Joseph J. Lhota is an American public servant and a former politician who served as the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and was also a former deputy mayor of New York City. He was the Republican nominee in an unsuccessful bid for the 2013 election for Mayor of New York City. In January 2014, he became senior vice president, vice dean, and chief of staff at NYU Langone Medical Center. In 2017, he returned to the chairmanship of the MTA, but would not run the authority day-to-day. He resigned from that position in 2018.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the New York City metropolitan area of the U.S. state of New York. The MTA is the largest public transit authority in North America, serving 12 counties in Downstate New York, along with two counties in southwestern Connecticut under contract to the Connecticut Department of Transportation, carrying over 11 million passengers on an average weekday systemwide, and over 850,000 vehicles on its seven toll bridges and two tunnels per weekday.