East Side Excess

Thanks to our best-in-town transit reporter Clayton Guse and Sunday’s front page, New Yorkers now know that the years late, billions over budget East Side Access project bringing LIRR trains to Grand Central was built on lies. The deception from years ago, now exposed, means that government-run construction must be much more transparent with the public’s money.

Going back years, there weren’t just two sets of books with schedules and costs, but three. The most pessimistic (and realistic) one was held by the man in charge, William Stead, a slightly rosier version was prepared by an outside consultant mandated by the Federal Transit Administration, and the most optimistic (and least accurate) one was given to the MTA board and the public.

When the MTA signed a 2006 contract with the FTA and received $2.6 billion in federal dollars toward the total $6.3 billion expense, completion was required in 2013. But the price rose while the date slipped. In 2008, when the public was told the cost was $7.2 billion and the date would be 2015, Stead realized that even 2017 couldn’t be achieved, thinking it would run past 2020 and the budget would exceed $10 billion. He wasn’t pessimistic enough. In 2018, current MTA Chairman Janno Lieber fixed a 2022 date and budget of $11 billion-plus, which he’s commendably stuck to. Still, when borrowing costs are added in, it comes to twice the original $6.3 billion.

Retired FTA man Larry Penner, who lived through all this, says there is a fourth set of books for more than $4 billion in related LIRR readiness projects on Long Island not included in the East Side Access budget.

Under FTA rules, any capital construction using $100 million or more in U.S. funds must have a private Project Management Oversight Contractor producing a monthly report detailing everything from change orders to schedule slippage. But the public doesn’t see the reports, only insiders do. The FTA and local transit agencies must publish these PMOC reports every month. We’re paying for it, after all.