The mayor’s race is getting all the attention, but a bond issue on Tuesday’s ballot would spruce up subways – and push the state debt nearly $3 billion higher.
If approved, the Transportation Bond Act would authorize officials to issue $2.9 million in bonds to be split between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for local projects and the state Department of Transportation for upstate projects.
The MTA would use $495 million for new buses and subway cars and track maintenance, another $450 million on the Second Avenue Subway and $100 million on a rail link between Kennedy Airport and lower Manhattan. Plans also call for bringing the Long Island Rail Road into Grand Central Terminal.
Gov. Pataki and Albany leaders agreed to the proposal earlier this year as part of a $38.5 billion multiyear transportation program – and most elected officials, including Mayor Bloomberg, city Comptroller Bill Thompson and Democratic mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer, back the measure, as does Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission, however, is worried.
“The overriding consideration for the CBC is the high level of state debt,” said Elizabeth Lynam, the group’s deputy research director.
“We found that New York state has $10 billion more debt than it should. The state debt should be reduced, not increased.”
The state debt currently hovers around $48 billion.
“If the bond act fails, improvements to our 100-year-old subway system will be greatly impaired. That’s the bottom line,” said City Councilman John Liu (D-Queens), chairman of the Transportation Committee.
The proposal will appear on Tuesday’s ballot as Proposition 2.
Liu’s office conducted a poll last week that found 87 percent of city residents support the proposition.
Pataki’s office has said the bond act will also help get more than $5.1 billion in federal transportation aid.