Yesterday, the MTA Board made clear the repercussions of pausing congestion pricing.
By creating a $15B hole in the agency's capital budget, the "pause" will cause a host of projects to be immediately paused.
First, foremost, and by far the worst are ADA accessibility projects:
Here is a general overview of the cuts.
-Second Ave Subway Phase 2 construction must stop
-$2B in accessibility projects will stop.
-Rolling stock upgrades must pause
-Signal upgrades will be deferred.
These projects will be *more* expensive to restart in the future.
Consider, for example, the effects of delaying the procurement of new trains.
By delaying the R262s, the 1/3/6/GCT S will be left with 40+ year old R62 trains for the foreseeable future.
Older trains are worse for passengers, less reliable, and cost far more to maintain.
Another damning "pause" is delaying upgrading signals to modern CBTC. This will leave much of the system operating with Great Depression-era systems.
The poor reliability of these aging electromechanical systems were a large part of 2017's "Summer of Hell."
ETA will continue to fight to ensure that congestion pricing is implemented as New York law demands, and to ensure that New Yorkers get the transit systems they need and deserve.
