State Senate Republicans in Albany have cut $770 million in capital financing for New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and rejected the agency’s request for a $7 billion bonding cap increase.
One New York City lawmaker feels the move will jeopardize the MTA’s eligibility for more than $2 billion in financing from the federal government.
“It will bring the East Side Access project to a complete halt,” said Sen. Martin Dilan, D-Brooklyn, the ranking Democrat on the Transportation Committee, according to the New York Daily News.
Dilan said that the cuts could also hurt the state’s overall economy, as the MTA purchases new subway cars from upstate factories.
But Budget Committee chairman John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, was unimpressed, according to the Daily News. “We don’t have too many MTA trains going to Syracuse,” he said.
