Pros: Lots more mass transit pain ahead

two years, most recently in March.

“I think they have a lot of nerve given that the service continually seems to be declining,” said NJ Transit rider Candice Burd of Maplewood.

Even after funding is secured, transit agencies struggle to finish major projects on schedule and on budget.

Take the long-awaited Second Avenue subway: the 2.3-mile, $3.8 billion project was supposed to open by 2013. The price tag is now at $4.45 billion, with a 2016 debut at the earliest.

Riders won’t be able to take the No. 7 train extension until this September or October — more than a year after its planned June 2014 opening.

The East Side Access to bring the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal was initially supposed to cost $4.3 billion and open in 2009. However, costs and delays have ballooned — the feds reported in 2014 that the price tag had soared to $10.8 billion and won’t be finished until 2023.

And, at its current pace, the MTA will need 50 years and $20 billion to install a modern, computerized signal system across the entire subway, the Regional Plan Association says.

Politicians and Mother Nature are among the other impediments facing the region.

Early in his first term, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie killed construction of a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River, citing its potential cost and the state’s money woes.

The existing tunnel is more than a century old, has just two tubes, and was already operating “at or near capacity” when Christie killed the project, the General Accounting Office wrote in 2012.

Meanwhile, demand for trans-Hudson service is expected to grow 38% by 2030, the GAO report said. The now-cancelled tunnel — known as the ARC Project — would have doubled capacity.

Then came Hurricane Sandy’s floodwaters, depositing corrosive salt that eats slowly away at the tunnel’s steel and concrete.

Amtrak says it will eventually have to close each tube for up to a year for repairs. ARC’s cancellation complicates any shutdown.

“I really regret we didn’t get that extra tunnel because it seems like every day there is a delay of some sort, so it’s really very frustrating,” said commuter Judy Rinearson, 60, who travels from Montclair to Manhattan.

Shortly after killing ARC, Christie backed a similar plan to build a new Hudson rail tunnel, the Gateway project.

It remains largely unfunded.

Subway system (above) is expected to have even more problems as governments fail to adequately fund improvements. Riders at Penn Station using NJ Transit (below) will not be spared as ridership surges.