Derailed? Gov. Hochul May Rip Up MTA Capital Plan

Nice capital plan you’ve got there, shame if someone were to shrink it down.

Gov. Hochul on Monday said that she might not fill the $33-billion hole in the proposed 2025-2029 MTA capital plan because it might just end up smaller than the $68.4-billion package that the MTA Board approved last week.

Transit advocates were apoplectic at the suggestion that the number isn’t final, given that Hochul has already blown up the current capital plan by pausing congestion pricing.

“Transit riders and workers elected the governor to do hard things and confront tough challenges,” said Riders Alliance Director of Policy and Communications Danny Pearlstein. “It’s her job to make sure our transit system is properly funded so that we can finally have the reliable, accessible, resilient service we’ve long been denied but that we need and deserve. Gov. Hochul is trying to pass the buck, but she’s out of luck. She controls the MTA. The buck stops with her.”

Hochul is right that there’s a second board that has to take a vote on the plan, the appropriately-named Capital Plan Review Board. The panel, which has 90 days from Wednesday to approve the capital plan, is comprised of the governor, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Mayor Adams (or appointees of same).

A rejection vote from any member of the CPRB would mean the plan is scrapped. Hochul’s predecessor, disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, did have his representative on the CPRB veto the 2015-2019 plan, causing the MTA to shave off $2 billion. But rejecting the plan would be Hochul’s only option to force the agency to cut any projects from it.

If she were to do that, the MTA would have to gut a capital plan it has pitched as desperately needed to fix the rotting subway system, including unseen aspects like power substations and visible-but-struggling pieces like giant elevated train tracks. Despite the largest price tag, outside observers praised the MTA for focusing almost the entire capital plan on state of good repair needs with only $3 billion set aside for expansion.

If the governor wants to cut the plan, these experts suggested she take the political hit of cutting her own highly touted project, the Brooklyn-Queens transit link known as the Interborough Express.

“It’s rich coming from someone who blew a $15-billion hole in the 2020-2024 capital plan,” said Rachael Fauss, the senior policy analyst at Reinvent Albany. “If she wants to cut the plan, given all the repair needs, her Interborough Express should come first.”

The MTA declined to comment on the governor’s statement.