(The following article by Sewell Chan was posted on the New York Times website on June 28.)
NEW YORK — Officials of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority warned yesterday that major building projects, the purchase of new subway cars and buses, and repairs to stations have been stalled because it has still not received final approval of its five-year capital program, for 2005 to 2009.
The authority’s finance committee approved a stopgap plan to spend $323.2 million from July to September for essential projects, but that amount is only a fraction of the $3.8 billion that the authority had hoped to spend this year. The authority’s board has already approved such plans twice, in January and March.
The delay in approval might seem paradoxical, because the Legislature and Gov. George E. Pataki agreed in April on a plan to finance a $21.1 billion capital program.
But the plan is subject to approval by the Capital Program Review Board, which includes representatives of Mr. Pataki, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno.
Although the Legislature ended its session on Friday, the review board has continued its discussions.
Linda G. Kleinbaum, the authority’s deputy executive director for administration, told the finance committee that the proposed capital program will expire on Friday. If the review board has not approved the program by then, the authority would have to resubmit the plan.
Under state law, the projects approved yesterday can draw only on funds from the federal government, the city and cash projected to be available during the year. “The funds that are available are shrinking rapidly,” said Barry L. Feinstein, a member of the finance committee.
Complicating the review board’s decision is the fact that representatives of Mr. Pataki, Mr. Bruno and Mr. Silver are also working on an agreement over a new capital program for the State Department of Transportation, which manages roads and highways.
One person who has been briefed on the talks said yesterday that three issues remained: involvement of private firms, rather than state engineers, in the design of highway projects; pay rates for nonunion workers on state-subsidized building projects; and a proposal to build a third track along the Main Line of the Long Island Rail Road.
Industry representatives said that both the authority and the State Transportation Department were starting to suffer from delays in awarding contracts.
“There have been some very costly holdups in major jobs,” said Richard T. Anderson, the president of the New York Building Congress, a construction and real estate industry group. “Albany has never treated New York City more dismally with respect to building, transportation, energy and school construction projects than this year. The stakes are enormous.”