Steve Cuozzo

Steve Cuozzo

Real Estate

New York can’t afford a new Penn Station (or anything else)

Andrew Cuomo promises New Yorkers a “legacy” bundle of transit and infrastructure goodies, most of them in or near New York City. A “new” Penn Station! A new LaGuardia Airport! He’s cited great public works of the past, like the Erie Canal, as their inspiration.

But, to the alarm of fiscal watchdogs and real estate executives who understand how central mass transit is to the city’s economy, Cuomo offered no concrete strategy to pay for most of his $100 billion pet projects. His description of funding sources is more musing than fact.

A Cuomo spokesperson said his office had provided “a good breakdown” of the infrastructure financing.

A rendering of a new LaGuardia Airport, which would create a unified central terminal.Handout

But, in fact, Empire Center for Public Policy president E.J. McMahon points out that only $3.8 billion of the $100 billion are identified in Albany’s budget.

All the rest must come from public and “public-private partnerships” yet to be identified — which means nothing without a protocol to muscle bankers and politicians into the same room until they come to an agreement.

The city’s single major transit milestone in decades illustrates how indispensable such efforts are to the city: the No. 7 line extension to 11th Avenue and 34th Street. Without the new station, development around Hudson Yards would remain but an inaccessible dream.

Let’s remember, though, that the city under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, not the state, footed the extension’s entire $2.4 billion cost.

Today, public funds for new infrastructure are so scarce that developer SL Green — not the city or state — is paying $200 million-plus for transit and pedestrian upgrades as a condition for building a new office tower, One Vanderbilt, next to Grand Central.

Gov. Cuomo “has created his own challenge to identify the revenue,” said Mitchell Moss, the Henry Hart Rice Proessor of Urban Policy and Planning at NYU and Director of the Rudin Center for Transportation.

“He’s putting the burden on the Legislature and various constituencies — developers, unions, contractors — to find the money,” Moss said.

Adding to skepticism is that Cuomo plans to freeze New York State Thruway tolls, a possible revenue source for new projects, until 2020.

Here is a look at some of Cuomo’s most ambitious plans:

An Amtrak train crossing the Hudson in DecemberAP Photo/Mike Groll

1) A NEW AMTRAK TUNNEL

A new trans-Hudson Amtrak tunnel between Manhattan and New Jersey is urgently needed to replace the crumbling, 100 year-old existing one. It might collapse altogether in seven to 10 years, a catastrophe which would plunge the regional economy into a recession.

But although Cuomo said plans were finally under way for a replacement tube, called the Gateway, it’s little thanks to him. He delayed things when he sniffed last year, “It’s not my tunnel,” and threw the ball back into New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s lap.

There’s finally action due mainly to Sen. Chuck Schumer, who prodded all hands to take the matter seriously. The feds agreed to pay half of its $20 billion cost. However, the remaining $10 billion, which Cuomo agreed to contribute, waits on a plan by the Port Authority to set up a development corporation.

2) A NEW PENN STATION

Everybody hates Penn Station’s dimly lit underground warren that is unworthy of the nation’s busiest railroad station. That the wretched labyrinth “replaced” the great original station, demolished in the 1960s, compounds the disgrace.

Cuomo’s idealized new Penn Station lets a lot more light belowground.Handout

The latest scheme would move passenger platforms into the Farley Post Office building on the west side of Eighth Avenue. Its public areas would look better, but would be one block farther west than they are today, even though the vast majority of its 600,000 daily users approach from the east.

A giant new glass entrance would replace the Paramount Theater beneath Madison Square Garden on the east side of Eighth Avenue. But the only real way to create a new station worthy of its cost might be to move the Garden itself — an idea its owners, the Dolan family, staunchly oppose.

Even Cuomo’s more limited proposal might never leave the station. For starters, Amtrak has yet to agree to the move this time.

The bulk of the project’s $3 billion cost is supposed to come from real estate companies, yet to be chosen, who would get development rights in exchange for converting the Farley building and the theater.

But we’ll see how many developers take on the cost and trouble of responding to a new request for proposals.

The old, overcrowded subway is also due for a major — and expensive — overhaul.AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews

3) MTA IMPROVEMENTS

The need to upgrade 30 subway stations, replace old cars and buses, install modern signals and control devices and maintain bridges and tunnels is undisputed. The 100-year-old subway system — though vastly superior to the crime-ridden nightmare of the 1970s and ’80s — is rotting fast.

Stalled trains, signal and switch glitches delay my daily 6 train ride every week. The MTA might need to shut down the L line between Manhattan and Brooklyn for a whole year to repair Sandy damage.

Cuomo, who once proudly called himself a “car guy,” seems to have gotten the message. Unfortunately, not only is the $29 billion allocated to the MTA capital budget inadequate, it’s far from paid for. The $29 billion is to include contributions by the feds, state and city. But of $8.3 billion the state legislature has thus far agreed only to $1 billion. The remaining $7.3 billion has yet to be appropriated.

A rendering of the new LaGuardia.Handout

4) A NEW LAGUARDIA AIRPORT

Sure, much of it can look and feel like a “third-world country,” as Vice President Joe Biden said. The 1939 relic is as miserable for fliers as Penn Station is for train passengers. Cuomo aims to transform it with a redevelopment anchored by a new, unified main terminal, which would eliminate a nightmare of separate, ugly terminals for different airlines.

The new terminal is to be funded with $1.8 billion from the Port Authority and $2.2 billion from private sources. The latter is to come from a consortium called LaGuardia Gateway Partners, led by Vantage Airport Group, which develops and manages airports around the world.

But how exactly is that $2.2 billion to be obtained? The governor’s office none too reassuringly told us to check with the Port Authority — which said LGP “is responsible for the $2.2 billion in private dollars,” and would raise it through equity and bond financing.

Work progresses at the Long Island Rail Road’s East Side Access project, which would allow passengers to disembark at Grand Central, not just Penn Station.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

5) LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD IMPROVEMENTS

A third track on the LIRR’s main line between Floral Park and Hicksville would certainly relieve train congestion. Its $1.5 billion tab would be paid for by the MTA, according to Cuomo’s office.

But who said the MTA has the money? The agency is already in a deep hole on a different LIRR scheme, the infamous East Side Access boondoggle.

That brainstorm, to bring the LIRR into Grand Central, started in 2007 and, after a number of blown deadlines, cannot possibly open until December 2022. Its original estimated cost of $4.3 billion has ballooned to $10.2 billion — all for a project many believe was strictly optional given the region’s more pressing needs.

*6) A RAIL LINK TO JFK

This is a joke, of course. Cuomo offered no such proposal, although many in the real estate and business communities say it’s the most important missing link in the metropolitan area’s transit network. New York is unique among world financial capitals in lacking a direct train line — a “one-seat ride” between its international airport and central business district.

Governor, we’re waiting!