ALBANY — This is concrete wet enough to draw your name in.
Gov. Hochul promised in her State of the State address on Tuesday that she was committed to "a concrete blueprint that will deliver actual results" for New York, but she didn't do much but put a big "IOU" note in place of a real plan to fill the $33-billion hole in the MTA’s 2025-2029 capital plan.
In her speech, which serves as a tentpole of priorities for each year's upcoming legislative session, Hochul acknowledged the MTA's next five-year renovation plan exists, but didn't go much further than that.
"This year, I’m backing an MTA Capital Plan," Hochul said. "We must end decades of failure to make the hard but necessary investments in this critical infrastructure. If we come up short, the future of our transit system and the economic strength of our state could be jeopardized."
The governor isn't wrong about the need to fund this capital plan, which is focused heavily on projects that will bring the system back to a state of good repair by focusing on crumbling viaducts and ancient power systems. But so far, no one with any power in Albany has offered up any ideas for funding the last chunk of the $68-billion plan.
The result is an extremely tedious game of chicken between the Hochul and legislative leaders.
In one way, the governor blinked, using her speech to propose a delay in the state's cap-and-invest program, which would have used funds from a greenhouse gas emissions tax to invest in clean energy and transportation. The MTA actually specified proceeds from the program as a possible source of funds in the capital plan briefing book last year.
A key Hochul adviser also reiterated that the governor is not interested in raising anyone's personal taxes.
"The governor has been very, very clear that she is not raising income taxes," said Director of State Operations Kathryn Garcia. "So we will go in and we will work with our legislative colleagues on how to make sure we continue to have the greatest transit system in the world."
On the legislative side, both Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins seem to be waiting for Hochul to make the first offer, though the pair drew some heat for themselves by vetoing the still-unfunded capital plan on Christmas Eve. Speaking to reporters last week, Heastie kicked around how much he thought the MTA would need in raw revenue dollars, but didn't lay out a clear path forward.
"It takes about $1 billion of operating money to bond out $15 [billion]," he said. "So if you just do some rough math, the MTA would need an additional $2 billion of revenue. And so we'll have to figure that out. I'm not saying, 'Yes, we're raising taxes to fund the MTA.' I'm not prepared to say that."
The Speaker is also working under the theory that the same Republican Party openly planning to hold hostage fire aid for California will be happy to kick in for the capital plan.
"Let's hope that the federal government, hope with fingers crossed, we should not let a Republican administration think they don't have to fund the MTA. It's their responsibility. The economy is not Democratic or Republican. This is the most important economy in the country," said Heastie.
Heastie's counterpart also said the legislative leaders didn't veto the plan out of spite or a fit of pique, but rather because of the missing money, and it's a matter of talking the whole thing out.
"There's no question about our support, but it was just looking at a $33-billion deficit, we didn't have an answer for that, and either did [the MTA]," Stewart-Cousins told reporters on Monday. "We want to find a way. ... We will work together and see what we can do, and the hope is that we can get to yes."
Of course, as Streetsblog has noted, months that could have been spent talking about or at least privately formulating proposals for the new capital plan were instead wasted on one last big argument over congestion pricing after the governor slammed the brakes on the plan at the last second only to revive it after the election.
As Albany stresses patience, it is important to remember that it was just 10 years ago that then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed the 2015-2019 capital plan over the issue of a much smaller funding hole, and that the argument over what to do what the plan stretched out over two budget cycles. Last time, then-MTA Chairman Tom Pendergast was warning that the agency would run out of money for new capital projects by the end of June 2016. This time around, the MTA is already delaying the purchase of over 300 new electric Long Island Rail Road trains and 39 diesel LIRR trains.
Despite the fact that a piece of the plan is already delayed, MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber wasn't turning up the heat on the Hochul, Stewart-Cousins or Heastie as he waits to see what the governor unveils in her upcoming official budget proposal.
"Mass transit is one of the few things that helps make New York affordable, so it’s no surprise that Gov. Hochul — with her larger affordability agenda — is continuing to make it a priority in 2025," Lieber said in a statement. "Her support for the new infrastructure-focused capital plan is critical as we look to secure funding in Albany this legislative session."
