The MTA has ordered contractors to stop work on phase two of the Second Ave. subway, citing uncertain funding following Gov. Hochul’s decision to can congestion pricing.
The order comes as the MTA scrambles to cover $28 billion in projects with $13 billion in funds, following the loss of a projected $15 billion that was supposed to come from congestion pricing.
As previously reported, transit brass have said they will be prioritizing repair and maintenance projects over planned expansions and upgrades.
“We’ve stopped work on Second Ave. subway,” MTA’s construction and development head Jamie Torres-Springer told reporters Tuesday. “We have in a couple of cases issued stop-work orders on projects that do not strictly meet our ‘state of good repair’ requirement.”
The stop-work order means workers from Queens-based contractor C.A.C. have been told to halt their job relocating utilities along the proposed route. The $182 million relocation contract — the first awarded for Second Ave. phase two — was announced with much fanfare in January.
So far, work crews have only relocated the Second Ave. bike lane to First Ave., MTA officials said.
“Stopping work on a contract doesn’t mean that the contract is over,” said John McCarthy, head of external relations for the MTA. “It doesn’t mean you can’t go back to that work — you’re not canceling it.
“You’re not digging up the ground of Second Ave. when there’s still uncertainty,” he added.
The $7.7 billion phase two expansion of the long-delayed Second Ave. subway would extend service north from E. 96th. St., adding three new stations — at E. 106th St. and Second Ave., E. 116th St. and Second Ave., and E. 125th. St. and Lexington Ave. — with connections to Metro-North and the No. 4, 5 and 6 trains.
The project — the crown jewel of the current MTA capital plan — would bring rapid transit service to East Harlem for the first time in roughly a quarter of a century.
The federal government announced last year that it was ponying up a massive $3.4 billion grant toward completion of the project — if the MTA could put $4.3 billion of its own money on the table.
In the absence of congestion pricing money, the federal grant — and with it the whole phase 2 project — could be in jeopardy.
Transit brass wouldn’t tell The News how much money it would cost to fund the budget’s various outstanding repair and maintenance projects, but multiple sources estimated that figure eclipses the $13 billion the MTA has on hand.
Speaking Tuesday, however, Hochul again said she was confident she’d find the funding to keep projects like the Second Ave. subway and wheelchair accessibility expansion alive.
“None of those stop,” she said of the planned capital projects.
“The money that would’ve been raised, it would have taken a whole year to raise about $400 million, right? So we wouldn’t have even had a billion dollars this year,” she added.
Congestion pricing was expected to generate $1 billion in revenue per year, money that the MTA would then borrow against with a $15 billion bond issuance.
Hochul’s two plans to date to generate an alternative funding source — an increase in New York City’s payroll tax and a one-time payment of $1 billion out of the state’s general fund — were shot down by lawmakers in Albany.
With Michael Gartland
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