The MTA Wednesday outlined an ambitious long-term capital plan to replace aging subway cars, fix decaying bridges and improve accessibility — even as the money to pay for the agency’s current plan reamains an open question.
The new budget, which proposes $68 billion in spending from 2025-2029, comes amid serious uncertainty over the current one — $15 billion of which was supposed to be funded through bonds backed by a congestion pricing toll that Gov. Hochul halted in an eleventh-hour reversal.
Transit officials Wednesday reiterated their frequent refrain that they “take the governor at her word” that she will find an alternative source for the $15 billion.
“This capital plan assumes that the entire 2020-2024 plan gets built,” Jamie Torres-Springer, head of the MTA’s capital project wing, told reporters. “We are assuming that the [congestion pricing] funding is fully restored.”
Hochul has given multiple assurances that she will find a way to fully fund the 2020-2024 plan, but no funding source has yet been identified.
The new plan, announced at the Corona Yard at the end of the No. 7 line, is the largest proposed capital plan in the MTA’s history. “Listen, we get that $68 billion is a big number, but I’m confident that it is the right number,” MTA chairman Janno Lieber told reporters.
Lieber cast the proposal in the mold of the MTA’s first capital plan, issued in 1981 amid a transit system rife with delays, breakdowns and graffiti.
“40 years ago, then-MTA chair Dick Ravitch brought Transit back from the brink of collapse with the first MTA capital program,” Lieber said. “In that era the MTA bought thousands of new train cars and buses and miles of track. Now those subway cars are past their useful life — they need to be retired.”
Rail cars are the single biggest line item in the proposed budget released Wednesday.
Roughly $7.6 billion of that will cover new subway cars. That money is meant to fund 1,140 new R-262 subway cars on the numbered lines, meant to replace the R-62s bought under that first capital plan. The MTA is running out of spare parts to keep those trains in service.
The money will also go towards another batch of R-211s, the new-tech trains that have rolled out on the A line over the past two years. The MTA is planning on buying 355 of those cars from Kawasaki.
The remaining $3.3 billion for train cars would cover M9A cars to replace M3s on the commuter rail lines, as well as locomotives for work trains and for operation in diesel territory. Long Island Rail Road president Rob Free said Wednesday that he intends to buy 160 new cars to replace Long Island’s 100 functionally obsolete M3s.
The next largest item is $9 billion towards repairing “structurally deficient bridges and tunnels.” That includes treating rust on and repainting 20 miles of elevated subway track, rehabbing 75 bridges, seven viaducts and three tunnels on the LIRR, and a wide array of structures on Metro-North.
The plan also seeks $7.8 billion toward station repairs, prioritizing damaged stations along Metro-North’s Harlem line and the full renovation of 10 subway stations.
“Big picture, there’s a lot of the MTA that has never been addressed that’s falling apart, that’s over 100 years old.” Lieber said.
To that end, the plan calls for $4 billion toward the modernization of the transit system’s power substations.
The plan also includes accessibility improvements at at least 60 subway stations, a $7.1 billion project. The MTA agreed to make 95% of the city’s 472 subway stations accessible to riders in wheelchairs and other mobility devices after settling a pair of lawsuits in 2022.
By the agency’s own count, just 151 of those stations — or 32% — currently make the grade. MTA officials said the proposed funding would get that figure up to 50%.
The plan would also overhaul a slew of maintenance facilities, including the aging Livonia and 240th Street subway yards, and invest in repairs to bus depots as part of a move towards electrification.
The capital budget also puts $5.4 billion toward continuing to bring modern CBTC signalling to the subway system, $1.1 billion towards door-style replacements for the current fare arrays, and $2.75 billion to start the $5.5 billion Interborough Express light rail connecting Brooklyn and Queens.
In a statement, Hochul said her office would review the 2025-2029 proposal “and fight to secure as much funding as possible.
“That includes pressuring Washington to deliver additional infrastructure dollars and working with our partners in the Legislature and City Hall to determine priorities and capacity during the upcoming budget negotiations,” she added.
MTA finance honcho Kevin Willens told reporters that the agency expects to partially fund the proposed budget through roughly $14 billion in federal grants, $13 billion in MTA-issued bonds, and $8 billion in total grants from the city and state governments.
That leaves $33 billion in funding yet to be identified.
Lieber said he had confidence that lawmakers in Albany would find a way to fund the program.
“We have to propose a capital plan that will serve New Yorkers; Albany has to resolve how to fund that capital program,” Lieber said.
“I believe that the players in Albany get that this is the lifeblood of the city’s economy,” he continued. “That’s why I’m optimistic, in spite of all the challenges.”
