MTA Board approves record $68.4 billion spending plan, including new LIRR trains, accessibility upgrades

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday approved its next five-year Capital Program, which aims to spend $68.4 billion on transportation infrastructure upgrades, including new trains for the Long Island Rail Road.

The 11-member MTA Board unanimously voted in favor of the plan — the most expensive in its history — at its monthly meeting in Manhattan.

Final approval is still required by the State Legislature, which must also come up with a way to generate a new revenue stream to fund roughly half the plan, while also figuring out how to fill a $15 billion budget gap in the MTA’s current capital budget that was created with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s indefinite pause on congestion pricing.

"We’re adopting a program, and recognize that Albany, ultimately, has the decision-making responsibility over how it’s funded, and how much," MTA Chairman Janno Lieber told board members before putting the plan up for a vote. "There’s so much substantive work and thought and analysis that has gone into it to make sure we’re meeting the needs of the system and meeting the needs of New York."

The 2025-2029 capital budget concentrates on maintaining, rather than expanding, the MTA’s transit system, which the agency has said includes about $1.5 trillion in assets. The LIRR stands to get about $6 billion from the proposed budget, including funding for about 160 new electric trains — enough to completely replace the railroad’s fleet of 1980’s-era M-3 rail cars, to allow for accessibility upgrades at several stations, repairs of deteriorating bridges, and 29 miles of new signals.

The MTA is also looking at expanding its network, including with a $2.75 billion investment in the Interborough Express — a light rail line linking Brooklyn and Queens with a connection to the LIRR at East New York.

An $800 million pool of funding will be used to study, and potentially begin work on, other expansion projects, including the possible electrification of the LIRR to Yaphank.

Long Island’s three voting MTA Board members all supported the plan. Nassau representative David Mack said the program is "all about" keeping the MTA as an "economic engine" for New York. Suffolk representative Marc Herbst said that while $68 billion "sounds like an outrageous number," the investment will transform areas near the transit system to places "where people will want to go and live and work."

Board member Sammy Chu, of Lindenhurst, visited some of the aging electrical substations in line to be replaced, and likened them to "set pieces in a remake of Frankenstein’s Monster."

"These investments are critical to avoid critical issues down the road," Chu said. "We cannot kick the can down the road."

Other investments include the purchase of 1,500 new subway cars, the installation of new fare gates at more than 150 stations to combat fare evasion, and the purchase of 500 electric buses.

While commending the MTA for advancing several important projects, some transit advocates, speaking before the meeting, expressed disappointment that the proposed plan doesn’t go further, and blamed Hochul for creating uncertainty over how the plan will be funded.

"The capital program is good, with important projects that have been overlooked and underfunded for decades. But it isn’t the great plan it could be," said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the MTA’s Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee, which includes the LIRR Commuter Council.

Daglian said a better plan would have grown the size of the LIRR’s reliability-challenged diesel fleet, and made 100% of LIRR stations accessible. The proposed plan aims to replace some diesel trains, and make the LIRR 98% accessible.

"The caution being exercised is understandable, but lamentable," Daglian said. "It’s a shame that one key unknown is caused by the former champion of riders, Gov. Hochul, who turned her back on riders."

In June — weeks before congestion pricing was set to take effect — Hochul pulled the plug on the plan, citing affordability concerns. Under the plan, most vehicles would have paid a new $15 toll for driving below 60th Street, generating $1 billion in annual revenue that would have been dedicated to MTA capital needs.

Hochul has vowed to come up with the funding to complete all the projects in the MTA’s 2020-2024 capital program, and said she will review the newly-proposed 2025-2029 plan and "fight to secure as much funding as possible."

The MTA has said, after accounting for new bonds that would be issued and for regular federal, city, and state subsidies, it expects to be around $33 billion short of funding the new plan.