MTA Board Approves New 5-Year Capital Program

The MTA Board has approved an ambitious $17.2 billion core Capital Program for 2005-2009. The program was developed to ensure that the investment in MTA subways, buses, rail lines, and bridges and tunnels remains at a level that will maintain and improve upon the gains in reliability, comfort, and safety made over the past two decades. The plan also calls for investments in security projects that will make the system more secure and for network expansion projects.

“We’ve come a long way since our first Capital Program began in 1982,” said MTA Chairman Peter S. Kalikow. “Trains and buses run on time and break down far less frequently. Reliability went way up and ridership soared, approaching record levels as customers returned to the system. But to continue to make progress and protect this invaluable resource for all New Yorkers, we need to invest close to two and a half billion dollars a year in basic maintenance and improvement.”

MTA Executive Director Katherine N. Lapp noted that, “The results have been the kind that riders experience every day. For instance, on-time performance at the Long Island Rail Road has increased from 85 percent in the early 1980s to 93.1 percent, and Metro-North’s performance rose from 80.5 percent to 97.5 percent. On the subways, the mean distance between failures has increased from less than 7,000 miles in 1981 to nearly 140,000 miles in 2003, meaning far fewer breakdowns and better service on all lines. At Bridges and Tunnels, E-ZPass has helped drop the average peak-hour queue time from three minutes in 1996 to only 20 seconds today, despite a 13 percent increase in traffic.”

The goal of the proposed program is to build on the success of earlier Capital Programs, emphasizing projects that achieve a state of good repair for all facilities, normal replacement of equipment as it reaches the end of its useful life, and system improvements that make travel more efficient. The Capital Program also contains components that will make the system safer from terrorist attacks and critical expansion projects that will increase capacity and give commuters additional options.

Like all MTA Capital Programs, the 2005-2009 plan addresses both visible (rolling stock, stations, bridges, tunnels) and invisible infrastructure needs (signals, track, viaducts, fiber-optic cables, power) in order to ensure that customer inconveniences are minimized. “Investments in our core ensures that every visible and invisible component of the system does its job. The failure of any one of thousands of components can mean delays for tens of thousands of customers,” said Lapp.

The proposal includes an additional $500 million that will be used to continue post-9/11 security investments to harden vulnerable assets and implement systems for conducting targeted surveillance, controlling access, stopping intrusion, and providing command and control systems to support incident response. Funding for all or part of these security projects will be sought from the federal government.

The MTA will also move forward on a number of system expansion projects to meet ever-growing demand. The 2005-2009 Capital Program provides significant funding to two projects already in their preliminary stages — East Side Access and the Second Avenue Subway, and begin work on two more — an extension of the 7 line to the far West Side and Javits Convention Center and a direct link via Long Island Rail Road from Kennedy Airport to Downtown Manhattan. The MTA has a net funding need of $4.2 billion for these projects.

With a network serving a population of nearly 13 million people in New York City, Long Island, and upstate New York (Metro-North operations in Connecticut are funded primarily by the Connecticut Department of Transportation, and MTA Long Island Bus receives the bulk of its funding from Nassau County and is not part of the MTA Capital Program), the MTA system comprises 45 subway and rail lines and 298 bus routes with:

1,931 track miles
490 subway stations
243 commuter rail stations
8,453 subway and rail cars
3,012 bus route miles
4,930 buses

In addition, the MTA bridge and tunnel network includes:

7 bridges
2 tunnels
10 toll plazas
197 toll lanes

The MTA began its first Capital Program in 1982 in order to save the system from collapse. In the years since, it has committed more than $46 billion to rehabilitate or replace subway cars, train cars, and buses, and repair and improve track, signals, repair and cleaning facilities, power supplies and distribution, fan plants, and much of the rest of the “invisible” infrastructure critical to efficient operation.

“The progress the MTA has made in the last 20 years to restore and maintain the core system must not and cannot be eroded,” Lapp said. She quoted Richard Ravitch, chairman of the MTA when it was at perhaps its lowest point, noting that, “The highest priority must be the capital maintenance of the existing system. Otherwise the subway system and commuter rail system are going to start down the slippery slope again.”

One good way to measure the progress the MTA has made since 1982 is to compare the way Capital Program funds are allocated. From 1982 to 1991, for example, 70 percent of all funds were spent to return components of the system to a state of good repair. In the proposed 2005-2009 program, just 27 percent of funds are allocated to state-of-good-repair projects, while 55 percent of funds are committed to normal replacement of equipment as it reaches the end of its useful life. (See charts and table in PDF format)

The next step for the 2005-2009 Capital Program is to obtain state approval. The portions of the Capital Program for MTA New York City Transit, MTA Long Island Rail Road, and MTA Metro-North Railroad are being submitted to the New York State Capital Program Review Board (CPRB) for its review and approval. (The program for Bridges and Tunnels does not require CPRB approval.)

The MTA will also continue to address the funding needs of the program. It must put together the right mix of federal, state, and local funding support along with MTA bonds and other contributions (such as asset sales) for the Capital Program.

Highlights of the core program:

MTA New York City Transit ($12.13 billion)

959 new subway cars (including 47 cars to expand the A division fleet)
1,360 new buses and 948 paratransit vehicles
Expansion of the bus locator system for the entire fleet
55 station rehabilitations
Replacement of 25 escalators at 4 stations
A new passenger transfer between the Jay Street and Lawrence Street stations in Brooklyn
Further investments in Automated Train Supervision and Communications-Based Train Control
Tunnel lighting and fan plants upgrading to improve system safety

MTA Long Island Rail Road ($2.43 billion)

Phase I of mainline third track between Bellrose and Hicksville
New yard to serve the Port Jefferson branch
170 new M-7 cars to complete replacement of the M-1 fleet
Improvement of the power grid to handle expected growth in service

MTA Metro-North Railroad ($1.41 billion)

36 new M-7 cars for the Harlem and Hudson fleets
100 new M-8 cars to begin replacement and growth of the New Haven M-2 fleet
25 station rehabilitations
Phases 2 and 3 of replacement of the 100-year-old Croton-Harmon Shop and Yard

MTA Bridges and Tunnels ($1.26 billion)

Replacement of Randall’s Island decking of the Triborough Bridge
Rehabilitation of approaches and suspension span of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
Rehabilitation of the deck of the Throgs Neck Bridge
Replacement of the lower level deck of the Henry Hudson Bridge
New decking and structural rehabilitation for the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge