The clock is ticking towards the state’s April 1st budget deadline, and the Governor and State Legislature have (so far) failed to fund the $35 billion gap in the MTA’s $68 billion 2025-2029 capital plan.
This dangerous game of political chicken doesn’t just threaten transit riders – it risks the 72,800 well-paying jobs across New York State that the Partnership for New York City has calculated will be sustained by MTA capital spending.
Reinvent Albany showed in a February 2025 report that the MTA capital plan is big, big business for New York. Over ten years, the MTA paid a whopping $30 billion to businesses across the state for goods and services, and every single congressional and state senate district in New York has at least one business contracting with the MTA.
New York has a long history of railcar and bus manufacturing, with large and small suppliers in communities throughout the state. These well-paying manufacturing jobs are at high risk without state support. The MTA’s 2025-2029 capital plan budgets $14.5 billion or 20% of the plan for 1,500 new subway cars, 500 new commuter railcars, 2,000 new conventional buses, and 500 new zero-emission buses. Major plants in Plattsburg, Hornell, and Yonkers build subway and commuter rail cars for Alstom and Kawasaki. Dozens of other small manufacturers across the state build and sell parts for the MTA’s railcar and bus fleets.
The governor and legislature will have to find about $2 billion in recurring, annual revenue to support the borrowing needed to close the $35 billion gap in the 2025-2029 capital plan. Congestion pricing revenues are already pledged to the MTA’s 2020-2024 capital plan, and finally providing funding for these much-delayed projects. According to the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, funding for the 2025-2029 plan could come from a variety of places.
Their “Take Your Pick Albany” report identifies a list of more than a dozen funding options, including new taxes and fees. The winning revenue raiser will be politically palatable and strike a balance between those who benefit from the MTA (the entire state, as shown in our data) and those who use it.
MTA is a foundation of the metro region’s economy, which makes up 10% of the nation’s GDP. But the region’s transit system can’t work if it is falling apart. The 2025-2029 MTA capital plan, while large at $68 billion, realistically reflects the massive backlog of repairs that must be completed to keep the system safe and reliable.
Rarely is it so clear that a state investment will go directly back into the pockets of New Yorkers. We have seen dozens of failed economic development programs, like the $10 billion a year in corporate subsidies that do not work – including the film tax credit. Funding for public infrastructure improvements is a far, far better investment of public funds. Not only does capital investment in the MTA create jobs, it also produces a transit system that employers can use to
tap a huge labor force, and consumers can use to get around quickly and efficiently. The Partnership for New York City estimates that for every $1 billion spent in New York, 5,900 jobs are created, and that the $68.4 billion spent on the capital plan will generate an estimated $106.0 billion of statewide economic output over five years.
New York’s leaders – with the Governor driving the bus – must do right by transit riders, businesses and the state’s economic future and fully fund the MTA’s 2025-2029 Capital Plan in this year’s state budget.
Rachael Fauss is a senior policy advisor for Reinvent Albany.
