No glitz, no glamour — just what needs to get done.
The next five-year MTA capital plan is focused on what the agency told the world it was worried about for the last year, shoring up the unseen pieces of the system to ensure the things you can see still work.
Huge chunks of the $68.4-billion 2025-2029 plan that was revealed on Wednesday morning are devoted to the decidedly unsexy work of shoring up aspects of the system riders take for granted. The plan includes $9 billion to fix "critical structures" like railroad bridges and tunnels, $7.8 billion to rebuild and repair hundreds of subway stations, $4 billion to upgrade 80 power substations and $2 billion to upgrade two ancient train repair yards.
The next capital plan will be roughly 24 percent bigger than the current one — the one that's not even fully funded because of Gov. Hochul's "pause" in implementing congestion pricing.
"We looked very closely at a couple of asset types that haven't been focused on in the past," said Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction and Development. "And to some people, they're not the most exciting assets. They're the ones that ensure that we can provide service. It's structures and power and station components."
The MTA telegraphed that the plan would focus on the hidden parts of the system when it released last year's 20-Year Needs Assessment, a document that took stock of the physical condition of every element of the transit system. The assessment concluded that the agency needed to focus on a raft of assets that were in marginal or poor condition: stations, massive physical elevated structures and especially power substations. Without getting back to basics, New York's transit would go the way of its bête noire, New Jersey Transit.
"We always reference the condition on the other side of the river that led to these catastrophic failures for New Jersey Transit and Amtrak this summer," said Torres-Springer. "A lot of it was the condition of substations and the other equipment that connects the power from the substation to the trains that are running over the rail. We have a similar situation, and we need to address many, many components that are past their useful life in a state of disrepair."
The plan does call for spending $10.9 billion on new subway and commuter rail trains — nearly 70 percent of it for new subway cars to allow for the retirement of classes of trains that were first put into service in the 1980s. New trains may sound glamorous, but the impetus for replacing them is the fact that older cars are falling apart on the inside.
"Older railcars are more prone to breakdowns, require more frequent and costly maintenance to keep in service and are less comfortable to our passengers due to worn interiors," the agency wrote in its capital plan book.
Other traditional major renovation work isn't neglected, of course. The agency is legally required to devote at least 15 percent of the NYC Transit portion of any five-year capital plan to accessibility upgrades — so $7.1 billion has been earmarked for elevators and/or ramps in at least 60 subway stations, in addition to other improvements.
Bus electrification will continue, with $1.4 billion set aside for 500 more electric coaches and charging infrastructure at bus depots.
Other work
After an ambitious signal overhaul effort in the 2020-2024 plan, the MTA is stepping back slightly in terms of the current plan's hyperfocus on modern signals. The N/Q/R/W from Astoria-Ditmars Blvd to DeKalb Avenue, a small piece of the J/Z between Delancey St-Essex St and Broad St and the Rockaway section of the A and Euclid Av to Ozone Park-Lefferts Blvd will all get communications-based train control signaling at a cost of $3.1 billion.
But the agency is also promising to tackle the notorious DeKalb and Nostrand Junction interlockings, which bottle up trains during rush hour.
Another $1.7 billion will be spent to fix the Grand Central Artery — aka the train shed — which is the tunnel and viaduct that carries basically all Metro-North service. Without repairs, service for 200,000 suburban customers could see their commutes turn into NJ Transit-style headlines, so its inclusion in the capital plan drives home just how much the MTA is focusing on repairing crumbling pieces of the system this time around.
The plan also sets aside $2.75 billion for more engineering and the start of construction on the Interborough Express, the agency's promised transit link between Brooklyn and Queens on an already existing right of way between Bay Ridge and Jackson Heights. It's the only expansion project in the plan.
Check, please?
As with the 2020-2024 capital plan, there are huge questions about how the MTA will pay for these vital repairs to the region's economic engine. In the last capital plan, of course, the agency had budgeted $15 billion from the congestion pricing tolls that were supposed to start on June 30. That money may never materialize thanks to the gridlock guv's supposedly temporary hold on the toll plan.
But the funding gap is very real and very large. MTA Chief Financial Officer Kevin Willens told reporters on Wednesday that the agency would kickstart the plan itself with $10 billion of debt financing from transit revenue-backed bonds and $3 billion from TBTA toll revenue-backed bonds. After that, the MTA was counting on about $14 billion in federal grants and $4 billion each from New York State and New York City in direct funding for a total of $35 billion in funding the agency figures it can start with.
That leaves the MTA trying to fill a $33-billion capital budget hole and either needing to identify a new source of funding to replace a canceled congestion pricing program or hoping against hope the traffic toll actually begins without massive changes to the money it's supposed to raise.
Agency leaders insisted that they could get the money out of Albany, even with mystery swirling around what will happen to the money for the current capital plan — all while pushing a new capital plan that is essential, but will offer politicians very few ribbon-cuttings.
"We've proven that if you start early talking about what your needs are, and make the case there, there's an opportunity for partners to work with you find a solution," said John McCarthy, the agency's communications chief. "We've been working with the legislature, the governor's office, the city, all along on that. They've been part of that."
McCarthy raised and then answered his own question: "Why would somebody want to support things they haven't seen?" he said. "It's because they have seen it. Our reports on resiliency, they've seen it. They've experienced, they've gone out, they've toured places, so I think they very much understand it."
