Spiraling population, record tourism and new dynamics such as climate change have worsened New York City’s aging infrastructure challenge, according to a
The think tank’s “Caution Ahead: Five Years Later,” released Tuesday, updates its 2014 study that identified $47 billion in capital needs simply for repair and replacement.
“Our new analysis also shows that some of the problems we documented five years ago have only gotten worse, and that the new stresses like climate change have only added to the overall price tag to bring the city’s core infrastructure to a state of good repair,” the report said.
Headline problems over the summer have brought discussions about the city’s infrastructure woes to the forefront. They included a massive power outage in Manhattan; flash flooding in Brooklyn’s Park Slope and Williamsburg; a software glitch that disrupted rush-hour subway traffic; and a subway-platform deluge in Queens that nearly knocked a rider in front of an oncoming train.
The study concluded that Mayor Bill de Blasio administration has made some progress with infrastructure investments in several areas, but added that capital needs across many city agencies have spiked significantly, “and not just in high-profile areas like the subways and NYCHA," the New York City Housing Authority.
According to Howard Cure, director of municipal bond research for Evercore Wealth Management, financing all these needs is the biggest question.
“What sort of burden do you put on taxpayers?” Cure said. “Are there other ways, such as having the private sector involved or some value-added system, to finance this?” Impediments, Cure added, include construction costs and inefficient labor contracts. “It’s very costly to do construction in New York.”
Recent state approval for the city to engage in design-build project delivery could help trim procurement costs, Cure added.
CUF’s estimated state-of-good-repair needs at the 18 city agencies analyzed in its original 2014 report have ballooned by 19%, to $7.8 billion for fiscal 2018 to 2021 from $6.6 billion for FY2014-2017. While city funding has also risen during this period, 13 of the 18 agencies still have less than 40% of their four-year state-of-good-repair needs funded.
Five city agencies have less than 20% of their four-year state-of-good-repair needs funded, the report found. Six agencies have a state-of-good-repair needs gap of at least $100 million.
The Department of Education alone recorded a gap of more than $1.5 billion, while the Department of Parks & Recreation’s gap exceeded $500 million. Capital needs at DOE have nearly doubled since 2011, with four-year state-of-good-repair needs for city schools increasing to $2.1 billion in 2017 from an inflation-adjusted $1.1 billion in 2011.
Planned spending at the DOE has not kept up with escalating repair needs, leading to a shortfall that has spiraled to more than $1.5 billion in 2017 from an inflation-adjusted $865 million in 2011.
The City University of New York’s four-year state-of-good-repair needs for 2017 topped $100 million, more than double the $43.9 million reported in 2011.
NYCHA’s overall five-year capital needs increased over 70% to $31.8 billion in 2017, up from $18.3 billion in 2011, also adjusted for inflation.
Cure noted that some entities involve state and federal operations and funding. New York State, for example, operates the
“The city can’t handle it all and a lot is state-related,” he said. “And they can’t rely on the federal government with this administration.
“Health + Hospitals is huge,” he said. “The city is primarily responsible but there is definitely a state and federal component.”
Other ongoing concerns, Cure said, need regional approaches. They include Penn Station reconstruction, the new
Keeping pace with resilience after Hurricane Sandy, according to CUF, will require major investment in retrofitting buildings.
“Meeting other targets will require even more ramping up,” it said. “Work to improve water management, reduce waste to landfills, and protect New York City’s immense coastline encompass major infrastructure challenges.”
State Rep. Jaime Williams, D-Brooklyn, called for a more proactive approach to resiliency.
“We shouldn’t wait to really talk about disasters and how to be prepared for an emergency,” she said at last month’s Preserving NY
Hurricane Sandy, which killed 44 New Yorkers and inflicted $19 billion worth of damage in October 2012, was a wake-up call, said Jainey Bavishi, director of Mayor's Office of Resiliency.
“We’re spending $20 million on resiliency citywide. That’s allocated money that we are implementing now,” she said. “We’re actually safer. We have improved our emergency response protocol. We have hardened critical services and infrastructure and minimized disruptions during and after extreme weather events.”
Still, according to Bavishi, funding is a heavy lift.
“We have a federal system that funds these kinds of projects in a very reactive way, after a disaster, when we want to inherently take proactive action to address these challenges. We absolutely need to see reform at the federal level.”
City Council member Justin Brannan, who represents Brooklyn and chairs the council’s new committee on resiliency and waterfronts, called the resiliency effort Manhattan-centric.
“There’s a feeling that all you ever hear about is what’s being done to protect Lower Manhattan,” Brannan said. “Folks in the outer boroughs could be hard-pressed to locate or identify or really feel the tangible progress that has been made.
“We’re a city of waterfronts. Of the five boroughs, four of them are islands.”
Brannan’s committee, along with two others, has scheduled a Sept. 4 oversight hearing on Consolidated Edison’s summer service outages.
