MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said that he will take Gov. Kathy Hochul at her word, when she promised to restore the $15 billion she cut from the transit agency’s $51 billion 2020-2024 Five Year Capital Plan due to her pause of congestion pricing. But this is wishful thinking on his part.
Hochul continues to not provide the financial source for her $15 billion promise. Hochul has kicked the can down the road until the next state budget is adopted – nine months from now.
In 2019, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature instead of providing hard cash gave the MTA congestion Pricing. This was supposed to raise $15 billion toward the $51 billion MTA 2020-2024 Five Year Capital Plan. Albany’s financial watch dog, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli,said nothing. With real cash, virtually all of these state of good repair projects would have already been under way.
Gov. Hochul claims she can find additional state and federal funding to make up for the missing $15 billion in congestion pricing. 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 – Sept. 30, 2024). The Federal Highway Administration has funding under several programs, including Congestion Mitigation Air Quality, Surface Transportation Program and others, which can be transferred to FTA to finance MTA capital projects.
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 ghost write 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 gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today,” or in this case $15 billion worth of MTA capital transportation projects tomorrow.
Larry Penner
Great Neck
Larry Penner is a transportation advocate, historian and writer who previously served as a former Director for the Federal Transit Administration Region 2 New York Office of Operations and Program Management.
