GOV: MTA FIX ON FAST TRACK

$1B boost as he declares state of emergency

Gov. Cuomo gave frustrated subwayy riders a glimmer of hope Thursday as he declared a state of emergency to speed up repairs on the failing transit system and promised another $1 billion to fund the MTA.

“We know the system is decaying and we know the system is decaying rapidly,” Cuomo said at the kickoff to the MTA’s Genius Transit Challenge at the Ham- merstein Ballroom. Cuomo signed an executive order that will allow the beleaguered agency to bypass some of the red tape that makes it difficult to get wwork on the system’s aging infrastructure done. “It will no longer be a tortured exercise to do business with the MTA. We want to do business, we need to do business, and wew will do it quickly,” he said. Cuomo didn’t immediately mention where the money he promised would be coming from, but said at a press conference hours later that

his announcement was for “planning purposes” and it would be added in the January budget.

He insisted the agency won’t be able to spend the state funds it has already been promised before then.

“They have $8 billion now,” Cuomo said in the state Capitol’s Red Room. “They’re not going to spend $8 billion between now and January.

“But I told them, for planning purposes, you can count on it.”

His announcement came during another hellish week for straphangers that included an A-train derailment in Harlem on Tuesday.

Transit advocates were skeptical of Cuomo’s $1 billion pledge, saying the MTA hasn’t yet received the full $8.3 billion the state contributed to the agency’s $32.5 billion 2015-2019 capital plan.

“Any realistic plan to fix the subway is going to be a multibil- lion-dollar plan, of which the governor’s $1 billion is a great start, but where will the billion come from, how will it be delivered and where will the governor find the rest of the money needed?” wondered John Raskin of the Riders Alliance.

Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, said “the $64,000 question is where is this money coming from.”

“In some cases, the state has promised money to the MTA, but then it asks them to get bonds for the money,” he said.

“That’s like getting a wedding gift from a relative and then it turns out to be an IOU.”

During Cuomo’s announcement, he took a shot at Mayor de Blasio, saying the state is stepping up — but the city hasn’t.

“I’ve asked local government to contribute more, and thus far they haven’t,” he said.

De Blasio didn’t take the bait.

“We in the city have a host of things we are responsible for that we don’t have enough resources for,” he said. “The state has responsibility for the MTA.”

By declaring a state of emergency, repairs should get done faster because there will be no competitive-bidding process and fewer required meetings with the public, and the agency will be able to work with new vendors with which it doesn’t have established relationships.

“This will allow the state to go out and negotiate terms like you could in private industry,” explained David Fernandez, a public-finance attorney in New York.

“You still have union and collective-bargaining requirements that are state mandates, but it streamlines the process so it’s not so burdensome that time and costs build up.”

Cuomo said it’s “ridiculous” that it can take five years simply to get a new train car.

“We need new cars and we have months, not years to get them,” he said. “If the MTA’s current vendors can’t provide them in the time frame we need, then the MTA should find new vendors. It’s that simple.”

Cuomo also tasked new MTA Chairman Joe Lhota with conducting two reviews, one that will determine how the agency should be reorganized and another that will explain how the system should be overhauled.

“I know what the subway system was, and it can be the crown jewel of New York,” Lhota said. “No idea is too crazy. No idea is too ambitious.”

Cuomo also demanded that the state Public Service Commission, along with Con Ed and the MTA, conduct a review of the subway’s all-too-frequent power outages, vowing to “heavily” fine the utility if it’s behind the problems.