Here is the fatal flaw in MTA Chairman Janno Lieber’s upcoming $51 billion or more 2025 – 2029 Five Year Capital Plan.
With New York Gov. Kathy Hochul placing congestion pricing on pause until January 2025 or later, the MTA will be forced to advertise, award and issue a Notice to Proceed tor contractors representing $15 billion worth of projects funded by congestion pricing within the first year of the next $51 billion or more 2025 – 2029 Five Year Capital Program. months.
There are also billions in other ongoing capital projects not dependent on congestion pricing whose work will be carried over into the next $51 billion or more 2025 – 2029 Five Year Capital Plan.
There may not be enough resources to integrate the implementation of $15 billion or more carryover congestion price-funded projects from the $51 billion 2020 – 2024 Five Year Capital Plan, billions more in ongoing non-congestion price-funded projects from the previous 2020 – 2024 Five Year Capital Plan with those in the first and second year of the upcoming $51 billion plus 2025 – 2029 Five Year Capital Plan.
The MTA lacks sufficient procurement, project managers, engineers, legal, and force account employees, along with track outage availability to proceed with all these projects in the same time frame.
Billions of capital improvement projects will be delayed. Costs will increase due to inflation and other factors as time goes by. The upcoming $51 billion plus 2025 – 2029 Five Year Capital Plan is due to be released in October and adopted on or before Jan. 1, 2025.
This should include master integration schedules for staffing to manage each capital project, procurement, annual track, force account (internal track, signal maintainers and other specialized trades employees) and maintenance plans that document how the billions in carryover capital projects will proceed with billions more in the new five-year capital program.
MTA Board members, elected officials, city, state and federal funding agencies such as the Federal Transit Administration, commuters, taxpayers, transit advocacy groups and transit reporters need to see this critical information. It is the only way we can determine if the MTA has the technical capacity to meeting the challenge.
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.
