MTA asks Upper East Siders for help with Second Avenue Subway funding lobby

Now that Albany lawmakers have adjourned without doling out any additional funds to the still-incomplete Second Avenue Subway project, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is asking residents living along the future transit line to help lobby for the money. According to the Post, MTA officials are worried about running out of funds by the end of the year, which would hold up their ability to move forward with three new stations at 72nd, 86th and 96th streets. Bidding for those contracts is supposed to begin within months, but William Goodrich, the senior vice president of capital construction at the MTA, said that “without additional funding, we won’t have the ability to procure and award the remaining three contracts.” At a Community Board 8 meeting last week, Goodrich told Upper East Side residents: “I would encourage all of you to contact elected officials, particularly the state elected officials who represent you, to encourage them… to appropriate the money [for the subway].” The federal government has already supplied around one-third of the $4.45 billion needed for the project’s first phase, but the State Legislature is charged with allocating the majority of the funds. [Post]