Last month, Schumer told the NY Building Congress he wanted to find federal funding for both projects. Both are critical to the city and the region. Without linking LIRR the East Side, the bulk of the region's commuter rail operations will remain mired in Penn Station's near-gridlock. Without the Second Avenue subway, East Side growth will be constrained and the LIRR-GCT project will dump more commuters onto the already-jammed Lexington Avenue line.

But an MTA capital program big enough to move both projects ahead while sustaining replacement and repair work on the rest of the transit system will be difficult to craft. As the FTA has pointed out, state financing plans have to be in place for federal dollars to flow. Possible options include dedicating new revenue streams to specific projects, and reducing state funding for highway expansion projects in order to see critical transit projects through. Unless Albany's tradition of general parity between highway and transit capital funding is done away with, it will impose a low ceiling on big transit expansion ambitions.