When the MTA board of directors approved the agency’s huge 2005-2009 capital program last week, Mayor Bloomberg’s four board representatives abstained from the vote. While the exact message the mayor was sending was murky, Bloomberg appointee Mark Page said that without tangible funding sources, the proposed capital program was "quite empty."

The obvious problem with Page’s statement is that the MTA does not form and finance its construction program in isolation — it needs funding help and political support from city and state governments.

That is an argument MTA leadership is now rightly making more often and more pointedly, but Bloomberg’s action suggests city government is already seeking to walk away from the process. The Straphangers Campaign’s Gene Russianoff criticized the abstention, saying "We need Mayor Bloomberg to lead, not to abstain."

The MTA program calls for over $27 billion in mass transit construction, including about $17 billion to continue repair and normal replacement for the existing transit system, with the rest for major expansion projects. The program’s elements, from new subway cars and unseen tunnel infrastructure to Long Island Railroad expansion and the Second Avenue subway, are all needed to provide a foundation for the region’s mobility and economic health well into the 21st Century.

The mayor may take a significant risk if he departs early from any negotiation over the transit program. If the city administration will not help fund the program, it will be called out in public during a city election year to identify which of its parts should be removed. The mayor’s political opponents will try to label him a billionaire out of touch with the priorities of the majority of NYC voters. If Bloomberg becomes the mayor who helps take the 2nd Avenue Subway off the table and scales back new subway car purchases, all while remaining fixated on building a football stadium on transit property as his number one construction priority, he may prove them right.

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