Governor Spitzer is expected to move quickly in appointing a new chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority after Chairman Peter Kalikow announced yesterday that he would step down once his successor was approved.

“I believe the public will be best served by my decision,” Mr. Kalikow said at a press conference. Mr. Kalikow was appointed by Governor Pataki in 2001, and sources say Mr. Spitzer has been waiting since January to fill the position with his own pick. The executive director and CEO of the MTA, Elliot Sander, will continue to run the agency on a day-to-day basis. The new chairman is expected to play a less central role in the agency than Mr. Kalikow did during his term.

Mr. Kalikow will be remembered for the transit strike of 2005, when the Transport Workers Union and the MTA failed to sign a contract, and the tense negotiations between management and labor that followed.

Even some of his toughest critics yesterday lauded Mr. Kalikow, a wealthy real estate developer and former owner of the New York Post, for funneling billions of dollars of federal funding toward major transit expansion projects. Mr. Kalikow won $1 billion of federal funds after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, to build new transit hubs in Lower Manhattan at South Ferry and Fulton Street. The planned Second Avenue Subway and the East Side Access project to connect the Long Island Rail Road with Grand Central Terminal are also expected to receive more federal funds by the end of the year.

Sources said one candidate Mr. Spitzer has been vetting to replace Mr. Kalikow is a lawyer who served as counsel to Governor Cuomo, Elizabeth Moore. She is a partner in the law firm of Nixon Peabody LLP. A spokeswoman for Mr. Spitzer, Christine Anderson, said the administration is still examining candidates for the position and that a date had not yet been set for an official nomination. If she were nominated and approved by the state Senate, Ms. Moore would be the MTA’s first female chairman.