The MTA is scrambling to put together a package of drastic proposed cuts by the end of next month to deal with a potential $2.5 billion shortfall in its five-year capital plan.
Agency Chairman Thomas Prendergast warned board members Thursday that they will need to come up with the potential cuts to pass the budget by its Oct. 28 deadline. Without a budget, the MTA can’t proceed with any of its improvement plans, he said.
“We need to submit a plan to get it approved and start spending money,” Prendergast said. “We’d be in a much better position to get an approved plan and then add improvements later if we get more money.
“That’s a much better position to be in than to not have an approved plan and not be able to award projects.”
This is now the longest period of time that the MTA has gone without an approved budget.
The proposed spending plan is for the next five years.
The agency is grappling with the massive funding hole in a proposed $26.8 billion capital budget, a problem that MTA officials blame on the city.
But city officials say they’ve already given the transit behemoth the $657 million for which it originally asked and appear unwilling to cough up more.
“Unfortunately, we seem to be in a food fight, and it’s not good for your customers and not good for the politicians themselves,” Gene Russianoff, head of the activist Straphangers Campaign, said to the MTA board.
“The public won’t stand for being left in the lurch while the governor and the mayor duke it out,” Russianoff warned.
Projects that may be on the chopping block include the next phase of the Second Avenue Subway and the East Side Access project to connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal.
Prendergast has warned that the Second Avenue extension might be among the first casualties.
Russianoff and other transit advocates say Gov. Cuomo, who officially oversees the agency, and Mayor de Blasio need to get over their differences and fund the full capital plan so passengers can benefit from service improvements that are so badly needed.
“This pending capital program is so tardy that it runs the risk of becoming the C train of capital programs,” said Riders Alliance Executive Director John Raskin, referring to the problem-plagued subway line. “We want New York to get a better transit system, not to settle scores.”
The next MTA meeting is scheduled for Oct. 28.