ALBANY — MTA boss Janno Lieber went before state lawmakers Thursday, defending the transit agency’s $68 billion capital budget in an appearance at a joint legislative committee financial hearing.
The MTA has billed the plan as focused on “state of good repair” work — a combination of maintenance work and upgrades to keep the region’s subway system, bus network and twin commuter rail systems running.
Roughly $3 billion would go toward the MTA’s Bridges and Tunnels division, which would be funded by bridge and tunnel tolls.
The budget anticipates federal funding and grants to cover about $14 billion of the plan. The MTA’s own bonds are expected to raise another $13 billion.
State and local contributions were expected to total up to an additional $8 billion in funding, but Gov. Hochul’s executive budget earlier this year bumped that down to $6 billion
What remains is $35 billion yet to be accounted for.
“The governor didn’t propose any solution to that funding gap?” asked Assemblyman Edward Braunstein (D-Queens).
“Respectfully, I don’t agree with the paradigm that the MTA has a gap,” Lieber replied.
“It is a little bit of a mystery to me that every time the MTA capital program comes up we treat it like, ‘Oh, my God, they need a bailout,’” Lieber said. “This is no different than Medicaid, education and everything else that’s done in the state — [yet] it happens to be treated like an off-budget item.
“This could be addressed by existing state budget, it could be addressed — as we have proposed in some cases — by some financing approaches that could reduce the size of the challenge, and it could also be addressed by new revenues,” Lieber told the lawmakers. “We leave that to you — our job is to frame the scale of the need.”
The plan’s single biggest investment is in rolling stock — $11 billion for 1,500 new train cars meant to replace old models on the Long Island Rail Road and the city’s subway system.
Much of that money is expected to purchase additional R211 subway train cars for the lettered lines, and to fund the purchase of a similarly high-tech train car for the subway’s numbered lines.
Most critically, the MTA plans to retire the functionally obsolete M3 cars from the LIRR fleet and replace them with new M9A cars — a contract for which is expected in the coming months.
The budget also includes $5.4 billion toward signaling upgrades on three subway lines — the eastern end of the A train and the Rockaway Shuttle, the Broadway line of the N, Q, R and W trains, and the Nassau St. line of the J and Z.
The plan also puts $4 billion toward power infrastructure upgrades, $3 billion of which is earmarked for the subway system, which saw a 90-year-old transformer blow up in December, stranding thousands of passengers underground in downtown Brooklyn.
“It cannot get smaller,” Lieber said of the proposed capital budget. “We’re not going to let the system continue to lose ground with this 100-year-old infrastructure that’s just getting older and older.”
At one point, Lieber reached behind him and pulled out a picture frame containing two front pages — one from the Daily News and one from the city’s other tabloid — both decrying the state of the subway during 2017’s “Summer of Hell,” when subway service fell into disarray after delays to the 2015-2019 capital budget.
“I keep this in my office,” Lieber said.
“We’ve tried not funding the MTA capital plan — that’s where it brought us,” he added, before Assemblyman Gary Pretlow (D-Yonkers) admonished him that props were not allowed.
While Lieber expressed confidence Thursday in the state’s ability to fund the MTA, major changes in Washington, D.C., including Elon Musk’s apparent ability to influence payments by the U.S. Treasury, could cast a cloud over expected federal dollars.
“We’re in a tumultuous period of change in Washington,” the transit chief said when asked if the feds had committed to funding more of the capital budget.
“I learned yesterday that federal money may be given out based on birth rates,” Lieber said — apparently having missed the Daily News’ coverage of the unusual Trump administration directive last weekend.
“I don’t know what to make of that,” Lieber said. “I do know what to call it though — it’s conception pricing.”