Further delays in obtaining five-year capital plan approval from state officials could jeopardize key contracts for the East Side Access project, said the chairman of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
"Clearly we can't award contracts with dollar values with more money that we have known," Prendergast told reporters Wednesday after an uneventful MTA monthly board meeting in lower Manhattan. "There are some contracts on East Side access and other parts of the capital program that we need an approved '15 through '19 program to basically award them, the full contract."
East Side Access is designed to bring Long Island Rail Road trains to a new concourse underneath Grand Central Terminal.
The project has already experienced several delays. Authority officials have pushed the start date back to June 2022, with estimated costs having risen to $10.8 billion from an original $4.3 billion. As recently as 2009, MTA had projected a 2016 opening date.
East Side Access is one of several MTA megaprojects, including a Second Avenue Subway.
Prendergast left right after the press conference for a 3 p.m. hearing in Albany, ostensibly a confirmation hearing for his six-year term. The capital plan undoubtedly was sure to come up in conversation.
He doesn't expect a solution this legislative session but he says he is still confident the MTA will receive funding, even if incremental.
So far, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers have said little about the MTA's $32 billion proposed 2015-2019 capital program, which has a $14 billion funding gap. A state review board in October rejected the plan without prejudice, citing the funding gap.
About $3 billion of that plan is self-funded through bridge and tunnel tolls.
Gene Russianoff, an attorney and chief spokesman for the Straphangers Campaign subway ridership lobbying group, chided state leaders.
"By all accounts, this session of the state legislature has continued its tradition of dysfunction and corruption," he said. "As a result, the $14 billion you need to provide decent service to your riders is in doubt."
The MTA is one of the largest municipal issuers with about $35.6 billion of debt.
"There are some large contracts, one in particular on East Side access, that you get to a certain point and if you don't have the money to award, you let the contractors know so you suspend the process," said Prendergast. "Hopefully you can start it up in time so that it doesn't result in a delay to the overall program.
"That's kind of where we're at right now. If the delay would be multiple months, then it could put the end date of East Side access at risk, but right now we're not quite at that point. But we're fast approaching it."
A report by MTA officials to the board's capital program oversight committee cited a need for a purchase of caverns and track at Grand Central by no later than January 2016 "contingent upon the approval of the 2015-2019 capital plan." November would be preferable, said MTA officials, to provide extra time for the contractor's procurement and delivery of precast concrete.
Also on Wednesday, the full board authorized the use of variable rate refunding bonds in connection with targeted refunding bonds. The finance committee signed off on it two days earlier.
