The Metropolitan Transit Authority, which operates the Long Island Rail Road, subways and buses as part of a vast system, unveiled its $68.4 billion capital plan for the next five years that includes a series of improvements to the LIRR system.
“We get that $68 billion is a big number, but I am confident that it is the right number,” MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said.
Lieber said the city’s transit system has deteriorated over the last decades due to a lack of maintenance and funding. He said much of its infrastructure is more than 100 years old and requires improvements.
“If the MTA system is going to survive let alone grow and prosper, we’re going to need to deal with that stuff,” Lieber said. “We can’t put off dealing with it any longer.”
About 80% of the LIRR bridges and viaducts require repairs and 75% of its tunnels are in poor conditions, according to the MTA.
The Long Island Rail Road is allocated to receive about $6 billion of the plan’s total outlays.
About $1.5 billion of its funds would go towards train cars for the Long Island Rail Road, $1.2 billion for its stations and $1.1 billion for tracks.
The entire plan includes the purchase of 2,000 rail cars, with 500 of them attributed to the rail roads. This would retire all of the transit system’s outdated train cars.
Also included are $8 billion worth of improvements to more than 175 of its stations, which includes 20 railroad stations. WHERE? LIRR OR ENTIRE SYSTEM? THE 6 BILLION DOLLAR LIRR ALLOCATED TO THE LIRR IS LOWER THAN ITS SHARE OF THE $68 BILLION. The MTA also plans on expanding capacity and electrifying sections of lines for the Long Island Rail Road.
Just a week before the capital plan announcement, Long Island Rail Road President Rob Free told Schneps Media Long Island that the railroad is in the process of acquiring property at the Port Washington Train Station that would establish a third track and restore service that was lost with the opening of Grand Central Madison.
Lieber called much of the work “unsexy” but necessary to deliver improved service.
He described the MTA blueprint as “a plan that is meant to first and foremost arrest decay of aging elements of our 100-plus-year-old transit system.”
Other goals in the MTA capital plan include a series of improvements to subway lines and the power center to diminish wait times, bolster on-time performance, and prevent delays, as well as increase ADA accessibility, capacity, and station improvements.
While much of the plan is focused on maintaining and improving the MTA’s existing system, it also includes establishing the 14-mile-long Interborough Express, which would directly connect Queens to the west side of Brooklyn via light rail. The Long Island Rail Road would connect to this light rail.
Lieber said he has already started working with Gov. Kathy Hochul on funding the plan and that about half of the funds have already been identified.
The plan comes just months after Gov. Hochul paused the city’s implementation of congestion pricing to reduce traffic gridlock in Manhattan, which would have helped to fund the MTA. But Lieber said the 2025-2029 capital plan would have remained the same even if the governor had not paused congestion pricing.
Lieber said the congestion pricing pause delayed, not canceled, future projects.
The transit authority began a study of its system last year to determine what it needs to accomplish within the next 20 years to maintain and advance the system. Lieber said this study influenced the 2025-2029 capital plan.
Lieber also said a review of the plan by JP Morgan, the investment bank, determined it to be reasonable.
“We can’t write the story for every neighborhood and for every New Yorker who depends on the system unless we maintain a high level of investment in the MTA,” Lieber said.
