An Opinion By Larry Penner, Transportation Historian and Advocate, ROI; March 19, 2018
Previous governors of New York and New Jersey found billions in hard cash for their local share to obtain Federal Transit Administration New Starts funding for the following projects. These include New Jersey Transit’s Hudson Bergen Light Rail Minimum Operating Segment One ($992 million), Segment Two ($1.2 billion) and Secaucus Transfer ($450 million). The Metropolitan Transportation Authority did the same for Long Island Rail Road East Side Access to Grand Central Terminal ($10.8 billion) and Second Avenue Subway Phase One ($4.5 billion). None of these projects required federal Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing or Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Improvement Act loans.
The Gateway Tunnel Portal Bridge ($1.6 billion) and Hudson River Tunnel ($11 billion) portions, along with Second Avenue Subway Phase 2 ($6 billion) are currently in the first phase of Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts program known as “Project Development.” This status comes from recent release of the Federal Transit Administration’s FY 2019 New Starts Report. MTA Second Avenue Subway Phase 2 has $1.7 billion in approved local funding within the MTA $32 billion 2015-2019 Five Year Capital Plan. The MTA intends to program an additional $2.3 billion in local funding within the next MTA 2020-2024 Five Year Capital Plan, for a total of $4 billion in local funding. They hope to use these local dollars to leverage $2 billion in future Federal Transit Administration New Starts funding. MTA LIRR has previously provided billions in over match to cover billions in cost overruns for East Side Access. Any Federal Transit Administration Full Funding Grant Agreement requires the recipient to be legally responsible for any additional costs above the agreed upon Full Funding Grant Agreement project cost.
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