Brother, Can You Spare the MTA $15 Billion
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said that he will take Gov. Kathy Hochul at her word when she promised to restore the $15 billion cut from the transit agency’s $51 billion 2020-2024 Five-Year Capital Plan due to her pause of congestion pricing. That is wishful thinking on his part.
Hochul continues to not provide the financial source for her $15 billion. Hochul has kicked the can down the road until the next state budget is adopted – about eight months from now.
In 2019, then-governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature gave the MTA congestion pricing instead of providing hard cash. This was supposed to raise $15 billion toward the $51 billion MTA 2020 – 2024 Five-Year Capital Plan. Albany’s financial watchdog, state comptroller Tom DiNapoli, said nothing. With real cash, virtually all of these repair projects would have already been underway.
Gov. Hochul claims she can find additional state and federal funding to make up for the missing $15 billion. The MTA will receive $1.8 billion in annual formula grants supplemented by competitive discretionary grant program allocations from the Federal Transit Administration in federal Fiscal Year 2024 (Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024). Other than these resources, there are no other FTA pots of gold to cover the missing $15 billion previously accounted for from congestion pricing. Clearly, Gov. Hochul and her staff who advise her and ghostwrite her speeches have little understanding of how Washington funding for the MTA works.
When it comes to MTA financing, Gov. Hochul reminds me of the old cartoon character Wimpy. He was fond of saying, “I’ll have a hamburger, for which I will gladly pay you Tuesday,” or in this case $15 billion worth of MTA capital transportation projects tomorrow.
Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
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