Cuomo Declares ‘State Of Emergency’ For NYC Subways; Directs $1 Billion To Overhaul System

Today, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order throwing the NYC Subways into a ‘State of Emergency’, to expedite the overhaul of the MTA’s aging infrastructure and earmark an addition $1 billion in federal funds.

In his speech at the ‘MTA Genius Transit Challenge Conference’, Cuomo likened the transit system’s recent performance to a heart attack — the result of “a lifetime of bad habits” — and ordered returning MTA chairman Joseph J. Lhota to completely reorganize the agency he derides as a ‘long-standing bureaucracy’ within 30 days.

The governor pledged to direct an addition $1 billion for capital improvements in the 2015-2019 Capital Plan, though the details of that funding remain unclear at this time.

“A billion dollars is a start, but where will it come from, and is it new money?” said Josh Raskin, Executive Director of the Riders Alliance. “When and where will the State find the other billions that are needed to truly address the problem?”

This announcement comes amidst a spate of high-profile power outages and subway chaos punctuated by an A train derailment this week that left dozens injured and an F train breakdown that left riders stuck without air or communication during rush hour.

“[The MTA] is the system that undergirds the entire economy of the State of New York,” said Cuomo. “It is the circulatory system to our state. It is what the arteries and veins are to the human body.”

In his speech, Governor Cuomo pointed fingers at Con Ed and the MTA’s “deplorable” project capacity.

“The power failures that have been going on, that have been sporadic and unpredictable, are becoming more and more frequent,” Cuomo said. “Right now, it’s a finger-pointing game between Con Edison and the MTA. When there’s a power outage, both say it’s the problem of the other.”

But critics say Cuomo failed to address the third direction those fingers are pointing — at the Governor himself.

Critics have been lambasting the governor in recent months for skirting responsibility for MTA failures, and the question of who *actually* controls the troubled MTA during moments of crisis has been the subject of political ping-pong.

For Republican Staten Island Councilmember Joe Borelli, this pronouncement is too little too late:

But in his speech, Cuomo did imply that he is at least seeing what frustrated straphangers are saying on twitter, loud and clear:

“Riders tweet all day long, information about trains and delays, but the MTA can’t manage to communicate with the riders,” Cuomo said. “They tweet nasty things about me all day, the riders.”