While this mini article in today’s Post doesn’t say much, the few sentences it contains do not portend a good year for the MTA in 2010. Richard Ravitch, architect of a lost plan to fund the MTA, spoke at a meeting for the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee yesterday and warned about the economic outlook for the agency.
While the MTA is due to draw in around $1.8 billion next year through various taxes and fees and while some of that money is ideally to be used for a capital construction bond issue, Ravitch thinks the MTA will be forced to use that cure its operating deficit. “I think 2010 is going to be a rough year,” he said. “The political pressures in 2010 will be such that most of the payroll tax will be used to fund the operating budget.”
More ominous is warning that “uncertainty” surrounds the MTA’s big-ticket items. With the comptroller looking into the cost and efficiency of the Second Ave. Subway, among other projects, storm clouds are gathering over this new subway line, nearly 80 years in the making. I fear for its future.
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Surely the Comptroller must be aware that the last time the project was halted because of a fiscal crisis, over 30 years passed before it was resumed.
Is any politician crazy enough to want to “temporarily” halt it AGAIN?
Is there going to be yet another “groundbreaking” for the Second Ave. subway, maybe in 2040?
I think, or hope, that we may be at a point of no return with the Second Avenue Subway. The tunnel boring machine has arrived, its multimillion dollar self presumably paid for, and it will soon be lowered into the cut-and-covered hole near 96th St. Once it starts heading south, chewing away the deep rock, then it’s just a matter of hauling away the debris until voila, a tunnel. Really hard for the politicians to refuse to pay to put tracks in a tunnel, no?
I could maybe see the line cut back to one station, probably at 86th St. Apparently stations cost almost half a billion bucks nowadays, from the figures on the doomed stop at 11th Avenue on the #7 line extension. So postpone the stations at 72nd St and 96th St. and save nearly a billion. Not save, of course. It would cost more to do it that way in the long run. But in the short run, like a politician’s term in office, huge money could be not spent on two stations, leaving the problem to some successor down the line.
Meanwhile, this recession will still feel like a recession next year, with high unemployment and considerable pain all around, not just in the MTA budget. Millions of workers will find their unemployment compensation running out, and we may need to outfit the tunnel as a huge elongated homeless shelter if jobs do not appear. So another stimulus package is quite possible. For what has been spent bailing out AIG, Citibank, and their ilk, you could easily finish the SAS, with all three stations.
Suppose they actually manage to complete Phase I and extend the Q up 2nd Avenue to 96th Street, but the rest of the project is cancelled/ postponed. Should the route of the Q be altered south of Union Square, or should it be the N that is extended to 96th Street?
The main advantage of the 2nd Avenue subway is a second route between the Upper East Side and the Financial District, to take some of the pressure off of the 4,5, and 6. Extending the Q will improve access between the Upper East Side and West Midtown, but after Canal Street the Q goes to Brooklyn. But people from southern Brooklyn have told me that the Q considerably improved mass transit between those neighborhoods and Manhattan. If you rely on the Lexington Avenue line for your commute, you know that there is something of a bottleneck effect as you move south since the only other train that runs between East Midtown and the Financial District is the slow moving R, and the 6 doesn’t run south of City Hall. Right now the best alternative is to take the N, R, or W to Times Square and transfer to the 2 and the 3 and at least extending the Q would give people who live north of 60th Street that option.
So if only the Q extension is built, is there some way to get the Q to run express to Lower Manhattan along the R route? And then could it could it then switch back to the current Q line somewhere in Brooklyn? And if this could be done why not do it now?
Woody,
Don’t count on 96th Street being cut. A $303-million contract to construct 96th Street Station was awarded on May 28. I’m surprised it didn’t make headlines, but it’s published here, on the MTA website.
Ed,
More interestingly, I wondered what would have happened if the threatened service cuts took effect, and the Q went along the now-W into Astoria. Then what would run on Second Avenue? But it’s a long way off, and I’m sure we’ll see many changes (both improvements and cuts) before the first train runs down Second Avenue.
Thanks for the info, Scott.
And Hey, a bargain at only $300 million for this station! (Wonder why 11th Ave was gonna run $100 million more?)
But doesn’t this development give support to my claim that the SAS is nearing the point of no return? Awarding a $300 million contract and then what, cancel it in the next fiscal year? Wouldn’t that trigger very costly penalties? Soon the SAS will all be contracted out, and then getting out of those contracts would not save the pols much money.
I don’t think the $300 million is for the entire station. Assuming nothing has changed since May of ’08, here is a summary of the work to be done under that contract, titled “Heavy civil, Structural, and Utility relocation”. I don’t think they’ll leave behind a nice, shiny, subway station when they’re done.
We can hope this means they’re past the point of no return, but I’m sure that’s what they thought when several blocks of tunnel were dug in the 70s for the same line.
The answer to this is congestion pricing!
If there is any time to push it, it is now. The capital budget is going to be obliterated and there is nothing else left to tax. I feel the momentum will slowly building for a new source of revenue for the MTA. If transit advocates push hard enough now, we could see Albany pass congestion pricing within the next year or two.
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