The Billion Dollars Cuomo Just Promised to Fix the Subways Doesn't Exist Yet
On Thursday, Governor Andrew Cuomo took some first real steps toward addressing the rapid deterioration of the New York City subway system when he announced a “state of emergency” for the transit network. The executive order he signed declaring that state of emergency allowed the governor to speed up procurement for much-needed parts, and to begin a thirty-day review of the agency’s organizational structure and a sixty-day review of the system’s capital plan for equipment and maintenance.
To further demonstrate his commitment to fixing the subway, the governor also announced he was sending an additional billion dollars in funding to the MTA’s capital plan. Even Joe Lhota, the newly appointed chairman to the MTA board, was surprised by this news. Cuomo was light on details about where exactly that money would come from, but he elaborated at a press conference.
“I committed the state to an extra billion dollars in the capital plan. And I wanted to make that commitment now so the new chairman — what he’s doing is planning for capital expenditures, et cetera — knows that he can count on an additional billion on top of what he now has,” the governor said. “It won’t become a question of expenditure — he won’t be able to spend $1 billion in the next few months — but from a planning point of view, he knows he has that there and then I’ll get that done in the budget.”
In next year’s budget.
According to Governor Cuomo, the money he’s committed to the MTA doesn’t actually exist yet. He’s just making a billion-dollar promise to help fund the agency’s woefully underfunded capital plan. Whether that money actually finds its way into the budget isn’t up to Cuomo alone — that decision will be made in the kinds of backroom negotiations Albany is known for, where transit money has a history of mysteriously vanishing.
Read more: https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/06/30/the-billion-dollars-cuomo-just-promised-to-fix-the-subways-doesnt-exist-yet/