MTA spending is like a runaway train.
The Metropolitan Transportation Board tickled nearly $250 million on Wednesday for consultants on the already expensive and long-term second-venue extension of the already huge and expensive second-venue subway extension.
Phase 2 of the Megaplan is expected to inhale $7.7 billion, or about $4.3 billion per mile, if you increase the Q-line by 1.8 miles on the Upper East Side, making it one of the most expensive subway projects in the world.
Luxurious spending comes as MTA officials plead for poverty while pursuing a completely separate bank-destructed $68.4 billion capital plan for 2025-29.
The transport giant has warned that New Yorkers are taking part in another “hell summer” without that funding, with the MTA and Governor Kathy Hochul coming to Trump over the need to invite drivers with victims of a $9 congestion price to pay for improvements to the metro.
Legion of MTA critics, including state Sen. James Scorfes (D-Orange County), have argued that spending on transport projects is simply out of control.
“The MTA spends taxpayer dollars in reckless neglect, and then turns around and asks Congress to bail them out every year,” Scorfes said Wednesday.
The Big Apple leader for nearly 100 years had been focusing on the subway line at Second Avenue on Manhattan's East Side, but in 2007, groundbreaking began to become a reality in Phase 1 of the project.
However, the first extension (three stops added to the Q line between 63rd Avenue and the Q line to 96th Avenue) took 10 years to finally end in 2017.
The two contracts approved yesterday are as follows:
- $186 million oversees construction (up to 91 months, or seven and a half years) for two of the state's largest construction management companies in New York.
- Engineering Consultants WSP USA Inc. and STV Incorporated for $60 million for design adjustments.
- The consultants found that it accounted for 20% of the $445 million cost in Phase 1, and that other major cities around the world were doing the work instead, saving money.
- Total Phase 2 Cost, 1.7 miles, 3 Metro Stops: $7.7 billion
The first phase costs $4.45 billion, with a mile costing about $2.5 billion.
Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway Expansion will see the Q Line grow from 96th Avenue to East 125th Street and Lexington Avenue, with three new stations added.
The total construction costs for the second phase are $6.9 billion, with an additional $700 million expected to come from financial costs, an MTA official told the Post.
Approximately half of the project's costs ($3.4 billion) will be paid through grants awarded by the Biden administration, but the funds have not yet been allocated, officials said.
MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber defended the project's price tag, claiming that New York City subways carry as many people every day as the entire US aviation system.
“No one complains about paying a ton to operate the air traffic control system or paying a ton to invest in airports when the federal government is hiring fewer people than the New York City subway system,” he told the Post.
MTA board members unanimously approved two spendings for consultants in Phase 2 of the Second Way Project at a meeting early Wednesday.
- The $186 million deal between AECOM and HNTB, two of New York's largest infrastructure consulting companies, oversees Phase 2.
- $60 million to engineering and design companies Stv Inc. and WSP USA Inc. The total design services contracts for these companies' projects have swelled from the original $120 million to $255 million, records show.
Lieber defended recruitment consultants as “efficient” for “large projects” such as the Second Avenue Subway, claiming that the MTA would otherwise need to temporarily hire and fire employees within the company.
However, John Samuelsen, chairman of the Transport Workers Union, condemned the $186 million consultant contract as part of the issue.
“Save money? Barony,” he said. “This is Swamp, a profitable consultant contractor for Janno.”
Instead, the funds need to be “invested in the workforce to advance the MTA,” Samuelsen argued that Reeber “deliberately reduced the company's capabilities and created this swamp for external contractors.”
The expensive consultants have been criticized for much of the large costs of the first phase of the subway.
NYU researchers discovered in a 2023 study that the MTA spent $656 million on consultants, and it costs twice as much to dig into that stage, or actually a subway tunnel.
The cost is 8-12 times more expensive than comparable projects in Italy, Istanbul and Sweden, the study found.
MTA officials such as Lieber have argued that they are advocating for a better measure of the cost-effectiveness of the project.
The cost per rider for the second Avenue Metro project is estimated at $62,500 for Phase 2 in the center of packs around the world.
John Kaehny, executive director of government accountability group Renvent Albany, argued that MTA's top priority is replacing the 100-year-old electrical system and signalling system of the subway system.
He defended the $186 million contract as “rational” because it aims to reduce overall costs.
“The first leg of Second Avenue Subway and LIRR East Side Access had billions of cost overruns,” he said. “They were a disaster.”
Big Apple subway riders along the Q line on Wednesday said they still don't understand the cost of the sky.
“The station is great, and I know it costs money, but it doesn't cost $3 billion,” said Luis Correia, 41, of East Harlem.
“I seem to be someone using this line. I live in East Harlem and am excited about the extension because it saves a lot of time on my way to work every day.
Peter Pannott, 49, a resident of Upper Side East, said he supports expanding the Q-line, but that costs will undoubtedly cancel the profits.
“You feel like you're smoking,” he said. “I'm not even able to fix it because they're too big because they're all too big because they're able to make phase 2 with all the issues.”
– Additional reports by Reuven Fenton
