During the Public Engagement Workshop two weeks ago, the MTA officials spent a fair amount of time speaking about the MTA’s plans for the future. The plans these officials presented were bold, necessary and, of course, expensive. In these plans is yet another reason why the MTA needs a fare hike more than most riders think.

Linda Kleinbaum, the MTA deputy executive director for administration, and Ernest Tollerson, the MTA director of policy and media relations, spoke during the session called The Future of our Transportation System: Capital Improvements. Kleinbaum discussed the current capital programs and the physical and investment plans for the next capital programs. Tollerson spoke more on the ever-expanding regional reach of the MTA and the technological and environmental challenges the MTA will face over the next 15 years.

To me, these 45 minutes were, at the same time, the most enlightening and most disheartening 45 minutes of the entire afternoon. They were enlightening because the MTA really opened up its planning to the public. The Authority has some very concrete plans concerning what they want to accomplish between now and 2020 when the Second Ave. Subway line should supposedly be complete. It was disheartening because the only subway expansion plans were for the Second Ave. Subway. In a time when the city could really use more subway lines, the MTA’s capital focus right now is on providing public transit access to the urban core for those living in the suburban sprawl of the Greater Metropolitan Area.

Right now, the MTA is working five major Capital Construction projects, four of which benefit New York City Transit. The East Side Access Project is a boon for the LIRR, but the Second Ave. Subway, the 7 Line Extension, the Fulton Street Transit Center and the South Ferry Terminal will all impact subway riders in the five boroughs. In addition to these projects, the MTA also has to maintain its visible aspects — railcars, buses and stations — and its invisible aspects — pumps, power substations, tracks, switches, etc.

With a price tag of $21.3 billion from 2005 to 2009, these projects and regular maintenance all cost a large chunk of change. Right now, the city and state are kicking in just 19 percent of that funding while the feds are throwing in 31 percent and the MTA through bonds and other funds sources is generating the rest. That 19 percent is up from 2 percent during the early years of this decade. No wonder the MTA is skeptical that the state and city will deliver on Spitzer’s promise of money.

The next found of capital improvements are due to the state by March 31, 2008, and the MTA has a good sense of what they want to do. Outside of the Second Ave. Subway and 7 Line Extension — still the biggest fiscal parts of the new capital plan — the MTA wants a third track on the main line of the LIRR, Metro-North tracks on the Tappan Zee Bridge, Penn Station Access for Metro-North (and Moynihan Station), a Stewart Airport rail connection, and computer-based train controls to allow for a higher train frequency. These proposals are estimated to cost at least another $22.278 billion over a four-year span.

Meanwhile, the subways have to keep up with the Jones’. MetroCard technology is woefully out of date, and touchcard entry systems are the wave of the present. Route signs with the times until the next trains are now standard in every other major subway system except ours, and as London and Paris, the MTA’s main competitors, if you will, invest in their systems, ours becomes more and more out of date.

All of this is to say that money does not grown on trees, and MTA CEO and Executive Director Lee Sander is well aware of the need to provide for the future of this city’s public transportation. As politicians continue to grandstand over the MTA’s fare hike, Sander has tried to go on the offensive with his justifications for a fare hike. Yesterday, speaking to the New York Building Congress, Sander discussed the billions of dollars required to ensure the MTA’s capital and fiscal future.

“That is how the MTA will be able to move the millions more that we expect in the region, and it’s critical we get the support from Albany to do that,” Sander said, referring to the plans I’ve detailed above. “I’m asking not just for the $600 million, but also billions of additional dollars that we have not asked from Albany before for our capital program.”

While Sander will indeed ask Albany for this money, he knows not to expect too much from the state or city. As long-time reader Julia noted a few days ago, how is the state, already facing multi-billion-dollar debt, going to find more money for the MTA? “I’m just not convinced that Albany, facing a $4.3 billion deficit, is supposedly going to find $350 million to use toward fares and tolls in the long-term as well as finding money for the capital program,” he said.

And that is why the fare hike is a necessary evil. The subways are cheap. For less than $2, riders can go anywhere in the city at any time and in a relatively timely fashion. A fare hike will provide a fiscal benefit to the MTA and a material benefit to the rider in the form of badly-needed capital improvements.

While Straphangers guru Gene Russianoff feels that the MTA is simply throwing flashy projects out there to justify a fare hike — “It’s not real,” he said. “It’s a plan. It’s an idea.” — we need to consider this fare hike in the larger picture of New York City. Instead of grandstanding for populist support, our politicians should recognize this reality too.

Mayor Bloomberg, one of New York’s most fiscally responsible citizens, hasn’t come out against the fare hike. He knows that the MTA needs this money, and he knows what they want to do with it. Others should follow his lead. Those capital improvements don’t fund themselves.