Ambitious Plan to Fix New York Subway Is Already Facing Obstacles

NEW YORK — The new leader of New York City’s subway may know exactly how to fix the tattered system, but navigating the morass of the state’s political class has already emerged as a much bigger challenge.

On Wednesday, Andy Byford, who arrived in January after running Toronto’s transit system, unveiled his vision for finally building a reliable subway. But the scale of the work and its potential price tag of more than $19 billion were staggering and Byford immediately found himself caught in the bitter rivalry between Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who have repeatedly clashed over who should pay to rehabilitate the subway.

Byford’s plan is ambitious: an aggressive rollout of new signals on some of the city’s busiest lines; a wave of station closings during nights and weekends to do the work; new elevators at 50 additional stations. If Byford is able to pull it off, the overhaul could mean substantial improvements to the subway over the next five years by tackling long-standing problems.

But Byford has an even more difficult task than just fixing the nuts and bolts of the system: He must win the political support and money that will be needed if there is any hope to save the subway.

Even before Byford’s announcement, it became clear that the plan would face major obstacles. The chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Joseph J. Lhota, quickly walked back the $19 billion estimate and said it was too soon to determine the costs — an acknowledgment that the price tag might spook elected officials.

There were also early signs that Byford’s plan might not have enthusiastic support from Cuomo, who controls the authority and would likely have the greatest responsibility for securing financing. Instead of offering a rousing endorsement, Cuomo, who on Wednesday was at the state Democratic convention on Long Island, said he had not read the plan, but wanted it to be realistic.

The governor, who has touted a new but unproven technology to modernize the system, also said he wants more input from tech experts about upgrading the signals. The subway’s poor performance could be one of the biggest issues Cuomo faces as he seeks re-election.

De Blasio, meanwhile, immediately distanced himself from helping to pay for the subway proposal, instead urging state leaders to approve a tax on the wealthy and making clear who he believes is obligated to fix the subway. “It’s now fully understood that the responsibility for the MTA resides in the state of New York, ultimately the governor,” de Blasio told reporters. “We finally know who to hold responsible — just like everyone holds me responsible for our schools.”

Cuomo scoffed at the idea that de Blasio would not help pay for Byford’s subway plan.

“If that’s the case, then the real problem is you’re not going to be able to do anything significant to fix the subways,” Cuomo said. A spokesman for the authority, Jon Weinstein, forcefully hit back against the mayor’s comments Wednesday evening, saying de Blasio did not care about subway riders and “his lack of responsibility will be one of his great legacies.”

“The mayor basically declared the Byford NYC Transit plan dead on arrival because he won’t have anything to do with funding it,” Weinstein said.

There are other hurdles. The authority struggles with a lack of credibility after regularly delivering projects late and overbudget and the recent failure in Albany of congestion pricing — a proposal to charge drivers to enter Manhattan that would have raised money for the transit system, but did not garner widespread support.

It does not help that many of the lawmakers who will determine the subway’s fate represent far-flung areas of the state and rarely use the city’s transit system. Over the years, this has been a constant barrier to making the subway a priority in Albany. An earlier version of congestion pricing that had been championed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg also died in the Legislature nearly a decade ago.

Cynthia Nixon, an actress who is challenging Cuomo for the Democratic nomination for governor and who has repeatedly criticized his management of the subway, quickly weighed in, saying that Cuomo was again punting.

“We can’t fix the subway until we have a governor who knows it’s her job to fund the MTA,” Nixon said in a statement.

The subway has long been a political football in part because of the unusual nature of its governance — even though it serves the city, it is controlled by the state, a fact many riders do not realize. Cuomo and de Blasio spent months fighting over who should pay for the roughly $800 million subway rescue plan that was announced last summer after the governor declared a state of emergency for the system. De Blasio eventually agreed to pay for about half, but only under pressure from the state. For his part, Byford assured reporters that he was up to the challenge. He said he was no stranger to a difficult political and media environment — Byford was in Toronto during the period when Rob Ford was that city’s combative mayor.

“I did my homework before I came here,” Byford said, acknowledging that New York City’s transit system was a hot potato. “I knew this would be a tough gig.”

Lhota said it was now the MTA’s job to sell the plan to all levels of government. He joked that he was not a fan of the millionaire’s tax. “As somebody who would be subject to that tax,” he said, “I am not particularly interested.”

As Byford outlined the proposal, he compared the subway crisis to earlier emergencies the city had confronted and recovered from, including the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack and Hurricane Sandy.

“Not acting now is not an option, and it will only get more difficult and more expensive,” Byford said. “I believe this can be achieved and we now have a road map.”

As part of the plan, subway signals would be upgraded on lines that carry about 3 million people — or nearly half the system’s ridership — in the first five years of the plan, which would start in 2019 or 2020. Rather than close entire lines on weekdays, the shutdowns would happen during nights and weekends and be contained to sections of lines. In the next five years, signals would be upgraded for another 2 million riders. Byford also proposed fixes to upgrade the floundering bus system and to improve accessibility for disabled riders. Michael Whyland, a spokesman for Carl E. Heastie, the Democratic Assembly speaker, said he would review the subway plan. Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, said he was glad the authority wanted to replace signals quickly. “I would say I’m cautiously optimistic, but like most New Yorkers, I have some serious concerns about the MTA’s ability to complete projects on time and under budget,” Johnson said in a statement.

New York’s political climate is particularly thorny and New York City is much larger than Toronto, said Christina M. Greer, a political-science professor who is a McSilver Institute Fellow at New York University.

“I’m sure Andy has management skills and that’s why he was hired, but let’s be respectful of the size and scope of this city,” she said.

As for a reconciliation between the governor and mayor over the subway? “If someone can bring them together, that person deserves the keys to the city,” Greer said.

Brad Lander, a city councilman from Brooklyn who has focused attention to the subway’s antiquated and unreliable signals, said he hoped Byford was successful. But he said he was not optimistic because Cuomo was playing coy about the plan.

“Without sufficient funding,” Lander said, “this plan will mean nothing.”