Wednesday's meeting of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority board took a bright tone, coming after the agency's quest for a capital spending plan reached its Holy Grail.
"Somewhere the sun is shining, somewhere the band is playing, and we have a capital plan," MTA Chairman Thomas Prendergast said to applause at lower Manhattan headquarters.
On Tuesday, the New York State Capital Program Review Board finally approved the MTA's $27 billion capital program from 2015 to 2019, which had been in limbo for about 18 months. In addition, the program includes nearly $3 billion in self-funded bridge and tunnel improvement and repair projects.
Passage of the plan marks the largest investment in MTA infrastructure in state history. The authority is one of the largest municipal issuers, with nearly $37 billion in debt.
The review panel had rejected the original plan, for $32 billion, late in 2014, citing a nearly $15 billion funding gap. The MTA's struggle to obtain a fully funded plan – even Prendergast at times said $40 billion would have been more appropriate – has been central to wider discussions about transportation infrastructure funding and governance.
"It becomes more challenging every time," said Prendergast. "This particular procedure was a lot more extended than others."
In this go-round, the state government committed $8.3 billion in funding to the plan. The plan also includes nearly $500 million in annual contributions from New York City – a 392% increase – in addition to $32 million in city matching funds to federal grants supporting the MTA capital bus program. The authority also trimmed its capital request by committing to internal efficiencies including streamlined procurement methods.
Transit advocates on Wednesday urged the MTA to hold the state and city to their commitments.
"The city and state have made significant pledges. We have to be diligent to make sure those pledges are met," Veronica Vanterpool, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, told the board.
Plan funding will help begin the second phase of the Second Avenue Subway to East Harlem. State officials had been prodding the MTA over the long-delayed project.
Funds will also continue the project to add a second track along 18 miles of the Long Island Rail Road between Farmingdale and Ronkonkoma; renovate stations; accelerate a plan to create a new fare payment system to replace the MetroCard; and continue building the East Side Access project to steer LIRR trains into Grand Central Terminal.
The plan will also enable the purchase of more than 2,340 buses and 1,450 subway cars and advance an initiative to build four new Metro-North Railroad stations in the East Bronx while bringing Metro-North service to Penn Station.
According to Prendergast, last week's fire underneath the Park Avenue viaduct in East Harlem, which disrupted Metro-North service for several days, underscores the need for alternative Metro-North access to Manhattan.
Moody's Investors Service assigns an A1 rating to the MTA's workhorse credit, its transportation revenue bonds. Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's rate them A and AA-minus, respectively, while Kroll Bond Rating Agency rates them AA-plus.
The plan includes $5.7 billion in bonding capacity, including $200 million in bond proceeds generated from savings from the Federal Railroad Administration's low-interest railroad rehabilitation and improvement financing, or RRIF, loan supporting positive train control, a remote train-control system designed to minimize accident risk.
It also includes $1.6 billion in pay-as-you-go capital.
