Many MTA observers are congenitally dubious of Cuomo’s MTA doings, and the ensuing uproar was laden with skepticism. | Todd Shaffer via Flickr MTA abandons full review of Cuomo L-train project, denies ever planning one

Not only will Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s last-minute plan to rehabilitate the L Train go through without an independent assessment of its merits, but Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials now claim they never intended to perform such an evaluation in the first place.

Documents and past statements, however, tell a different story.


When, in January, Cuomo unilaterally dispensed with the MTA’s long-held plan to repair the L train, replacing it with a repair plan of his own device, it seemed clear to some supporters of the new plan, and critics, that one way to allay rider concern was to have an outside consultant assess the new plan’s viability.

New York City Transit President Andy Byford told the public he would commission an independent review, but after he took steps to fulfill that commitment, the MTA removed him from leadership of the project and gave it to someone else, a knowledgeable source said.

Then the MTA, which Cuomo effectively controls, shut down the exercise almost entirely. Instead, last week the authority hired what board member Veronica Vanterpool said amounted to a glorified project manager.

Now, what originally seemed like an innocuous due-diligence exercise has became the crux of an ugly political fight. With just four weeks to go until the Cuomo plan is put into effect, the MTA is disputing the veracity of the very assertion that it had once intended to do a full-scale review, resorting to what one reporter described as “1st degree gaslighting.”

“It was never, ever, [supposed to be] a comparison between Plan A and Plan B, just to correct your representation,” MTA acting Chairman Freddy Ferrer told that reporter last week.

Rather than outright deny the MTA originally intended to pursue a full-scale review of the new Cuomo plan — something supported by documents acquired by POLITICO — MTA officials are offering a subtly different defense: that they never intended for a consultant to compare the first plan with the second one.

“No one, including Acting Chairman Ferrer and [New York City Transit President] Andy Byford, suggested we would bring in a consultant to compare a full and massively disruptive shutdown to the current plan, already in progress, which will provide the same benefits of the original plan for less cost and less inconvenience,” said MTA spokesman Max Young in a statement.

Hurricane Sandy inundated the L train tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan with brackish water, depositing salts that continue to eat away at its concrete.

The tunnel carries more than 200,000 riders a day. The MTA spent years developing plans to close the tunnel for an extended period of time so workers could restore it to a state of good repair.

Then in January, just four months before the project’s April 27 start date, Cuomo, who purports not to control the MTA, abruptly decided the authority was doing the L train repairs wrong.

Enlisting the expertise of deans from the Columbia and Cornell schools of engineering, Cuomo said that the MTA would scrap the existing plan and move forward with a new one. Instead of rebuilding the tunnel as is, the MTA would instead wrap the tunnel’s deteriorating bench walls in fiber reinforced polymer, and install sensors along the walls to detect any further deterioration. Instead of replacing the cables encased in the old bench walls, the MTA would instead hang new cables from brackets along the tunnel’s sides. Cuomo said his new proposal would require only a partial tunnel closure on nights and weekends. All of which amounted to “a major, major breakthrough.”

Many MTA observers are congenitally dubious of Cuomo’s MTA doings, and the ensuing uproar was laden with skepticism. Byford, who runs the MTA’s subway and bus division, promised the MTA would hire a consultant to do an independent review of the proposal before moving ahead with it.

Ferrer gave that impression too.

On Jan. 21 Ferrer circulated a memo to MTA board members. The memo, acquired by POLITICO, described the scope of the contract Ferrer wanted to sign with an independent consultant. It described a thorough review.

The consultant would provide “an independent evaluation of the engineering and technical aspects of the new design.” The memo included phrases like, “Address the feasibility and optimum configurations of installing cables and racking systems along the inside of the tunnel walls,” one of the key components of Cuomo’s plan. It called for asking the consultant to “verify” the proposed “bracket anchoring systems,” the governor wanted to use, and to “verify” the Cuomo team’s assessments of the state of the tunnel concrete. It wanted to the consultant to “examine” the team’s “proposed methods of preserving the bench wall and … identify any operational concerns.”

Further, Byford had been talking with a company called Network Rail Consulting about doing the job, a development first reported by The Wall Street Journal. A source told POLITICO that Byford wanted the company to exhaustively examine the new proposal and determine if it should in fact be implemented. Its responsibilities, the source said, would include determining if the tunnel could in fact provide reliable service, given the night and weekend closures.

Byford never got the opportunity to see that through. The MTA subsequently transferred the project to its capital construction unit, even though New York City Transit had successfully completed the repair of other Hurricane-Sandy damaged subway tunnels.

By Feb. 13, when MTA managing director Ronnie Hakim sent out a revised scope of the consultant’s brief, that scope had been vastly diminished. Now, the consultant would just “review and report” on the MTA’s coordination of construction work with passenger operations. The consultant, the new scope also said, would “also review safety and environmental considerations on benchwall demolition and debris management and removal.”

The MTA did not respond to questions about why they diminished the contract scope, or what role the governor’s office played in the process.

All of which has, at the very least, led to some confusion.

“[It] was my understanding and that of others on the board that an independent consultant would perform a review and advise the board as to which plan should be undertaken,” said MTA board member Randolph Glucksman last week.

Ferrer, the acting [and now-outgoing] chair, told Glucksman his “speech” was “replete with errors.”