The press conference was about grade crossing safety, but another recurring query quickly emerged.
"Capital program questions. Surprise!" New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Thomas Prendergast exclaimed with a grin.
Reporters asked him about the agency's proposed five-year capital program, which is sitting in limbo in Albany.
Prendergast, while acknowledging the rising urgency, said he remained confident that state officials would approve the plan for 2015-2019. Last October, a capital program review panel that includes Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other state leaders rejected without prejudice the $32 billion proposal, which has a $14 billion funding gap.
"There's no doubt in my mind we'll get a capital program," he said Wednesday afternoon in lower Manhattan. "It's less likely it's going to happen during [this] session. It may happen either in a special section, or later, and we'll keep going.
"But the urgency is increasing, there's no doubt about it."
Except for the initial plan in 1982, no MTA capital program has been approved until at least several months into the formal plan period, the Independent Budget Office watchdog organization said last week.
The MTA is one of the largest municipal issuers with roughly $35 billion in debt.
"Given that the MTA typically ends each plan period with a considerable amount of funding yet to be committed, and an even greater amount yet to be expended, the typical delays in plan approval [three months to six months into the first year of the plan] have not been a constraint on the authority's ability to carry out capital investments," IBO said.
Much of the work in capital plans over the past two decades is performed and paid for outside the formal plan period, according to IBO.
The MTA is not alone in funding limbo. Bipartisan agreement in Washington on a new long-term federal transportation bill has been elusive, and many states have delayed transportation projects that depend on federal funding.
"Historically this is around the time we get approval on a capital program, so it's not like we're that much further extended," Prendergast said Wednesday. "But it's not a linear function. It tends to grow over time."
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio last month increased the city's annual contribution to the MTA's capital plan to $125 million in his executive budget, up from $100 million. Prendergast asked the city to triple the amount to $300 million. He also wants an additional $1 billion for the long-delayed Second Avenue subway line over the five years of the plan.
De Blasio this week said he would be open to further discussions about MTA once he deals with "immediate challenges," notably renewing rent regulations that expired on Monday.
"I think when we get through this legislative session and obviously our own city budget process, I think it'll be an important moment for - for the state government, the city government, the MTA and other stakeholders to have a serious conversation about the future," the mayor told reporters.
Comptroller Scott Stringer said the city already pays enough. In a report last month. He said city taxpayers and businesses contribute more than $10.1 billion annually in taxes, fares, tolls and direct expenditures toward MTA — far higher than generally recognized. Every New Yorker, he said, pays an "invisible fare" of $130 per month on average to the MTA's coffers.
