The MTA's 60-Day Review Plan Was Due Today — But There Isn't One

Sixty days ago — after a derailment and a series of delay-plagued morning commutes — Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered the MTA to conduct a review of its management structure and its capital plan. Wednesday was the deadline. But instead of releasing a plan, the agency said there wouldn't be one.

The MTA said in a statement that the top-to-bottom review Cuomo ordered was released in July as part of Chairman Joe Lhota's emergency relief plan.

"As previously noted, the Chairman released the 30- and 60-day agendas as one plan," MTA spokesman Shams Tarek said in the statement. "The MTA and New York City Transit are instituting the first half of that plan with the state's funding, but cannot carry out the entire plan without the city's share. As a result, we have to prioritize execution while we wait for City Hall and Mayor de Blasio to step up and join us in the solution to fix the subway problems for 8 million New York City residents."

The mayor has said repeatedly that the city won't contribute any more money to the MTA than it has already committed.

While the MTA and Lhota insist the agency had already made clear there would be no 60-day review, MTA board members contacted by WNYC were unaware there had been a change.

"I'm more disappointed that I didn't get notice that there wouldn't be a 60-day plan today," board member Andrew Albert said.

Jamison Dague with the Citizen Budget Commission told WNYC that a 60-day, agency-wide review could have done more than solve the short-term problems addressed by the emergency plan.

"It's not sticking our finger in the dike to keep the system running, but how do we reorient our capital works so we don't run into this situation again," Albert said.

Lhota said in a conference call with reporters that long-term capital needs, like repairing signals faster and upgrading cars more quickly, will be solved by the Governor's Genius contest. He said he's wading through more than 400 submissions.