MTA report finds agency savings of $3 billion in C&D’s first five years

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Construction & Development (MTA C&D) team has rolled out its “Better. Faster. Cheaper.” plan, which included the agency’s 2024 Year in Review and 2025 Strategic Plan. The agency says MTA C&D’s report showed that the agency saved $3 billion on capital project delivery in its first five years. The strategic plan traces C&D’s progress since its founding in 2020 and charts a path forward for an ambitious docket of projects to be completed this year. 

The strategic plan arrives as the MTA seeks full funding of its proposed 2025-29 Capital Plan, which the MTA says is its largest state of good repair investment in the organization’s history. More than 90 percent of the proposed plan is dedicated to improving and rebuilding the existing system.  

The savings identified in the report include: 

• Establishing better contracts: More than $1.1 billion in savings from improved contracting strategies before a shovel hits the ground on key projects. 
• Better planning: $750 million in savings from better upfront planning, identifying smarter design and correcting for over-customization. 
• Improved delivery: $750 million saved from efficiencies found in the contract budget versus the actual budget cost due to rigorous project management during construction. 
• Better management: $400 million saved in insurance reductions alone. 

These savings have allowed the proposed 2025-2029 Capital Plan to deliver far more for riders than previous capital plans, while costing four percent less in inflation-adjusted dollars than the current 2020-2024 Capital plan. 

“Over the past five years, MTA C&D has transformed the way the MTA delivers capital projects for our riders. The result has been the fastest, cheapest and most effective project delivery in MTA history. And we’re just getting started,” said MTA C&D President Jamie Torres-Springer. “From an exciting slate of projects already on track for 2025, to an ambitious and achievable scope of work in our proposed upcoming capital plan, there’s never been a more exciting time to deliver a better public transit system in New York.” 

The C&D Strategic Plan comes as the MTA continues to make progress on the 2025-2029 Capital Plan. At its March Capital Program Committee meeting, the MTA announced the next 13 stations to be made accessible in the plan include stations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. The MTA notes this initiative will work to close gaps between accessible stations and provide new elevators, improved stairs and updated fare payment areas. 

The agency says the MTA C&D awarded $4.6 billion in commitments in 2024 and completed $5.5 billion worth of projects in 2024 while making strides on reliability, accessibility, resilience, sustainability and other key priorities. That includes launching new subway cars on the Staten Island Railway for the first time in 50 years; making 16 stations fully ADA accessible and awarding contracts for work on five more; completing a flood wall and flood gates at 207th St. Yard to prevent service disruptions in severe weather; purchasing 60 new battery-electric buses; and more. 

The department made a total of $784 million in payments to MWDBE firms in 2024. 

Thanks to congestion relief, MTA C&D has proceeded with procurement on other critical projects, like communications-based train control (CBTC) signal modernization, additional ADA upgrades, dual-mode locomotives for Long Island Rail Road and other major initiatives. 

Looking forward to 2025 and beyond, the MTA says its strategic plan looks toward continued improvements in executing the remainder of the 2020-24 capital plan, advancing long-range planning for the future of the public transit system in New York and growing its in-house capacity to further reduce costs and project timelines going forward.