MTA Leads in $3.7B Federal Transit Aid

NEW YORK CITY-Led by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the New York City metro area's transit agencies will split $3.7 billion in newly allocated federal funds to make Sandy-related repairs and infrastructure upgrades. The MTA's share of the Federal Transit Authority funding will be $2.6 billion, US Sen. Charles Schumer announced Thursday.

Of the $3.7-billion pie being divided among MTA, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the city's Department of Transportation and New Jersey Transit, $2.4 billion is allocated for additional recovery and rebuilding projects, according to Schumer's office. The remaining $1.3 billion will go toward so-called resiliency projects, intended to bolster the systems' ability to bounce back following natural disasters. These range from relocating critical infrastructure above projected flood levels to installing alternate or redundant sources of power.

The MTA, which previously was allocated $1.2 billion in federal funds post-Sandy, is getting another $1.7 billion for recovery and restoration and about $900 million toward resiliency efforts. Hit especially hard was the New York City subway system, which sustained the most severe damage in its 109-year history, according to the MTA. Rehabilitation of Lower Manhattan's new South Ferry subway station, which opened in 2009 at a cost of $545 million, will be under way until 2014 at the earliest; this past March, the MTA looped the old South Ferry stop back into service in the interim.

The Port Authority's previous $489-million allocation has been nearly tripled via the new funds, with $585 million going toward recovery and restoration and $287 million for resiliency. NYCDOT was previously allocated $33.9 million; the new round of funding adds a total of $11.3 million, with Schumer saying that part of the funds can be directed to the Staten Island Ferry. NJ Transit has now been allocated a total of $448 million in federal funds to recover from Sandy, including $217 million from the funding announced Thursday.

In the release, Schumer says the FTA funds for repairing and restoring the system “will mean that the burden of recovering from Sandy is not put on the local commuter and taxpayer.” He adds that the resiliency funds will ensure that “the MTA will not have to jack up fares through the roof to fund the vital protections that will shield the system from the next storm.”