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Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City. From WNYC, I'm Janae Pierre. New York Governor Kathy Hochul says she wants to cut taxes for the middle class. She made the remarks as part of her annual State of the State address in Albany Tuesday.

Kathy Hochul: The tax cut I propose today and will fight for in the coming months will deliver the lowest tax rates in 70 years.

Janae Pierre: The governor is proposing an income tax cut for about 8 million people. For joint filers, it'll apply to anyone making less than $323,000. It also includes checks of up to $500 to many New Yorkers, a so-called inflation rebate. It's all part of what Hochul is calling her affordability agenda. Nearly 30,000 faculty and staff in New York City's public university system will get raises and bonuses under a new labor contract. CUNY and the Professional Staff Congress Union say 90% of the union's members voted to ratify the contract, which is retroactive to March 2023.

It provides raises of more than 13% over roughly five years through November 2027. It also comes with a ratification bonus of $3,000 per employee as well as more professional development opportunities.

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Janae Pierre: The MTA says the transit system is in urgent need of repairs. The agency is asking lawmakers to approve a $65 billion plan to help. Does it really need all that money? We'll answer that and more after the break.

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Announcer: This Is NYC Now.

Janae Pierre: State lawmakers are back in Albany this month as the 2025 legislative session gets underway. With it comes a high stakes debate, how to fund the MTA's $65 billion plan to repair and upgrade the subways. Does the agency really need all that money and how urgent is the need? WNYC's transit reporters Stephen Nessen and Ramsay Khalifa spent three months investigating the inner workings of the system the public never really sees.

Michael Hill: To start, would you break down this multi-billion dollar plan that's before the legislature. Tell us the stakes here.

Ramsay Khalifa: The MTA has crafted this plan to upgrade and maintain public transit system. That includes improving the signals, the power system, the machinery that pumps water out of the system, adding elevators, making them storm proof. This isn't the kind of work that typically gets politicians out for a ribbon cutting, say. This is the type of work that keeps the subways running and improves service, makes it faster, more reliable. How many trains are actually on the tracks is going to improve those. This costs lots of money, like we said.

$65 billion is the price tag they put on it. Let's remember, this is separate from congestion pricing, which just went into effect. That money goes to fund the previous capital plan. The one we're talking about now covers the next five years.

Michael Hill: I'm dying to know, where did you go and what did you see?

Stephen Nessen: We went behind the scenes to see the infrastructure and the facilities that keep the subway system running.

Ramsay Khalifa: In many places, the MTA is relying on equipment that was first installed in the 1930s and has barely been updated since then. Subway trains simply can't move faster with the type of electrical equipment and signals in use on many of the lines. Let me take you to one of those places where the fragility of the system is so shockingly apparent. It's behind an unmarked door at the DeKalb Avenue station in Brooklyn, just feet away from the turnstiles. This station is where the B, N, Q and R and sometimes W trains all meet and splinter off on different tracks.

This room is like an air traffic control tower that's underground. The room features a model board. It's like an oversized midcentury operator switchboard, like from old movies. With the push of a button, MTA General Superintendent Shahana Parker sets a route for a train to follow.

Shahana Parker: If it's D, it's going to go to 6th Avenue side and merge with the B train. You have to make sure that everything's in the right space.

Ramsay Khalifa: If it's in the wrong space, there could be a crash. If there's any problem along the way, say someone's holding the doors or a passenger needs medical attention, Parker might have to reroute all the R trains, for example. Suddenly you might find yourself crossing the Manhattan Bridge when normally you'd go through the tunnel. There are other impacts.

Jamie Torres Springer: Even if one train is just a few seconds off, it's going to cause a delay, and that cascades throughout service across our whole system.

Ramsay Khalifa: That's the head of MTA construction, Jamie Torres Springer. He's hoping to replace the system with a modern signal system that uses computers. In the meantime, he relies on people like Sandy Castillo to keep this antiquated system running. He's worked in signals since 1997 and is now a chief. He explains how the system Parker is working on was once state of the art technology almost 100 years ago.

Sandy Castillo: It is high maintenance. These buttons are generally not manufactured anymore, and our shop has to rebuild replacements. That's one big impact also to the system and how quickly we can repair.

Ramsey Khalifa: When something does go wrong, Castillo is called in to troubleshoot. He'll go next door where there are thousands of relays, glass knobs with little paper tags dangling from them. He'll head to the back of the room. This is like the hanging racks in a library?

Sandy Castillo: Yes, they are. They are like hanging racks.

Ramsay Khalifa: There are dozens of diagrams on old, brown, oversized paper hanging on what looks like a newspaper rack. When would you pull one of these maps out?

Sandy Castillo: Let's say, there is a signal that's not clearing. I need to know how that's controlled. This is my reference material.

Ramsay Khalifa: People are waiting in a tunnel for their train to move, and you're running back here to grab this and take a look at it.

Sandy Castillo: Correct.

Ramsay Khalifa: When people are waiting and they're pissed off, it's because Sandy is going here to get a piece of paper off a rack to check the specs.

Sandy Castillo: Yes, that is true. That is what happens.

Stephen Nessen: With a modern signal system, there would just be a computer that showed exactly where the breakdown is and what the problem is. Of course, if the MTA gets the money for the modern signal system, they'll need to install it on the rails. To do that work, they use work trains that carry tools and equipment to job sites. Those work trains have problems, too. Ramsey visited the yard where they're repaired.

Ramsay Khalifa: Those heavy duty trains are repaired over and over again at the Westchester Locomotive Train Shop in the Bronx.

Dane Burkett: In the '60s, yes.

Ramsay Khalifa: Yes.

Dane Burkett: Yes, that's good.

Ramsay Khalifa: That's Superintendent Dane Burkett. He's standing next to a rusty yellow diesel work train. You probably see them rumble by on the tracks, usually late at night or on weekends. They're used to repair tracks, upgrade signals, and even plow snow, and they break down constantly.

Dane Burkett: You have to expect that this can't do the same amount of work as it was designed to do back in the '60s. We've experienced that from the front to the back.

Ramsay Khalifa: Making matters worse, the shop where those trains get repaired is quite small and only fits two assembly lines. The shop is cluttered and dirty.

Dane Burkett: At times, what ends up happening is that we spend so much time in just maintaining the support facility, we don't have the manpower to allocate to the locomotives and keep those in service.

Ramsay Khalifa: Torres Springer, the MTA construction chief, says this means that the trains often aren't available for planned repairs throughout the system.

Torres Springer: At the beginning of the weekend, we have to say, all these closures, disruptions of service that we've planned, we can't do them all because we don't have enough work trains.

Ramsay Khalifa: The MTA, and us, its riders, face a tough reality. Even the equipment it uses to make repairs to old infrastructure is way past its expiration date. The reason for this is decades of putting off this behind the scenes work. Torres Springer says the agency simply can't do that anymore.

Michael Hill: New Yorkers have heard this type of doomsday talk before. They've heard the talk. What's different about this particular moment?

Ramsay Khalifa: There are signs that service is actually getting worse. MTA data that we looked at shows that delays due to infrastructure failures have increased 46% since 2021.

I would say the through line here is that this system that 4 million people a day rely on and arguably, a huge factor in contributing to New York's economy, even the national economy, all of this is held together by a patchwork of outdated equipment and crumbling facilities. Honestly, after all of this, we came away thinking it's really a miracle that most subway riders reach their destination every day.

Michael Hill: Will the MTA get what it wants? Should New Yorkers trust them to get it done?

Ramsey Khalifa: Well, right now it's going to be up to state lawmakers to make that decision. They're lobbying in Albany, asking Governor Hochul to get that money. Already top state lawmakers have said it's too much money and the MTA needs to scale back its plan. Of course, MTA chair Jan O. Lieber says he's changed the culture of overspending and blowing deadlines at the MTA, but the reputation remains. This $65 billion plan is not an easy sell. Congestion pricing is charging drivers, and people are going to start asking, "What are we getting for that money?" The MTA says it needs this new source of revenue to cover about half of that $65 billion construction plan.

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Janae Pierre: That's WNYC's Stephen Nessen and Ramsay Khalifa talking with my colleague Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

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