The cost of several new city transit projects has ballooned to eye-popping heights, a report released Wednesday by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said.
Despite growing scrutiny on costs, the agency revealed massively increased price tags for long-awaited projects, such as a $600 million increase in the cost of a new West Side 7 train station and a $4 billion increase in the cost of the next phase of the Second Avenue Subway.
The new prices of the projects were quietly included deep inside the MTA’s legally mandated assessment of its expected upgrade needs over the next two decades.
MTA officials batted away questions about the spiraling costs during a briefing, arguing the projections were preliminary — while simultaneously arguing they hoped their “groundbreaking comparative evaluation” of the projects would further the debate.
“We’re not committing to making any of these investments, but we’re providing a lot of useful information about the status of the system — and, in this case, the potential costs and benefits of the potential expansion projects,” said MTA construction chief Jamie Torres-Springer.
The high price tags were presented in the report with little explanation:
A series of stories in The Post has revealed how excessive station designs and other pricy choices made by outside firms — which the MTA depends upon to plan, design, and engineer projects — cause price tags to explode.
For instance, consultants designing the Port Jefferson improvements — which would serve the eastern end of Suffolk County — ordered up an electrical system capable of delivering more service than many subway lines get.
Not every proposal saw its expected cost balloon.
At least one appears to have gotten cheaper: The long-proposed fixes for the Nostrand merge between the No. 2, 3, 4, and 5 lines in Brooklyn.
It’s one the biggest choke points in the system because trains from each of the four lines — the busiest in the entire system — are forced to cross in front of each other, creating massive jams.
Plans have been drawn up to address the problem since at least the 1960s but were never built.
The proposed fix would build new crossovers to keep the trains out of traffic and reorganize the service in Brooklyn: The No. 2 and No. 3 would turn south and now share a terminal at Flatbush Ave./Brooklyn College; while the No. 4 and No. 5 would continue eastward towards Utica Ave and New Lots.
Fixing the jam would slash delays and allow the MTA to dramatically increase service on the lines — including potentially creating a new No. 8 line, which would run from New Lots to Wakefield-241st St. in The Bronx.
The MTA estimated the price tag for a similar project in 2009 was $343 million, which would cost $491 million adjusting for inflation.
However, as proposed in the planning documents, the project would cost just $410 million.
Much of the report focuses on the challenges confronting the subway and commuter rail networks from their aging infrastructure and the rising sea levels and more frequent torrential downpours linked to climate change.
A powerful rain storm last week flooded key sections of track on the subway and Metro-North commuter railroad, forcing the MTA to suspend most service on both systems for hours.
The powerful September storm came just two months after another flood in July inundated Metro-North’s Hudson River line, which was built along the water’s edge more than a century ago.
“The overwhelming conclusion here is that there is a lot more to do — an enormously ambitious set of needs here,” Torres-Springer told reporters.