The changes hike the transit program from $16.5 billion to $17.1 billion. Additions include $350 million more for NYC Transit's work on the Second Avenue subway, $100 million more for the clean bus program and a $150 million pork program for local MTA projects to be identified by legislators. Newsday reported that $14 million was also found in the plan for design and engineering for addition of a third track along the LIRR mainline between Hicksville and Queens Village.

Reports said that the general-obligation transportation bond that the state wants to issue if voters approve it in November would reduce fare-backed borrowing by $1 billion, but the agency will still sell $22 billion in new and refinanced debt, much of it backed by fares instead of taxes. The NY Times said the plan would represent the largest sale of municipal bonds in history.

At the hearing, the Straphangers Campaign urged MTA board members to reject the plan because of the debt-ridden financing scheme. The Straphangers' Gene Russianoff told reporters that the huge debt the plan is based on could "make it harder to build the Second Avenue subway because you have to find another seven or eight or nine billion for it in the next 10 or 15 years in the context of an agency that has mortgaged every stick of furniture it has on the property."

The NY Times reported that MTA Chair E. Virgil Conway equivocated when asked if the plan would necessitate transit fare increases after 2000.