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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett announced Wednesday he will step down later this month as chairman of the Delaware River Port Authority’s (DRPA) Board of Commissioners.

The governor also announced he would name Andrew Reilly, a partner at a Media, Pa., law firm, to succeed him on the board. At the board’s Aug. 15 meeting, members are expected to elect sitting Commissioner David Simon as chairman, according to a press release issued by the Port Authority Transit Corp. (PATCO), a commuter-rail line owned and operated by DRPA.

Corbett appointed himself to the board and was elected chairman in March 2011. At that time, he said he would serve as long as necessary to “return the authority to its core mission of providing safe, reliable customer-friendly transportation” to southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.

“I believe the board is reliably committed to that mission, and the time has come for me to leave it in the board’s care,” he stated in the press release.

During Corbett’s tenure, the DRPA ended a controversial policy of issuing bonds to fund economic development projects unrelated to transportation, reduced aggregate debt from $1.45 billion to $1.2 billion, advanced the Walt Whitman Bridge redecking and PATCO passenger-car renovation projects, decreased the authority’s 2012 debt service by $2.5 million per month, increased operational liquidity, created an office of the inspector general to “fight waste and abuse,” completed its first reverse auction for electricity for an annual savings of about $1.3 million, and submitted nearly flat annual operating budgets for two consecutive years, according to the PATCO press release.