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The MTA’s new so-called capital “plan” barely qualifies as a passive-aggressive political stunt.
It envisions spending $68.5 billion in 2025-’29 when the agency has no hope of covering half those costs.
All it really adds up to is a push for Gov. Hochul to un-pause the scheme to impose “congestion” tolls on Midtown below 60th street.
“The MTA proposes, Albany disposes. That’s really when the question about funding is going to be answered,” whined agency CEO Janno Lieber on Wednesday.
In other words, Lieber and his board don’t want to set any realistic priorities.
The MTA needs major reform to bring costs down and get projects done on time.
Plus political support, so it can face down the demands of its voracious unions, particularly on the Long Island Rail Road but also the Transport Workers Union in the city.
Even then, it must prioritize basic maintenance (signal and electrical-system work) over flashy new gambits like Hochul’s pet project: the $2.75 billion Interborough Express light-rail line to connect Brooklyn and Queens.
If the MTA doesn’t put subway maintenance first, second and third, the city’s at risk of another Summer of Hell a la 2017, and maybe a Winter of Hell, too
Hochul, by the way, owes voters honesty on her “congestion-pricing” intentions: She plainly paused the tolls to avoid infuriating suburban voters before November’s election.
But unless she kills it permanently, everyone should assume she’ll move it ahead once the voting’s done.
The MTA is a bloated agency with $7.8 billion payroll that blew a record $1.37 billion on overtime last year.
But it can’t change the union work rules that drive OT abuses without major political support; same for a truly effective crackdown on farebeating — which would also help cut all subway crime.
In that sense, the joke of a capital plan is just an answer in kind to the politicians’ joke of any real support for an agency that carries the lifeblood of New York City.
The losers in this race-to-the-irresponsible-bottom are the straphangers and other commuters who actually make New York City work.