SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

The M.T.A. Has a $54 Billion Plan for the Subway. Now What?

By Andrea Salcedo

metro reporter

It's Thursday.

Weather: Another sunny, beautiful day, with a high around 70.

Alternate-side parking: In effect until Sept. 30 (Rosh Hashana).

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Your subway ride has gotten better, but it is not great yet.

Most of us have left our homes early in anticipation of delays, or have crammed inside a packed car because the next train is 17 minutes away, or have been stuck underground between stations with no cell service.

To help ease the pain, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has proposed a $54 billion capital plan — its largest one ever — that includes projects intended to transform your commute over the next five years.

Highlights of the plan include modern subway signals, elevators in 70 stations and the extension of the Second Avenue subway north to East Harlem.

[Read more about the M.T.A.'s five-year plan.]

But releasing the wish list was the easy part.

It's not as simple as writing a check

Now the M.T.A. must confront a very big challenge: coming up with the money.

"They assume they're going to get federal funding, state funding and city funding," Emma G. Fitzsimmons, my Times colleague who covers the subway, told me. "None of that is guaranteed yet."

The next step is for the M.T.A. board to approve the proposal, which is expected to happen this month.

The M.T.A. wants the state to contribute $3 billion, in addition to money raised through congestion pricing, a plan in which drivers will have to pay to enter the heart of Manhattan beginning in 2021.

The agency has asked the city also to put in $3 billion, which it has yet to agree to. But "probably the biggest question is, how much will the federal government provide?" Ms. Fitzsimmons said.

If the transit agency does not secure enough funding, she said, the plan will have to be smaller.

"It's a long process," she added. "It gets amended. People fight about the funding, but the hope is that some of these projects will start moving forward over the next year."

There is a lot of work to be done

The time frame could be difficult for the M.T.A., which has struggled to complete projects on time and on budget.

The agency, for example, is still trying to reach an agreement with the federal government to complete the long-promised Second Avenue subway line.

Under the new capital plan, Ms. Fitzsimmons said, the M.T.A. could be installing elevators and subway signals simultaneously. She noted that Benjamin Kabak, the transit advocate who writes the Second Ave. Sagas blog, said he was unsure if the region had enough workers to complete all the jobs.

Janno Lieber, the authority's head of capital construction, has said that he would want to commit the money in the next five years, and that this did not mean all of the work would be done by then.

"The M.T.A. notoriously takes more than just a five-year period to finish everything," Ms. Fitzsimmons said.

And commuters will experience some anguish before they see improvements, she added. "If your line is one of the lines that's getting new signals," Ms. Fitzsimmons said, "you are going to face night and weekend closures potentially for two years."

FROM THE TIMES

Explore news from New York and around the region

critic's notebook

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by sharon otterman

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The woman said her life was permanently scarred by the sexual abuse that started when she was 14.

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What Have You Always Wondered About New York City?

What have you always wanted to know about New York? Send us your questions, and we may assign a New York Times reporter to investigate them.

by the new york times

Want more news? Check out our full coverage.

The Mini Crossword: Here is today's puzzle.

What we're reading

A community board in Brooklyn approved women-only pool hours with one condition: Men get some hours, too. [The City]

Congress approved $100 million to help Newark address the elevated levels of lead in its drinking water. [Wall Street Journal]

A zero-waste restaurant is coming to New York City: "This is going to be an inconvenience to guests." [New York magazine]

Coming up today

Wander around Photoville to explore more than 90 shipping containers that have been repurposed as galleries beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn. 4-10 p.m. [Free]

Catch a screening of "American Factory" at the Old American Can Factory in Brooklyn. 8:30 p.m. [Free]

Chance and Circumstance, a three-day festival of experimental music and performance, begins at the Chocolate Factory Theater in Queens. 7 p.m. [$10]

— Julia Carmel

Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times's culture pages.

And finally: The new City of Women map

The Times's Melissa Guerrero writes:

Forget "Cortlandt Street" and consider "Toni Morrison Street." Rethink "West Fourth Street — Washington Square" and imagine "West Fourth Street — Jane Jacobs Square."

The new City of Women 2.0 subway map may make New Yorkers question, again, why many of the streets and public spaces in the city are named after men.

The first City of Women map was published in the 2016 book "Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas," by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro.

The New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn will celebrate the 2.0 version tonight at 6:30. Mr. Jelly-Schapiro, a geographer and writer, and the journalist Julie Scelfo will discuss the cultural and historical importance in recognizing and mapping notable women.

As Ms. Solnit wrote in The New Yorker in 2016, the first map aimed to honor "the great and significant women of New York City in the places where they lived, worked, competed, went to school, danced, painted, wrote, rebelled, organized, philosophized, taught, and made names for themselves."

Eighty new names appear on the updated map; there are now stations for Cardi B and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as for the all-girls robotics teams at St. Catharine's Academy and the Bronx High School of Science.

Names of places "sometimes unconsciously shape our sense of space," Mr. Jelly-Schapiro said. "We don't always think about where they came from, but they do have this power."

Tickets for the talk are $10 to $15. The new map is also part of the Transit Museum's "Navigating New York" exhibit.

It's Thursday — honor your fellow New Yorkers.

Metropolitan Diary: This diamond ring

Dear Diary:

I found a diamond ring on the sidewalk at the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. It was a classic, round solitaire on a platinum band. I picked it up quickly and pretended to look around with concern, but in my mind I had already hocked it.

I called my mother to tell her.

"Some woman is crying right now," she said.

I tried, but I couldn't muster any genuine regret. There was little chance of ever finding the owner or even identifying the ring. No, it was meant for me. It was a gift from the universe, a sign, an omen of abundance and love to come.

The only question was how much it was worth. I knew a guy who worked in the jewelry district a few blocks away. I texted him and he agreed to give it a look in a half-hour.

I killed time in a Sephora, not buying anything and playing with the ring. It was too big for any of my fingers.

I arrived at my friend's office early. We caught up a bit first. His brother had just been told he had cancer and his son had moved to a new apartment.

Then my friend examined the ring. He looked confused.

"Are you asking me if this is a diamond?" he asked. "It's not."

It was only then that I realized it had felt too lightweight to be real platinum and gemstone.

Embarrassed and subdued, I thanked him. We hugged and I left, heading back to my office worried now that this was a bad sign.

— Maria Ryan

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