New York MTA Gets $886M Sandy Installment from Feds

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority will receive about $886 million from the federal government in its first major reimbursement of post-Hurricane Sandy repair work, U.S. transportation officials announced at a Friday afternoon press conference in Washington.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the funds enable the MTA, which operates New York City's subway system and two commuter rail lines, to begin drawing from the $3.8 billion the Federal Transit Administration had allocated to the MTA for Sandy-related work already under way and for completion of future projects.

"When Hurricane Sandy made landfall, it also triggered the worst public transit disaster in American history," said Foxx.

Foxx praised MTA officials for protective moves in advance of the Oct. 29, 2012 storm, including shutting down the system before the storm and relocating trains and other supplies under cover and to high ground, and for getting the system running again quickly.

The funding will include $535 million for critical repair and recovery in the Montague, Greenpoint and Steinway tunnels, all of which sustained heavy saltwater damage. Some of the funds will cover resiliency of the 110-year-old system.

The MTA, with roughly $32 billion of debt, is one of the biggest issuers in the municipal marketplace. Moody's Investors Service rates the authority's transportation revenue bonds, its primary credit, A2, while Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's rate them A.

According to MTA chief executive Thomas Prendergast, roughly $266 million will be for repair to rails and equipment facilities in the Montague tube between Brooklyn and Manhattan. He expects to split the remainder between Greenpoint and Steinway. "The most heavily damaged was Montague," he said, repairs to which have forced the MTA to take the tunnel out of service for 14 months and disrupt R-train service.

The shorter Greenpoint tube transports G train riders between Brooklyn and Queens under the Newtown Creek. Steinway carries the No. 7 train from Queens to Manhattan under the East River.

The funding will also include $138.9 million for electrical and power distribution repair to damaged substations and power infrastructure for the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad; $88.1 million to fix essential communications and signal equipment for Metro-North systemwide, and LIRR's Long Beach branch and Westside storage yard; $91.5 million to restore damaged rights of way on the Metro-North's Harlem, Hudson and New Haven lines and for design services to make long-term repairs to damaged assets; and $32 million to repair stations, employee facilities, and fare collection equipment for both rail and bus facilities.

For all transit agencies eligible to receive Hurricane Sandy aid, the FTA has allocated about 55% of the $10.35 billion available through the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 after a nearly $545 million cut due to sequestration. About $4 billion worth of work is already under way.

FTA administrator Peter Rogoff told reporters that resilience money could help the MTA deal with cold-weather problems such as signal failure. Prendergast added, however: "Our primary focus is high water, but I wouldn't rule out cold weather."

Prendergast's comments came one day after a two-hour service disruption to Metro-North, the latest mishap in the 12 months for the commuter rail line that serves Connecticut and communities north of New York City. Last month a derailment in the Bronx killed four people.

Prendergast blamed Thursday's outage human error during an electrical repair project. "The failure was unacceptable," he said. "I've been in the business for 39 years and that's the kind of work you do late Saturday night or early Saturday morning, when you have the least impact on riders."