"We are now beginning to see what happens when mass transit systems break down"
It's come to this: Today, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he has declared a state of emergency for the MTA, and that the state plans to allocate an additional $1 billion in funding to the agency's current capital plan.
"We are now beginning to see what happens when mass transit systems break down," Cuomo stated. By declaring a state of emergency, the state can "suspend procurement rules for the MTA, allowing the MTA to speed up repairs and the purchase of material and equipment to replace outdated infrastructure," according to a press release from the Governor's office. "It will no longer be a tortured exercise to do business with the MTA," Cuomo noted. "We want to do business, we need to do business, and we will do it quickly."
Cuomo has also tasked new MTA chairman Joe Lhota with coming up with a reorganization plan for the agency, according to the New York Times; Lhota will also be in charge of reviewing the MTA's current capital plan, which provides funding for the agency through 2019. Per the Times, Lhota will have 30 days for the former, and 60 days for the latter. (No pressure, right?)
Cuomo also announced that the MTA will work with ConEd on an "immediate investigation of their equipment, transmission and interlocks throughout the entire system." That investigation, to be completed within 90 days, will then lead to repairs and better communication when problems arise, in theory, by the end of the year.
The news came as the MTA was holding its Genius Transit Challenge Conference, which brought transit officials from other cities (including Toronto and Paris), along with MTA officials, to discuss the state of the subways and ideas to get them in a state of good repair.
Cuomo, in remarks at the event, noted that "standard practices have failed us," and that the MTA needs "a new approach, a new culture, new methods to quickly and dramatically make progress." He also acknowledged the surge in "fix the subways" tweets that he's seen as the subway meltdown has worsened:
Riders tweet all day long, information about trains and delays, but the MTA can't manage to communicate with the riders. They tweet nasty things about me all day, the riders.
Unsurprisingly, that led more people on Twitter to follow up with more calls to fix the subways:
Fix the damn subways
— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) June 29, 2017
It also remains to be seen how the promised $1 billion will be allocated; the current capital plan, for 2014–2019, is $15.8 billion, with $2.1 billion of that reserved for repairing the subway system's aging signals.
The full text of Cuomo's executive order on the subways is here.
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