US News

MTA TO $UFFER IF TRAIN ‘STALLS’

With yesterday’s federal commitment of $1.3 billion, many officials all but guaranteed the Second Avenue subway would finally be built – but the MTA could still lose out on the funding if the project doesn’t stay on track.

Should the $3.8 billion plan run substantially over budget or behind schedule, the Federal Transit Administration reserves the right to back out of its agreement, officials said.

In 2004, the agency withheld funds from a San Diego rail project that had huge cost-overruns and delays.

“Until the last of the bids are in and all the money has been locked down, I don’t think I’d ever say I would rest easy,” said Bill Henderson, director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA.

“Although I have 1.3 billion more reasons to be optimistic, ultimately everything is always subject to appropriation.”

It is unlikely the feds will pull the plug on a project as important and massive as the new subway unless there are colossal problems, transit sources said. In fact, the FTA would not sign off on the funds until the MTA changed its anticipated date of completion from 2013 to 2014.

“With the MTA, you always have to worry about this,” said Gene Russianoff, of the Straphangers Campaign. “Other projects have gone way over budget and behind schedule. It is always a danger.”

The first phase of the subway will extend the Q train from 63rd and Lexington Avenue up Second Avenue to 96th Street, with stops at 86th and 72nd streets.

All of the stations will have elevators and “air-tempering” systems that will make them comfortable even in sweltering New York summers, officials said.

The full project, which has yet to be funded completely, will run from 125th Street to Lower Manhattan.

Just as 110 Livingston St. was synonymous with city bureaucracy, the Second Avenue subway has long been shorthand for the city’s inability to build big projects.

Gov. Spitzer insists that, unlike the 75-year history of false starts and squandered funds and opportunities, this time the city, state and federal government mean business.

“For much of the 20th century, New York talked about building the Second Avenue subway,” Spitzer said. “Today, with the help of our partners in Washington and Albany, the shovels are already in the ground.”

Rep. Carolyn Maloney went a step further.

“The Second Avenue subway is now inevitable,” she said.

jeremy.olshan@nypost.com