No Money Yet in Federal Budget for Second Avenue Subway

By Caren Halbfinger

The Journal News, February 8, 2006

A $1.5 billion federal spending plan for new transit projects includes $300 million for one Metropolitan Transportation Authority project, but designates nothing for a second that the agency deems just as important.

A lack of funds has already delayed both projects — East Side Access and the Second Avenue Subway — from their anticipated completion dates. The MTA had planned to have East Side Access finished by 2011 and anticipated having the first section of the Second Avenue Subway available to riders that year. But the agency announced early last year that both plans would be delayed at least until 2012.

The MTA expects the federal government to pay half the projects' costs, but no commitment has been made.

East Side Access, which would bring Long Island Rail Road passengers to a new concourse in Grand Central Terminal, got a small boost yesterday with the announcement that President Bush's proposed 2007 budget, submitted to Congress yesterday, sets aside $300 million for the project. That's on top of the $333 million the project received in the 2006 budget and $253 million it received the year before, according to the Federal Transit Administration.

"This is very good news," said Christopher Boylan, the MTA's director of corporate affairs. "Three hundred million is one of the largest earmarks in the history of the New Starts program. We got one-fifth of the national pot. That's really good."

The 3.5-mile project would use an existing rail tunnel under the East River to relieve overcrowded conditions on Long Island Rail Road and provide direct access to the east side of Manhattan for LIRR riders. East Side Access is expected to cost $7.78 billion and carry an average of more than 171,900 weekday riders, including 27,300 new riders daily by 2030.

"Three hundred million is a tiny drop in the bucket," said Beverly Dolinsky, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, which represents riders. "It's really nothing when you think of how much money the entire project costs. That's what makes us nervous. These projects are so expensive. Are they ever really going to get funded? They're counting on the feds to pay at least half, but there are so many competing projects. We're very worried about whether these projects will really be built."

The proposed Second Avenue Subway does not yet have a designated dollar figure in the proposed budget, nor has its final design been approved by the Federal Transit Administration. But Boylan said the MTA hoped the FTA would set aside $25 million for it next year. In 2006, the MTA asked for $25 million, but got $24.5 million.

"We asked for about the same thing," Boylan said. "Until you advance to final design, it's unlikely you would find tremendous congressional support for an amount greater than that. We'd be hoping in the next federal budget that we'd be recommended for full-funding agreement, which commits both parties to fully funding the project."

The Second Avenue Subway is a 2.3-mile East Side project that would extend subway service between Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, west Midtown and East Harlem and would ease congestion on the No. 4, 5 and 6 trains on the east side. It is expected to serve 213,000 riders each day by 2030 and is estimated to cost $4.9 billion.

FTA officials said yesterday there was plenty of time before the 2007 fiscal year begins in October for the MTA to secure a piece of the pie for the subway. That MTA project will be competing with four others from Norfolk, Va., northern Virginia, Seattle and Washington, D.C., for a share of $102 million — the portion of the FTA's New Starts budget that is not yet set aside for specific projects.