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NY legislative leaders reject MTA's $65B plan to fix mass transit infrastructure
By
Clayton Guse
and
Samantha Max
Published Dec 24, 2024
Modified Dec 24, 2024
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Spencer Platt/Getty Images
By
Clayton Guse
and
Samantha Max
Published Dec 24, 2024
Modified Dec 24, 2024
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State Assembly and Senate leaders rejected the MTA’s $65.4 billion plan to restore and upgrade New York’s mass transit system on Tuesday, marking a major setback for an initiative that transit officials say is key to preventing subway, bus and commuter railroad service from falling into disrepair.
State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie sent MTA Chair Janno Lieber a letter notifying him the plan was rejected. The Christmas Eve notice came a day before the construction plan would have lapsed into approval, and adds a new layer of negotiations over the MTA’s plan to fix the city’s troubled transit infrastructure.
The lawmakers cited a hefty funding gap as the reason for the rejection. The agency must now hold off on moving forward with contracts for new train cars and upgrades to the subway’s aging electrical systems. Stewart-Cousins and Heastie hold two of the four seats on the MTA Capital Plan Review Board, a state body that’s required to sign off on the transit agency’s construction plans every five years.
MTA leaders have 10 days to respond to the rejection. If the legislative leaders don’t withdraw their rejection within 10 days after the MTA’s response, transit officials must submit an entirely new plan, according to state law.
The move comes after the agency delayed billions of dollars worth of other upgrades due to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s temporary “pause” of congestion pricing earlier this year.
MTA officials signed off on the new construction plan back in September, and at the time said state lawmakers would need to identify at least $33 billion in new revenue to cover its full cost.
“The proposed program currently faces a significant funding deficit, generally recognized to be at least $33 billion of the $65 billion proposed total subject to [Capital Plan Review Board] approval, which is a specific concern that needs to be addressed before we can approve the program,” the letter from Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie states.
The lawmakers also wrote that they plan to negotiate over that funding in the state budget, which is due at the end of March.
"Now that the Legislature has raised these objections to the capital plan, we look forward to seeing their recommendations on which of those projects should be deprioritized and which revenue streams they are willing to propose," Hochul's spokesperon Avi Small wrote in a statement.
Two MTA officials not authorized to speak on the issue told Gothamist earlier this month they had not heard much feedback from Stewart-Cousins or Heastie on the plan and expected it to lapse into approval, meaning it would automatically go into effect on on Jan. 1. Five years ago, the MTA’s previous capital plan lapsed into approval without a vote from the Capital Plan Review Board because then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo never convened the body.
When MTA officials approved the construction plan in September, the agency’s head of construction, Jamie Torres-Springer, said it was crucial because “there are assets in the system that are in real danger of failure.”
The plan aims to repair crucial aging infrastructure across the system, including several electrical substations. On Dec. 11, a substation exploded in Brooklyn, forcing the agency to shut down service on the A, C, F and G lines for more than three hours during the evening rush.
The plan also aims to spend $10.9 billion on new train cars, $7.8 billion to repair dilapidated stations and $9 billion to fix aging elevated tracks and tunnels that are at risk of breaking down.
"This Capital Program was grounded in our 20 Year Needs Assessment, and we haven’t heard any concerns or objections from the legislature since it was approved by the MTA Board in September," MTA spokesperson John McCarthy wrote in a statement. "It will unlock dozens of transformative projects – many of which are funded and ready to go on January 1st. We remain optimistic that the legislature will join the governor in supporting safer, more reliable, and expanded transit."
Vetoing the massive capital plan allows lawmakers to use a bit of leverage in a budget process that happens behind closed doors and is largely controlled by the governor, said Rachael Fauss, senior policy adviser with the good government group Reinvent Albany.
“They don’t have a lot of tools in the toolbox to influence the MTA capital plan and spending,” she said.
Fauss said the Legislature can now negotiate on ways to raise money for the transit system, as well as potential projects to prioritize and the size of those projects. But in the meantime, she said, the MTA is under a “tremendous amount of pressure” to find other ways to pay for improvements to the system.
“That puts so much pressure on them to raise fares and to make it be a much less affordable transit system,” she said. “They’re in a very difficult spot here, because the needs are massive.”
Danny Pearlstein, policy and communication director of Riders Alliance, said there are plenty of projects already in the works that will continue even without a new capital plan in place. But he said the governor and the Legislature need to work together to ensure future projects are funded, so commuters have the infrastructure they need.
“ Millions of riders are depending on Albany leaders to put together a capital program that fixes and upgrades the subway from all of the deferred maintenance of past decades and to anticipate all of the new challenges associated with climate change from extreme heat to rising seas to heavy rainfall,” he said. “And we need our public transit system to be reliable and available to us all the time, not just some of the time.”
This story was updated with comments from the MTA Gov. Kathy Hochul's office.
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new york city
new york state
Politics
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Clayton Guse
Clayton is the editor of the Transit and Infrastructure desk. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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