The Regional Plan Association played a crucial role during the Great Depression, helping guide the Roosevelt administration’s recovery efforts. While the tri-state advocacy group has been less visible during the current crisis, the RPA still plays an important roll in shaping transportation and infrastructure policy, both locally and nationally. The group may be jockey to kick up its profile as it replaces its outgoing chair, little known real estate attorney Peter Herman, with former MTA boss Eliot “Lee” Sander.

Sander is no stranger to getting his hands dirty, as he wrangled mightily to get the MTA in order amidst Albany’s opposition. He was eventually forced out of what he once wistfully called his dream job after the Paterson administration reorganized the agency, where Jay Walder now runs the show. Since then, Sander has moved to AECOM, where he is the “group chief” for global transportation. Last week, the RPA board unanimously voted Sander to be its head.

“I can think of no better person who understands the challenges we face and possesses the skills to set a bold agenda for both RPA and the region,” Bob Yaro, the RPA president, said in a release. This is not Sander’s first brush with the group, as he and Yaro founded the Empire State Transportation Alliance in the late ’90s to rally business and civic interests behind mass transit.