Dozens of people gathered at Queens Public Library in Jamaica Wednesday evening for the MTA’s 2025-29 Capital Plan Open House, which aims to invest $68.4 billion across the subway, bus and commuter rail systems over the next five years.
Wednesday’s open house was the second event hosted by the MTA since the announcement of the five-year capital plan following an event at Grand Central Station last week.
The MTA set up a number of stations throughout QPL at Central on Wednesday, with each station consisting of informational posters, pamphlets and videos explaining different elements of the capital plan. An MTA employee was also on hand at each station to explain the finer details of the plan.
The 2025-29 Capital Plan, approved by the MTA Board in September, represents a significant increase on the $54.8 billion capital plan for 2020-2024 and calls for adding around 1,500 new cars across the subway and commuter rail systems in addition to making at least 60 subway stations and six commuter rail stations ADA-compliant. The plan additionally calls for significant investment in signal modernization and fare gates as well as $9 billion in critical structure repairs and $8 billion in station environment improvements.
MTA CEO Janno Lieber and three of the main divisional heads of the MTA, including New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow, Long Island Railroad President Rob Free and MTA Construction & Development President Jamie Torres-Springer all attended Wednesday’s open house to discuss the capital plan with residents and transit users.
Crichlow said the MTA’s open houses help provide transparency to transit users across the city and also help explain the importance of several elements of the capital plan.
“I think the true value is in being upfront about what the actual program is investing in, so if we talk about… improvements in the signal system, generally, people don’t have an understanding of what that means,” Crichlow…
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