New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority assumes a $15.2 billion funding gap for its
The MTA, one of the largest municipal issuers with roughly $34 billion in debt, will present its $32 billion, four-year borrowing plan to its board on Wednesday.
All but the $3 billion MTA bridges and tunnels capital program need approval from the Capital Program Review Board, a state control panel implemented as part of a 1981 aid package that enabled the MTA to issue bonds for needed funding.
"The MTA will work with its funding partners to identify the additional resources needed to achieve full funding," its senior director for capital programs, Craig Stewart, said in a memo released to board members on behalf of Chairman Thomas Prendergast and other top officials. "In the alternative, the gap can be overcome by reducing the size of the proposed program, or increasing fares and tolls, or a combination of these options."
Included in the capital plan is $5.5 billion to complete the East Side access project to funnel Long Island Rail Road trains into Grand Central Terminal, begin a second phase of the Second Avenue subway line from 96th Street to 125th Street, and expand Metro-North Railroad service into Penn Station, via an alternate route for that commuter railway that would four stations in the east Bronx.
The core $23.5 billion program consists investments that "renew and enhance" the networks of its units - New York City Transit subway and bus service, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad.
According to MTA officials, they include replacing subway, bus and commuter railroad fleets; completing Positive Train Control safety mechanisms for the railroads; expanding select bus service in conjunction with the New York City Department of Transportation; and introducing "contactless" fare-payment technology.
It also includes the continued development of real-time subway train information and would complete rollout of help-point intercoms at subway stations, the LIRR double-track project on the Ronkonkoma branch and the Metro-North Harmon shop replacement.
The $3.1 billion bridges and tunnels plan proposes to fund the replacement of the suspended span deck and rehabilitating the approach viaducts at the Throgs Neck Bridge and the various approach decks and ramps of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge; new toll plazas at the Henry Hudson Bridge in support of open-road tolling; and a new ramp linking the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge (nee Triborough Bridge) with northbound Harlem River Drive.
"Funding this program is necessary to ensure that the regional mobility and construction and manufacturing jobs provided by the MTA will continue to be the economic engine of the New York metropolitan area and the rest of the state," said Stewart.
The MTA said it will also evaluate the recommendations of the Transportation Reinvention Commission, a 26-member panel Gov. Andrew Cuomo formed to examine the capital plan more proactively. The commission, which held public hearings at MTA headquarters over three days in midtown Manhattan in July, expects to issue its own recommendations later this month.
Moody's Investors Service assigns an A2 rating to the MTA's transportation revenue bonds, its primary credit. Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings assign AA-minus and A ratings, respectively.
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