The East Side Access project to bring Long Island Rail Road service to Grand Central Terminal in New York City could cost nearly $9 billion when completed in 2019, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli
DiNapoli said that’s more than twice the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s initial cost estimate, and a decade later than expected.
“Time and again, the MTA has come up short on the goal to deliver the East Side Access project on schedule and within budget,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “While this project is an important addition to the regional mass transit system serving New York City and Long Island, taxpayers will have to bear the brunt of these unanticipated costs.
“There must be lessons learned at the MTA from this experience as they move forward with their capital program.”
An MTA spokesman said the authority is reviewing the report.
In 1999, the MTA pegged the cost of East Side Access at $4.3 billion, with completion in 2009.
“Although ESA is the most egregious example, the MTA has also underestimated the cost and time to complete other capital projects,” DiNapoli said.
Under the project, some commuter trains coming from Long Island will go to Grand Central on the East Side, rather than the current Penn Station on the West Side. It is the first expansion of the LIRR in more than 100 years and the MTA expects the move to reduce travel times by up to 40 minutes.
The report said the MTA portion of the project has ballooned from less than $2.2 billion to $4.56 billion. “Most of the resources for the MTA’s share will come from bonds, which will increase debt service that will need to be funded with operating budget resources, such as fare and toll revenue,” it said.
Gene Russianoff, an attorney and chief spokesman for the Straphangers Campaign ridership lobbying group, worried about DiNapoli’s projection of $3 billion of debt service for the MTA’s capital program by 2019, with East Side Access to account for possibly 11%, or more than $300 million, of that total.
“East Side Access is a good project and transit managers have their excuses for spiraling costs, some legitimate and some not. But we share the bewilderment of riders about how the MTA could be so far off the mark,” Russianoff said.
The MTA has $32 billion in outstanding debt overall. Other major capital projects include the Second Avenue subway line and the Fulton Street Transit Center.
Moody’s Investors Service rates the MTA’s transportation revenue bonds A2, while Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s assign A ratings.
