at New York City Transit, overseeing subway car maintenance. Her job includes keeping the cars running and clean. She started as a junior engineer in 1987 and faced some unusual challenges right away.
“They actually emptied out the supervisor’s bathroom so I could use it,” Ko said. “So imagine there were no women working in the shop because there was no ladies’ bathroom.”
Ko had already broken through barriers just by studying electrical engineering, a male dominated field. She was encouraged by her family while growing up in Chinatown.
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