- MTA unveils, approves $17.5B plan in same day -

Following the MTA Board's vote to approve its hot-off-the-presses 5-year capital program proposal on Wednesday, debate over the scope and contents of the plan formally entered the political arena. The scope and contents of the transit capital program - especially how it addresses the Second Avenue Subway - now rest squarely on the shoulders of NY State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Silver has repeatedly told reporters he would not approve any capital program that does not establish a plan for and go a long way to paying for a Second Avenue Subway that runs the full length of Manhattan. However, in comments to the NY Times on Thursday, Silver appeared to leave open the possibility that he might consider the $700 million allocated to the Second Avenue project in the MTA's plan as sufficient funding. Critics of the MTA plan contend that funding level will put completion of any Second Avenue project well after the planned Long Island Railroad link to Grand Central Terminal, adding thousands more riders to the groaning Lexington Avenue subway.

In comments to the Campaign today, elected proponents of a full-length Second Avenue Subway made it clear they are counting on Silver to deliver.

Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields said she had written to Silver, Governor Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, urging them "to ensure that...funding of approximately $2 billion for design and initial construction [of the full-length subway] are included prior to the plan's final approval."

A spokesperson for Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said that New York City "elected officials speak with one voice. The MTA 2^nd Ave. stub doesn't fulfill the needs of New Yorkers. The Capital Program Review Board (composed of representatives from the State Assembly, State Senate, the Governor's and the Mayor's offices) is the first line of defense to insure a full build Second Avenue subway...It will take the leadership of the legislature to insure that MTA does the full build."

City Councilwoman Kathryn Freed's office insisted that subway construction serve the East Village and Lower East Side, and said it is "up to Silver, Bruno and Pataki to get the [full build] done."

Governor Pataki is widely believed to have blessed the MTA's proposed plan - he appoints a majority of the MTA Board. Transportation leadership in the State Senate is heavily concentrated on Long Island. Clearly, the full-length Second Avenue project's champion is Speaker Silver or no one. Silver should feel politically comfortable in that role - a very broad coalition of city and suburban business, labor, civic, environmental and other organizations has backed a plan calling for a $2 billion investment in the Second Avenue Subway project and a construction schedule that brings it and the LIRR-Grand Central connection to completion in tandem.

At Wednesday's hearing, the Straphangers Campaign and NYC elected officials pointed out that the MTA spending proposal tilts heavily in favor of commuter rail. Where the capital investment split has stood at 77% for NYC Transit and 23% for Metro-North/LIRR for 20 years, the MTA proposal would shift the percentages to 69%/31% - a $1.3 billion loss for city transit.

The plan the MTA approved Wednesday contains several significant changes from the draft the agency released to some last week (see MTR #238). Most notably, the plan now includes $645 million for engineering, design and construction of the "off-airport" sections of a rail link to LaGuardia, bringing the system expansion budget in the plan to about $3 billion. This feature was added after Mayor Giuliani was briefed on the plan. Despite this increase in spending, the MTA did not project its funding gaps to be any larger. The agency may in fact regard the LaGuardia budget as a relatively soft figure, since it has recently returned to the LaGuardia drawing board (see MTR #237) and is far from having a definitive plan - let alone beginning construction - from bringing subway or LIRR trains into the airport.

The plan's subway car purchase will expand the fleet by 203 cars and facilitate service expansion.

Regarding buses, the 1,056 new buses the plan identifies for purchase are made up of 400 high capacity articulated buses, 356 express buses and 300 clean fuel buses. The bus plan was heavily criticized at Wednesday's hearing by the Natural Resources Defense Council and many elected leaders for its promise to spend three of every four bus dollars on polluting diesel-powered vehicles, and for inadequate investment in compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling facilities. The latter problem has created an ongoing "chicken-and-egg" issue regarding deployment of more CNG buses in the city. The MTA plan does not even specify which "clean fuel" the 300 buses will use, though it is likely that they will be the CNG buses slated to operate out of the renovated Manhattanville depot. The MTA plan in fact expands diesel depot capacity. The S.I. Advance reported this week that Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari had worked out a deal for construction of a third S.I. depot, to house the Island's growing express bus fleet. NRDC points out that CNG-powered express buses are available, and CNG articulated buses are under development.

Transit advocates have long worried about NYC Transit's use of articulated buses. While the high-capacity buses can certainly increase the number of seats and passenger spaces on a route, they can also be used to reduce service frequency while maintaining a route's nominal passenger capacity.

Overall, the city transit service increases the MTA plan heralds are in the range of 8-11% from 1996-2004. But weekday subway ridership is up 14% and weekday bus ridership 36% in just the past three years.

In an interesting role reversal, the Daily News, which is known for stridently backing transit riders' interests, has endorsed the MTA's 2nd Ave. "stub-way" plan. On the other hand, the curmudgeonly New York Post has begun to repeatedly spotlight the sardine-like conditions on the Lexington Ave. line, and may be on the verge of launching a tabloid campaign in favor of the full-length 2nd Ave. subway.