MTA capital projects forge ahead, fueled by congestion pricing

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in the middle of ambitious growth and transformation. The implementation of congestion pricing has provided a new source of revenue for the mass transit system to implement long delayed safety, technology and accessibility improvement. The approval of funding for a new five year capital plan will lead to upgrades not just with New York City’s subway system, but the commuter rail lines serving the city’s suburbs. Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction and Development, sits at the center of the capital development. Ahead of City & State’s Transportation in New York Summit tomorrow, Torres-Springer spoke to us about the issues surrounding capital improvement in the transit system. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are the priority capital projects for the MTA, including those funded by congestion pricing and as part of the newly approved capital plan?

There's been a major consensus that we have to invest in the state of good repair of this massive system. It begins with the priority investments we're making now as a result of congestion pricing, which is yielding revenues that are going directly into improving the transit system. We've been purchasing new train cars. We've been awarding contracts for ADA station accessibility. We're on the verge of starting a major re-signaling project to upgrade the signals of the A and the C trains in Brooklyn. All of that is happening as a direct result of congestion pricing. We’ve got this new 2025 to 2029 capital plan that got fully funded and approved by the Legislature last spring, and we're in the midst of launching that, and that has a series of really big investments in it. Again, very state-of-good repair focused. Ninety percent of the program is state-of-good repair. We're replacing and operating 75 miles of signals. We're getting more than 60 stations made ADA accessible. And when we do that, we make lots of improvements to the stations. In addition to putting in the elevators, we're buying a couple 1,000 train cars for both the subway system and Metro North and Long Island Railroad. We’re also investing in those elements in the back of the house that riders don't see but are so important to providing safe, reliable and frequent service, which is the power systems, the structures, the track. Those are the major components of the system that we can't run without.

While there is the influx of funding from congestion pricing and the state, there are questions on federal funding for the Second Avenue Subway based on President Donald Trump’s recent comments. Is the MTA concerned about ongoing federal funding for this project?

Well, I think the important thing is that there is a real consensus around making sure that we put the money into this mass transit system. We're carrying five million people a day. We're the life blood of New York City and the region. The region, it's 10% of the nation's overall economic activity. There is a consensus around funding the plan. We have a variety of sources that are going into funding the plan, and that includes a lot of federal funding support. Despite some of the rhetoric we've seen, funding for mass transit sustained in the president's proposed budget and in the budgets that came out of both houses (of Congress) earlier in the year. Leave aside some of the short-term issues that you see in the press right now, and there's a consensus around funding mass transit.

Does the MTA have contingency plans in place in the event that fund for the Second Avenue Subway is canceled by the Trump administration?

We have contracts with the federal government to support the Second Avenue subway and the project is proceeding. They wanted to conduct an administrative review related to some policy changes that they made, to ensure that we're complying with those policy changes.  We're fully complying with them, and we're certain that that's going to be the outcome of their review. We’re confident that the funding will remain in place.

Where do things stand with the Interborough Express project to connect Brooklyn and Queens?

Well first of all, it's a great project. It's one that people have been talking about for many years. We brought it that much closer to reality in the last few months. It's got enormous support from the governor and from folks across the political spectrum and across neighborhoods throughout Brooklyn and Queens. So we are advancing it. We awarded a contract to get the design to a point where we would be able to bring a contractor on board, and the governor announced last week that we're initiating the environmental review process. Both of those steps together take about two years, and as we get down the road a little bit on both of those sets of activities, we’ll be able to come up with a little bit more of a detailed schedule for how we move forward.

The MTA has recently announced that Metro-North will be going to Albany and having a fast train from New York City to Poughkeepsie. Will we be seeing more additional routes from the commuter rail lines?

There is about $800 million in the 2025 to 2029 capital plan to fund capacity expansions across the two railroads and in the subway system. We've identified some of those specifically in the plan. An example is the idea of a bus way in Ridgewood, which we're proceeding with. It's a dedicated right of way underneath one of the overhead subway trains that we're looking at. Working with the governor, we've expanded the capacity to bring Metro North riders from Poughkeepsie in less than 90 minutes, and now we'll be filling in some of the service gaps that have been left by Amtrak getting to Albany. We've announced that we're looking at opportunities to expand capacity on Long Island from Ronkonkoma out of Yaphank. We're looking at capacity on the Port Jefferson line. We also are continuing to look at the opportunities to bring the Hudson line into the city in different ways and to improve the resilience about so that's just a selection of work that we're doing on the railroads. The most important thing that we can do for the Long Island Railroad, for the vast majority of customers, is speed up the trip from Jamaica into the terminals in the city, into Atlantic, Penn and Grand Central Madison.

We are seeing a lot of infrastructure investment in the New York City metro region between the MTA, the Port Authority and the Gateway Development Commission. What is impact of this historic level of investment?

Well, speaking for the MTA, you know, we've been clear in identifying tens of billions of dollars of direct economic impact from the work that we're doing within the capital plan.It creates jobs. It provides contracts and funding for small businesses, for minority and women business enterprises. It's a big driver of economic activity and job creation across the whole region. And in fact, I believe it's 46 states that produce either materials or services to support our capital program. That's the direct impact. The much more important indirect impact is a trillion-and-a-half-dollar asset that carries five million people a day. It's really at the heart of the regional economy, and our economy isn't going to continue to function without that infrastructure investment.