The MTA board on Wednesday approved a $68.4 billion blueprint for big-ticket upgrades in the transit agency’s new five-year capital program — even as billions of dollars in funding remain unaccounted for in the current plan and the next one.

The MTA board had until October 1 to submit the 2025-2029 plan for system upkeep and expansion to the state’s Capital Program Review Board, which has 30 days to review and approve it.

MTA board members signed off unanimously even though Gov. Kathy Hochul’s congestion pricing pause in June left a $16.5 billion gap in the transit agency’s capital budget. The vehicle-tolling initiative is legally mandated under a 2019 state law that aimed to raise billions for transit upgrades in the 2020-2024 plan.

“It’s the costliest plan yet, with the biggest funding question mark,” said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA.

Hochul’s indefinite delay forced the MTA to scale the plan back, slowing subway signal replacement projects, while also deferring the purchase of electric buses and legally binding accessibility upgrades at 23 stations.

And that’s before the MTA faces a projected $33 billion funding gap in the new plan.

“This is all on Governor Hochul — she made the mess, she has to fix it, yet she has brought no solutions to the table,” Jennifer Van Dyck, a member of the Elevator Action Group, which advocates for increased accessibility, said during the meeting’s public comments. “And you seem to be relying on Hochhul’s word, which we all can attest to, counts for nothing.”

…