$4B worth of aid could ease pain at MTA

MTA officials took to the bank assurances from Washington that they’ll get $4.5 billion in COVID-19 relief by the end of 2021, including $4 billion from a federal stimulus bill that was under negotiation in Congress.

While the congressional talks were still underway Wednesday, the MTA board approved a new $17 billion budget without service cuts that depends on the federal cash.

Agency chiefs assumed Congress would come through with the bailout — which sources close to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told the Daily News would be included in the $900 billion relief passage that Democrats have dubbed a “bridge” to President-elect Joe Biden’s administration, which begins Jan. 20.

MTA Chairman Patrick Foye said Wednesday he was “encouraged” by the progress made in Congress this week — but noted $4 billion is not enough to keep transit service running long term.

“Getting $4 or $4.5 billion in the lame duck session would ... remove the pressure we’re under to implement dramatic service cuts and layoffs ... in 2021 and not beyond,” said Foye. “We still need an extraordinary amount of federal funding to deal with the deficits of 2022, 2023 and 2024, and that additional federal funding would be in the order of $8 billion.”

The agency has requested $12 billion in relief from Congress to offset fare revenues during the pandemic, a drop in state tax subsidies dedicated to the MTA and a projected $1 billion loss due to delays by the federal government to approve the agency’s congestion-pricing plan to charge motorists who drive below 61st St. in Manhattan.

The relief bill, which a source said is expected to get the signoff from congressional leadership this week, would provide the first major bailout for the MTA since March when the CARES Act included another $4 billion in relief for the agency. That money dried up in late July, and the MTA took out a $2.9 billion loan from the Federal Reserve’s Municipal Liquidity Facility to make it through 2020.

It’s unclear how much relief money will be allocated for transit agencies nationwide, but sources said the $4 billion for the MTA has been locked in.

Still, the $17.1 billion budget the MTA board approved Wednesday is almost exactly the same as the plan OKd last year — despite an agencywide effort to trim costs and a reduction of roughly 3,000 jobs through attrition.