Just throw more money at the problem!
Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday blamed decades-long “lack of investments” in subway infrastructure for hellish service meltdowns this week amid stifling heat and torrential downpours — even as she directed MTA officials to conduct a “pretty much full review” of the issues.
Hochul, standing alongside Metropolitan Transportation Authority honcho Janno Lieber, acknowledged the repeated failures had left straphangers running late or frustrated.
“I don’t want any person to feel as if they aren’t getting first-rate service, so I’ve directed Janno and his team to provide a pretty much full review of what occurred this week,” she said.
Power outages at the West Fourth Street station during the morning commute on both Tuesday and Thursday caused travel nightmares for thousands of subway-riders, some of whom vowed to jump turnstiles to steal back their lost time.
Hochul already appeared primed to point the finger at the “lack of investments” in the subway system, despite the MTA raking ever-increasing billions of dollars over decades for infrastructure improvements, imposing a $9 congestion pricing toll and, this week, eyeing a fare increase to $3.
The governor even touted the MTA’s latest, record-breaking $68.4 billion capital plan for 2025-2029 as a step forward in fixing the infrastructure woes, specifically for electrical upgrades.
“That’s why we’re continuing the investments, $4 billion to upgrade the electrical system,” Hochul said during an unrelated press conference.
The MTA plans to spend the $4 billion on power and electricity components over the next five years, according to the capital plan.
This includes around $3 billion specifically for the system’s 224 substations and 317 circuit breaker houses.
But even after the upgrades planned for in the most recent capital plan are complete, the MTA estimates a little more than a quarter, 27%, of substations will still be in poor or marginal condition, per the plan.
“I’m very annoyed,” Kate Whitman, a 26-year-old creative executive, said Friday, lamenting the proposed $3 fare.
The shoddy subway service this week forced Whitman to shell out $80 in Ubers heading to work in Brooklyn and back from her West Village home.
But she said she has been late to work multiple times because of poor subway service even before the troubles.
“I know the system is severely outdated. It’s very obvious that it would be an extensive audit required, but, like, it’s very clear that the money isn’t being used very wisely at all.”
MTA officials have sounded alarm bells in recent years about the subway system’s decaying, often-century-old infrastructure.
The budget for the transit agency’s capital plan in 2000-2004 stood at just shy of $22 billion — and has only increased for each subsequent five-year cycle, records show.
On-time performance during 2017 — which featured the notorious “summer of hell” — hit a dismal 63%, data shows.
Since then, on-time performance has improved significantly, hitting 89% in 2020.
But that coincided with a nosedive in ridership because of the coronavirus pandemic, with total annual ridership in 2024 at about 1.2 billion — compared to roughly 1.7 billion each year before COVID, according to data.
Lieber on Friday argued the subway system bounced back quickly from Thursday’s torrential rainfall, noting all lines were back in service the next morning.
He said the electrical issues at West Fourth Street will be addressed by the recent capital plan.
“You’re talking about 100-year-old electrical infrastructure, cloth-covered wires that are from our great-grandparents era that nobody went to update, and we just can’t live with that anymore,” he said.
In 2020, only 60% of substations were in a state of good repair.
But despite spending a massive $2.6 billion from 2020 to 2024 to improve electrical infrastructure, that number only improved to 64% of substations being in a state of good repair.
Substations during that period appeared to be deteriorating faster than MTA crews could fix them.
The widespread transit woes — including yet more flooding in the subways — this week only highlighted the mixed results from the MTA’s spending.
But Lieber was quick to note that the MTA’s measures of subway and commuter train rider satisfaction have greatly increased this year.
“Customer satisfaction with subways is up 8%, Long Island Rail Road is up is up 5%, Metro-North is up 4%,” he said.
“Customers before this week — and you know, this week has definitely taken a hit on customer satisfaction — are recognizing the improvements that have taken place. We have to get them back to that level of comfort.”
Not everyone was buying it.
“New Yorkers pay a dizzying number of taxes and fees towards the MTA and, yet, they can’t even keep the power on,” said state Sen. Jim Skoufis (D-Orange).
“Until their leadership brings radical reform to the system – and stops depending on annual bailouts from Albany – taxpayers will continue getting ripped off and riders will continue to be let down with substandard transit.”
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island) highlighted the issues by posting a clip showing straphangers climbing on subway gates to avoid flooding.
“Pathetic!” she wrote.