An electronic MTA sign in Penn Station alerts commuters of train delays. | AP Photo Sixty days into MTA's 'state of emergency,' critics wonder what happened to review plans

Sixty days ago Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo took to the stage of the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan and announced a top-to-bottom review of the calcified organization that runs the subway system.

Within 30 days, MTA chairman Joe Lhota, a Cuomo appointee, would create a “reorganization plan for the MTA,” and nothing would be sacrosanct, the governor said, declaring a "state of emergency." As if redesigning a bureaucracy that employs 70,000 people within 30 days weren’t enough, Cuomo said Lhota would also undertake a capital review within 60 days, examining the beleaguered authority's physical infrastructure from subway cars to signals.


That was June 29th, two days after a subway derailment in Harlem injured 34 people. Sixty days later, the MTA says it has delivered on both those promises. Observers aren’t so sure.

“Where are they?” asked Nick Sifuentes, deputy director of the Riders Alliance, referring to the two reviews that the MTA contends are already complete.

Shams Tarek, a spokesman for the MTA, said the two plans exist and can be found right here , in the singular subway stabilization plan released by Lhota in July.

"The Chairman released the thirty and sixty day agendas as one plan,” Tarek said.

What Lhota released may be salutary for city subways, critics say, but it only bears a glancing resemblance to what was promised for a system that remains in crisis.

Jamison Dague, the director of infrastructure studies at the Citizens Budget Commission, also seemed confused, asking, in a tweet on Tuesday, “So, it has been 60 days since the Governor announced the 60-day review of the @MTA capital plan, no?”

In a follow-up interview, Dague said he was still waiting for the capital review plan.

"I'm surprised they think that the stabilization plan accounted for both," he said. "The Citizens Budget Commission has said there are misplaced priorities in the capital program and the governor had indicated there would be a review of the capital plan within 60 days."

“The NYC Subway Action Plan,” that the MTA released in July does not appear to kill any “sacred cows,” as Cuomo had asked, but it does redeploy resources to target problem areas like signal and track maintenance and customer communication. Its main organizational reform is to create an “MTA-wide Emergency Operations Center,” to allow for better-coordinated responses to service disruptions.

The MTA and the governor’s office also point to a development that came to pass a week after the report’s issuance — when Lhota announced that, instead of serving as a unitary chairman and chief executive officer, he would have an “office of the chairman” featuring a president, managing director, and chief development officer. (It’s a set-up that many privately speculate will lead to a system of dueling fiefdoms.)

The reorganization “needs to go further than the four or five people at the top,” Sifuentes said.

Meanwhile, the MTA’s long-term, more than $30 billion capital program merits little mention in the July action plan. Instead, the plan suggests that will be part of a "phase two," which could cost as much as $8 billion. It remains unclear where that number came from.

Critics say the lack of a full-fledged review of the MTA’s capital needs is a loss, in light of the MTA’s inefficient use of taxpayer money. The first phase of the Second Avenue Subway, for example, was the most expensive subway line on a per-mile basis ever built, according to experts. For the MTA to clean up its act, they say it will have to use its resources more effectively.

“The capital plan needs a lot of clean-up and prioritization,” said the Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas. “Can we really do Metro North through the Bronx and an LIRR third track at the same time?”

Asked for comment, Cuomo spokesman Jon Weinstein said, "Chairman Lhota's plan is the blueprint needed to make immediate fixes to the subway —along with his leadership team we expect that they will deliver the improved service every customer demands."