Second Avenue Subway, the historic New York Metro expansion project on the east side of Manhattan, which would reduce the overcrowding of the Lexington Avenue Line, is one of the most complex infrastructure projects in New York’s history: imagined for the first time in the 1920s, saw the opening of only in 2017, between 63rd Street and 96th Street, along the Q line. Today the second phase, which should extend the service to 125th Street and Lexington Avenue, in the heart of East Harlem, is likely to suffer new delays due to a confrontation between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the federal government on the loans already allocated.
On Wednesday, the MTA formally threatened a legal action against the US Department of Transportation if by March 6 no more than $58 million of refunds for the extension of the line will be released. In a letter sent to Washington, the authority claimed that the non-payment is putting at risk the financial sustainability of the project, forcing the agency to temporarily cover the vacuum with resources destined to other infrastructure priorities. Janno Lieber, CEO of MTA, said that there is no legal basis for holding funds already approved and committed. The Department of Transport has not issued official comments.
Janno Lieber, AD di MTA | via Shutterstock
The fund blockage dates back to last autumn, when the Trump administration announced the suspension of federal funding already allocated both for Second Avenue Subway and for the Gateway project, the large plan of modernization of railway tunnels under the Hudson connecting New York and New Jersey. At first the measure had been read as a political lever in the context of tensions with the New York Democrats; later the Department of Transport had motivated the suspension with a revision of the MTA contract criteria, in particular those related to racial and gender-based requirements. More recently, Trump himself suggested the possibility of unlocking funds for Gateway in exchange for the initiation of two major transport hubs, including Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station.
The total cost of the second phase of the line is estimated at approximately 6.9 billion dollars, of which 3.4 billion should arrive from the federal government through the program “New Starts” of the Federal Transit Administration, which finances new public transport lines in the main metropolitan areas. The planned route will link the current line of 96th Street to 125th Street, integrating with the Lexington Avenue line (4, 5 and 6), one of the busiest in the network. East Harlem, a district historically less served by rail transport than other areas of Manhattan, has been waiting for a direct connection for almost a century. According to MTA, the project would generate more than 70,000 jobs between direct and indirect, and would help to reduce crowding on existing lines.
The dispute over federal funds is part of a wider framework of institutional tensions on large infrastructure investments in the New York area. At the beginning of the month a federal judge ordered the White House to unlock billions of dollars destined for the Gateway project, allowing the recovery of 205 million dollars arrears after the delays had already caused the suspension of the work and the dismissal of about a thousand labored workers. In the case of the Second Avenue Subway, the first two contracts – related to the displacement of sub-services and the preparation of the large mechanical mole for the excavation – were already assigned; the third, which includes the excavations for the future 106th Street station, should be approved shortly, but the uncertainty about funding could slow the entire schedule. The legal comparison announced by MTA is likely to transform a project that has been waiting for generations to become a new ground of confrontation between New York State and federal administration.
L’articolo The clash between MTA and federal government for Second Avenue Subway funds proviene da IlNewyorkese.
