Chief of Public Transit Systems in Boston, NYC, London, dies on Martha’s Vineyard

New York City’s Mayor Ed Koch, center, with Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Robert Kiley, left, and Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, (R-NY), pose inside a New York City Subway car on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 1984. (AP Photo/David Pickoff)

CHILMARK (AP) — The man credited with revitalizing and modernizing public transportation networks in Boston, New York and London has died on Martha’s Vineyard.

Robert Kiley died Tuesday at his home in Chilmark of complications of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a family spokesman. He was 80.

Kiley revived Boston’s public transport system in the 1970s and New York’s in the 1980s. He was Commissioner of Transport for London from 2001 to 2006, overseeing the rebuilding of the century-old Tube, its stations, subway cars and rail infrastructure, greatly increasing ridership.

In Boston, he ended decades of patronage by introducing a lottery system for hiring drivers and workers, opening well-paid jobs at the MBTA to minorities and women.

In New York he instituted management reforms and secured $8 billion in state capital funds used to rebuild the system.