AASHTO Journal, 23 January 2015
Drawing at least partly on a state budget surplus built around big settlements with banks over the financial crisis, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed $4.2 billion in infrastructure spending as he begins his second term, most of it for transportation investments.
The governor’s plan includes injecting $750 million into the New York Department of Transportation’s “network of roads and bridges statewide to ensure that businesses can grow and create jobs,” according to a description from Cuomo’s office.
Cuomo proposes to build a new $450 million, 1.5-mile rail line to LaGuardia Airport that would connect with the Long Island Rail Road and the area’s subway system, along with more money for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project.
Bloomberg News reported that a Cuomo aide said at least $1.8 billion of the total would come from the surplus built on the bank settlements. “We must rebuild over the next few years,” Cuomo said Jan. 20 to the Association for a Better New York in Manhattan. “We have not kept pace with the rest of the world and our competitors.”
Of the total, the New York State Thruway Authority and Tappan Zee project would receive $1.3 billion, which Cuomo’s plan says would “keep tolls down and allow for critical repair and maintenance,” while the MTA transit system would get a $750 million cash infusion to help buy buses and subway cars and support other projects.
Cuomo also wants to spend $250 million in state funds to build more stations along the Metro-North commuter railroad line, $150 million to help build parking structures at transit hubs and $500 million on improving Internet access across the state.
In a separate, more detailed list of his proposals, Cuomo also said he wants to put $65 million in state funds into ports and freight rail hubs, partly to take more truck traffic off state highways.
That proposal would send $40 million to the Port of Oswego to link with the Port of New York and creating additional intermodal rail yards in Syracuse and Binghamton.
The Port of Albany would receive $15 million to help prepare for “the projected increase in volume of containerized cargo resulting from the Panama Canal expansion of 2016. And $10 million would go to the Port of Ogdensburg for improvements including harbor deepening to accommodate larger ships and expanded grain and salt storage.