In its first meeting since the city and state reached a funding agreement, the MTA board formally passed a five-year, $26.1 billion capital improvement program that's about ten percent leaner that its original plan.

"I'm extremely grateful and relieved," said MTA Chairman Tom Prendergast. He compared the process of putting the MTA's capital program to bed to running a steeplechase, which he did in high school gym class. "If you know steeplechase races, they have different hazards."

But to slim down the program, the MTA pared a billion dollars from the next phase of the Second Avenue Subway, about two-thirds of what the agency had proposed spending a year ago. The cut reflected "funding availability and the ability to implement scope within the plan period," according to the program materials. 

The first segment of the Second Avenue Subway, scheduled to open at the end of next year, will go from 63rd Street to 96th Street. The agency had originally planned to pay for the tunneling north from 96th to 125th streets by 2019. But under the revised plan approved Wednesday, that work will be deferred until 2020 or later.

MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said the move was a practical one, not a financial decision: the agency realized it was unlikely it could get to the tunneling work during the current capital program, so it reallocated the money. 

But Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute said the cut would have long-term consequences. "By stretching these things out, and sort of acting like they're doing something, it ends up costing more in the long run," she said.

She added that the MTA did not adjust funding levels for another of its ongoing megaprojects downward.

"If you look at the expansion part of the capital plan, East Side Access gets the bulk of that, and there is very little for projects that really help people who live in the city," she continued.

Funding for that project, which will bring Long Island Rail Road trains into Grand Central Terminal, is holding steady at $2.57 billion.

But the de Blasio administration took pains to stress that the revised plan did incorporate some of its priorities. In return for contributing an unprecedented amount of city money, the MTA will build a transfer between the Livonia Avenue stop on the L line with the Junius Street station on the No. 3 line in East New York. The agency will also study extending a subway line down Utica Avenue to a transit-starved part of Brooklyn, and begin planning for a bus rapid transit line on Staten Island's North Shore.

"These investments ensure that almost every MTA transit priority we outlined in OneNYC can now move forward," Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement, "representing a huge win for NYC riders across the five boroughs.”

Transit advocate Gene Russianoff, staff attorney of the Straphangers Campaign, said the additions were positive for the outer boroughs.

"Why should Second Avenue get a $4.4 billion, three-stop, fantabulous subway and Utica get bupkes?" he said in an interview earlier this week.  

Another new addition to the capital plan: the MTA will award a contract to revamp the Times Square Shuttle, reducing the number of tracks it uses and making it ADA-accessible.

Next, the capital program must be submitted to a state board for review. But Prendergast's steeplechase race isn't over yet. The governor hasn't said where the state's $8.3 billion contribution is coming from, and the de Blasio administration is hoping that funding mechanisms like value capture can supply $600 million of its $2.5 billion contribution.