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After decades of being on the local track, landing billions of dollars in federal funding is finally within reach for a much-anticipated extension of the Second Avenue Subway. The financial injection would mean the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could at last deliver on transit officials' promise to better serve the residents and businesses of East Harlem.
In January the project gained steam when it entered the engineering phase of the federal grant process and Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged to finish the 1.5-mile subway extension within a decade. Two months later the Biden administration included a $400 million grant toward the effort in its budget. Transit officials are still working to secure property in the project's path, but they have said they hope to begin construction by year's end. The ball, albeit incrementally, is rolling.
But as the MTA works to advance the up to $7 billion project, precisely how the agency will fund the expansion remains an open question.
The MTA is on the hook to pay for half of the extension's price tag and must demonstrate to the Federal Transit Administration that it will have its share in place to leverage dollars from the feds. Plunging fare revenue because of Covid-19 has complicated the MTA's finances, and now a new threat lurks: yet another delay to congestion pricing.
The tolls would apply to motorists driving south of 60th Street in Manhattan and are expected to be a financial lifeline for the MTA. Transit officials estimate congestion pricing would generate $1 billion each year—revenue the agency plans to sell $15 billion in bonds against. It represents the single largest financing component of the MTA's $51 billion 2020-24 capital plan, which would fund vital infrastructure projects, including signal upgrades, accessibility work, new buses and service expansion.
Originally, the program was to launch in 2021. Delays pushed that timeline to 2023, and now MTA...