MTA eyes $40B spending plan
The MTA is a state agency — but it needs more city money, City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez said Thursday.
“Now is our time to expand funding to the MTA and get the leadership of the MTA to make everyone more accountable,” Rodriguez (D-Manhattan) said at the Jay St.-MetroTech subway station, one of more than 20 stops where he and other elected officials surveyed riders this week as a part of a “transit tour.”
“As a Council… we’ve been able to persuade Mayor de Blasio to increase funding to the MTA,” said Rodriguez, who heads the transportationn committee. “I want the city to continue doing better — I want to continue increasing funding to the MTA.”
Rodriguez’s comments came at a crucial time for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The five-year capital plan the agency is to present in September is expected to be the most expensive in the agency’s history.
NYC Transit President Andy Byford and other MTA officials have vowed to rapidly update the subway’s aged signal system and make 50 more subway stations handicap-accessible.
Rodriguez on Thursday said he wants every subway station in the city to have a ramp or elevator by 2030. Only one-quarter of the 472 subway stations are currently handicap accessible.
The capital plan, which is expected to total around $40 billion, will be funded in part from the city’s new congestion pricing program, a real estate transfer tax and an internet sales tax, all of which were approved by Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature in April.
Those fees and taxes will put roughly $25 billion into the plan, MTA officials say. The agency’s budget experts expect another $7 billion will come from the federal government. It’s not yet clear where the rest of the money will come from.
Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who joined the transit tour at the Union Square-14th St. station Thursday afternoon, said it’s “too early to say” whether he supports dipping into the city’s treasury to provide additional money for subway fixes.
Johnson said he worries that the MTA’s recently-approved reorganization plan could keep Byford from overseeing key parts of the upcoming capital plan. He added that he and Rodriguez were planning to hold a City Council hearing on the agency’s reorganization next month.
For his part, Byford has continued to advocate for his “Fast Forward” plan to overhaul the city’s buses and subways. He joined Rodriguez and other elected officials Wednesday as they kicked off the transit tour.
“We can transform people’s lives and ride on what should be the greatest transit system in the world,” said Byford. “We can get it back to where it should be.”
Transit advocates say the MTA needs to be more open about how it decides its capital money should be spent.