MTA board passes $19.3 billion budget, including $2 billion for LIRR

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board on Wednesday passed the agency's $19.3 billion operating budget for next year — including $2 billion to run the Long Island Rail Road.

The board voted to approve the budget on Wednesday morning in lower Manhattan at MTA headquarters. The money is in addition to the $54.8 billion capital plan, which focuses on big projects.

Janno Lieber, the MTA's chairman and chief executive, said the Long Island Rail Road priorities for the upcoming year include improving on-time performance, particularly at the Jamaica station, and smoothing out the process of changing to connecting trains. They also include installing bike storage for commuters, the potential development of parking lots, and the construction of transit-oriented and multifamily housing so commuters can live “maybe not have to rely on owning multiple automobiles as much.”

He said the MTA wants to focus on improving security in the system. That means police “more systematically patrolling the trains, and that is both deterring crime, giving passengers, I think, more comfort that there's safety on the trains, and also helping us to start being a little bit more systematic, aggressive about the growing problem of fare evasion, which exists on the commuter railroad as well as in New York City Transit.”

Jessica Mathew, senior adviser for special projects, said that the MTA by the end of next year is planning to install bike storage at the Bellport, Greenvale, Lawrence, Medford, West Hempstead and Mastic-Shirley stations.

MTA spokeswoman Joana Flores said the racks will store seven to nine bikes. Of the 129 LIRR stations, 88 currently have bicycle parking, and 41 do not, she said.

Also Wednesday, Lieber said the agency is in negotiations over litigation by New Jersey politicians challenging the looming imposition of congestion pricing, the plan to charge drivers extra for entering parts of Manhattan. Proponents regard it as a way to reduce traffic, raise money for the MTA and make the air less polluted. The suit alleges that the U.S. government failed to do an adequate environmental assessment of the plan and that it will yield pollution by changing traffic patterns.

Congestion pricing has been debated for decades but was passed in 2019 under then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“We’re in a position to implement congestion pricing in the spring,” Lieber said on Wednesday. There are several remaining roadblocks, he said, including the New Jersey litigation.

Under the current plan, motorists would need to pay $15 a day for driving below 60th Street. There are discounts based on time and certain other factors.

Lieber declined to be specific about the contours of the discussion over the New Jersey litigation or whether he was personally involved. He said congestion pricing is expected to go into effect in May or June.

The MTA is also set to distribute $2 billion to various projects across the MTA — including on Long Island.

Among the projects are a replacement for the Webster Avenue Bridge in Manhasset on the Port Washington branch.

That contract totals $10.6 million. The bridge has “severely deteriorated and poses a safety hazard to train operations on that line,” according to a budget document describing the project.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.