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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority should come up with a plan to get the system ready “for the challenges of the next century,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday in a letter to the head of the agency.
“We have been operating the same subway system for the last 100 years. The next 100 years, however, look radically different for New York,” Cuomo said in the letter to MTA President and CEO Thomas Prendergast.
The governor said the MTA should convene a Transportation Reinvention Commission staffed with international experts and hold public hearings. He recommended it should submit a preliminary report to him before the MTA submits its capital plan in September.
Cuomo said the system faces challenges from climate change and increasing ridership.
“The clear evidence of a changing climate in our nation makes more major storms like Superstorm Sandy a real and present threat,” Cuomo said.
“Increasing population, demographic shifts and record ridership pose new challenges to operating and maintaining our existing mass transit network, meeting and exceeding New Yorkers’ expectations, and spurring the continued growth of New York’s economy.”
Prendergast said the agency will create the commission “to recommend bold steps for the future.”