Building Congress Event
Espresso with Carlo Featuring MTA Chief Development Officer Janno Lieber
Webinar Transcript
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Carlo Scissura 03:19
Morning, everybody, Happy Thursday, rainy day in New York. But we are excited to be hosting our third espresso with Carlo and I know people ask I actually do. Let's see, where is it? I do drink espresso. I think we're here somewhere. There we are. So, from a great Sicilian coffee maker. I'll let you know where it is.
Carlo Scissura 03:44
We definitely continue to enter uncharted territory. And I do want to take a minute to say thank you to the building industry. And really everybody who has rolled up their sleeves has donated masks and gloves and and other things from your job sites, and who continue to really understand the importance of getting safety first, and then getting the economy back up and running. So, there are a lot of unsung heroes out there. And we thank all of you.
Carlo Scissura 04:22
Many of the unsung heroes, Janno, are working at the MTA. And I know you all have had some challenges as well. But let me just say, first of all, thank you to the men and women who work at the MTA. They clearly are doing incredible work. And we are joined today by a dear friend to all of us, I think in this industry. Janno, you know, when I was preparing for this call with you, it just dawned on me how fortunate we are that you went to the MTA a few years ago because if anyone can help us through these trying times as a veteran of 9/11 and some other things that happened Superstorm Sandy, being in the right place at the right time, sometimes is lucky for people. And I think everybody on this call and the call continues to grow. So thank you for being on. We'll agree that Janno is doing incredible work with Pat Foye, and everybody really at the MTA. I think the saying is "the MTA is the great equalizer of New York". No matter who you are, no matter your pocketbook, no matter your bank account. You probably get on the MTA at some point during the day.
Carlo Scissura 05:40
So Janno Thank you for being here. Tell us what what's happening? What are you guys seeing what what's going on?
Janno Lieber 05:49
Well, thanks, Carlo. And I am glad to be with you. I don't have an espresso, but I'm sufficiently caffeinated to keep up with you!
Janno Lieber 05:59
Thanks for the kind words about our, my decision to move to the MTA a little less than three years ago, when I told Larry Silverstein I was making that move, he said to me, I'm calling your wife. I think you're having a brain aneurysm. So I appreciate the the support that you're giving you and fits it just in retrospect.
Janno Lieber 06:20
Look, the MTA has done extraordinary work during this health crisis. We have continued to run service, pretty close, pretty near a full complement service, because we needed to make sure that the central workforce could get to where they need to go we're talking about, as everybody knows, that's the health care workers, the doctors, the nurses, the orderlies, everybody who supports the health care system, people who work in groceries and deliver food, the first responders, the pharmacy workers, everybody who's so important all the time, but especially during this health crisis.
Janno Lieber 06:59
So we ran for so.. But obviously, we had to run empty trains because in compliance with the federal, state and city guidelines, people were not moving around, they were adhering to the guidelines about staying home. And that has had tremendous consequences in terms of the MTA finances. We are losing now $200 million a week in fare revenue, and tax and fee revenue that goes to support the MTA. And we'll talk more about what that means in terms of our request for federal funding, but it tells you something about what the tremendous impact has been. We have we unfortunately, the MTA has sustained tremendous losses from the standpoint of our staff, everybody knows that we've lost over over 100 people at this time, to COVID. And that's a tremendous loss to the MTA as a matter of sort of the human reality of this organization, and a huge hit, but people mean proud of what they're doing and they're coming back to work.
Janno Lieber 08:07
We had 3600 people who were tested positive out of our 75,000 employees. But equally important, more than twice that number have returned to work after being tested positive or going into quarantine for one or another reason. And because people are so devoted in their coming back to, to work and to service, we have been able to maintain service, we're down to only 1% of, of subway runs are being canceled due to crew shortages. That was not the case a couple weeks ago at the height of the COVID epidemic in the city and in the region, where we were really struggling to provide service, but now we're we're providing virtually every run that's being planned. And that is important because we do have, as I said, thousands and thousands of people who are in the essential workforce who are moving around
Janno Lieber 09:09
What I when I say about the construction side of the MTA is we're very proud equally of the performance of our construction workforce. And I join you in saluting the building industry and the members of this organization for what they did.
Janno Lieber 09:28
From the beginning, the executive orders, exempted transit infrastructure construction from from the the shutdown. We were, in effect, directed to continue to our projects, but we also have to do the extremely safe manner. So we, we did a lot of we took a lot of steps to make sure that we were doing projects safely. We I think, very effectively, a push that information out to our project teams to our contractors through a well run remote management system, we set up with a debt, an app that had daily reports and a campaign a safety checklist. But all of our construction contractors and project managers and consultants who are working on jobs quickly moved to make sure that we could, we could have optimized social distancing among the workforce, both for workers going on on entry on the exit and on breaks that we were making sure that tools were disinfected, that people were that crews were kept separate. So it wasn't intermingling, which will increase risk.
Janno Lieber 10:39
The whole complement of new logistics that were necessary to run construction safely were really embraced by our workforce. And the result was that we you know, we we've had a, I would say, low to moderate rate of infection in the projects that were going on. We have 500 plus projects going on with a workforce that was in excess of 5500, before COVID hit, and we only had we established 24 seven hotline for contractors. And we only had 100 people as they reported testing positive. And equally important, we've we've, we've got 82% of the people who had to leave ops because they had tested positive or they're showing symptoms where they'd had exposure for one reason or another 82% of those people are back to work based on contractor reports.
Janno Lieber 11:39
So the project, you know, we definitely lost some schedule and a lot of projects. I think everybody who's working on our jobs, or other jobs is aware of the schedule impacts the COVID crisis had, but we're very much back in action and we maintain continuity. So big credit to the to the industry to the contracting community to the consultant community to the design community for stepping up to rethink projects and how they could be done safely.
Janno Lieber 12:09
So, I, Carlo, what why don't I leave it at that?
Carlo Scissura 12:12
Yeah, no. I mean, I think that's, that's interesting.
Janno Lieber 12:15
...and we can talk about the financial issues when you when you think it's appropriate.
Carlo Scissura 12:20
Yeah. I mean, look, we I'm glad you mentioned the design community, because obviously we love the contractors. But, you know, its design, its construction. It's the engineers, it's the architects, it's really everybody together, which is the beauty of the building, Congress, bringing everyone together.
Carlo Scissura 12:39
We'd be crazy if we didn't start with talking about money. The reality is the economic impact on all of us, particularly something like the MTA is, is being an honestly, it's scary. It's frightening. You guys requested an initial I think was almost $4 billion from the federal government, obviously, the building Congress and every business group community group, everybody out in New York in the region supported that request. And I believe you received what was it 3.9 billion in the first round?
Carlo Scissura 13:22
I think the critical next step is real federal funding for the MTA. And I think we just signed on to a letter with the RPA and a bunch of other groups on the Building Congress is going to be leading a group in June, Hopefully, we'll be good by them. But end of June to talk to our friends in the Senate and the House and the administration about why this is not a bailout, in our opinion, giving money to the MTA or the Port Authority or the city or the state. It's not a bailout. It's the right thing to do. We're actually getting our money back. I think the governor has been clear about that.
Carlo Scissura 14:02
So give us a sense, honestly about the finances, and how do you see it impacting the capital plan? Should we not get money from the federal government?
Janno Lieber 14:15
Look, the the, the MTA has an $18 billion annual operating budget and 71,000 employees. So we can't the you know, the capital program, which we were we are also excited about and which was such a great accomplishment when, with the support of this industry and other stakeholders. We enacted a 51 and a half billion dollar capital program at the beginning of calendar 2020. That is going to have be dependent on us filling the very leaky bucket of the MTA operating budget, which covers both, you know, personnel costs, debt service that we on our capital program, material costs and so on. So we have to address that first.
Janno Lieber 15:03
The consequences of COVID are pretty simple. You just do the math, if we're losing 200 million a week because nobody's riding the subways and we're not collecting any fares on the buses because we're doing rear door boarding, and isolating the the operative bus operator from from the passengers. If we're not, if our ridership across the board is down 95% and total revenue is down 60 to 65%, on average, and all of the fees and taxes that go to support the MTA operating budget, are also down 50 plus percent, all of a sudden it adds up to a shortfall of $200 million a week, roughly $800 million dollars a month. Do the math. That means that the 3.9 billion we got from Congress that in the CARES Act a couple months ago, now is only going to carry us for less than five months. The COVID crisis started, you know, for the MTA, late February beginning of March. That means that by by August, we're back in the soup in terms of the hole in the operating budget.
Janno Lieber 16:20
That's why we have requested an additional 3.9 billion from the Congress. The earlier estimates that supported our first request for based on 50 to 60% ridership, you know, drops. Now, where as I said that 95% ridership revenue drop, so we need to deal with that additional cost.
Janno Lieber 16:45
So that is the reason that we've made that proposal to the Congress. It's in the capital program comes from is funded by debt by city and state funding, buy bonds that were to be sold against the new congestion pricing regimen by other taxes and fees from the city and the state and by federal funding and all of those categories of funding are at risk now and impacted by the the the COVID crisis. So we've got to fill the operating budget and first, but we also are going to need Congress to step up and do on top of the emergency funding emergency relief, the 3.9 billion we're asking for we're very much depending on Congress to do some kind of a stimulus bill that will help to to support the capital program because obviously, the congestion pricing revenue is not moving quickly, because in part because the Trump administration has sort of dragged their heels on on letting it go through bureaucratically. But also because we don't know how much drivers are going to, the number of drivers are going to come into the city after the COVID crisis, and their willingness to pay the additional fees.
Janno Lieber 18:13
And all those other categories, including additional borrowing that would go are very much at threat. So
Carlo Scissura 18:20
-Go ahead and then I'm gonna jump in-
Janno Lieber 18:21
No, no, I was just gonna say that, that we got it. We got to do with a one by one. First of all, the operating budget deficit, which I keep talking about the 3.9 billion is key. And we put out a report, you know, we've been trying to be ahead of everybody, because we understand that we are have all the funding loss in the United States transit impact as a result of COVID on transit properties. We are well over 50% of that revenue loss nationally. So we need to get out front.
Janno Lieber 19:00
And it hits our budget much faster than other transit agencies because we are, we have what they call a high farebox recovery ratio, we get more of our funding from fees, that's usually considered a good thing in the crisis with the ridership reduction. It is a problem.
Janno Lieber 19:19
So we got out with a report that shows the need for the 3.9 billion. And we have been talking to legislators, we wrote to the entire New York delegation who in turn, wrote to Pelosi, we've been working with Chuck Schumer's team. But at the end of the day, we're going to need people not from New York, including Republican leaders to to support this as well.
Carlo Scissura 19:42
We, you know, it's interesting. It's crazy to think I've been at the building Congress, I'm in my fourth year now. But one of the things we started early on in my tenure was a major DC operation. And we've spent a lot of time there. I'm there, but before this, I was there at six to eight weeks. We do a trip every year. And our focus has always been Republican senators.
Carlo Scissura 20:08
And when I started, a lot of people said to me, "why are you hanging out with Senator Barrasso, or senator inhofe" and you know, the list goes on. And I said, because the bottom line is, if you want federal stimulus, if you want federal infrastructure, whether it was MTA Port, Authority, gateway, whatever it is, you need Republican senators, not from the northeast, to buy into what you're saying.
Carlo Scissura 20:37
And I think the moment now has truly come, where we need to get back to were infrastructure spending across the country, that used to be the only non partisan thing in America, at least in the Senate, in the house, where we go back to that, and I can promise you general that we are fully committed and our number one priority - At least for the next year or two - will be getting federal stimulus and federal infrastructure money directly into the hands of the MTA, or the Port Authority or the state or the city. And now's the time. There's never been a better time.
Carlo Scissura 21:16
So I think this is where all of us together, everybody from New York has to say, how is it affecting the country? Well, obviously, the region represents 20% of our GDP, you know, the region continues to represent critical places and massive people. So this is the moment to get the money and we are committed, Janno, to the MTA. And I think that's something you're across the board.
Janno Lieber 21:42
It's a really powerful point. The region's contribution to national GDP is wildly disproportionate-
Carlo Scissura 21:50
-correct
Janno Lieber 21:52
...physical size of operations. So New York does not work with that the MTA and mass transit we put 4 million people every work day on the island of Manhattan and in the satellite business districts in the...
Carlo Scissura 22:05
-correct.
Janno Lieber 22:06
If we can't put those people there or even in a post COVID help staged a staggered work day approach. We're still going to need to bring people together. And if we can't do that the national economy and the National Recovery is going to be inhibited.
Carlo Scissura 22:24
I agree. I agree.
Janno Lieber 22:25
I think you're onto something about a national approach.
Carlo Scissura 22:29
It's got to be a national approach. And you know, look, I think we all are students of history, right. We learned the lessons of not investing in capital programs 40, 50, 60, 70 years ago. The last thing we would want right now is to say to you and Pat Foye and your team, well just forget about MTA capital. I think this is actually the more critical moment to get the capital plan funded, and maybe figure out even more unique opportunities out there.
Carlo Scissura 23:00
So, so with that, tell it tell us some of the projects that are still happening right now still under construction?
Janno Lieber 23:07
Well, I think you know, we celebrated the the milestone of completing the the tunnel component of the L Train project. Just last weekend, the governor announced it on national TV. He wove it into his presentation at his at his press conference on Sunday about how the L Train is, is an object lesson for as we plan for the post COVID recovery and how we can innovate. And we can reimagine and rethink. Obviously, he took such a leadership role in rethinking how we were doing that project. We, my organization, the new MTA construction and development, which combines the capital project groups at all New York City transit, both of the railroads and bridges and tunnels. We've rolled it all up into one We work, our motto is faster, better, cheaper. And the L Train which we were able to get done depending on how you cat three or six months ahead of schedule
Carlo Scissura 24:12
Congrats on that project.
Janno Lieber 24:14
Yeah 100 million dollars savings. And better obviously, by using instead of demolishing entire bench wall and shutting everything down for 3, or 400,000 commuters every day we we kept it open. That project is really a model and a shot in the arm for everything we're doing. I have to congratulate the design team, you know, which was WSP. And the TC Electric ... ... JV really stepped up delivered made me very proud because it's no secret that you know, MTA construction projects have a perception that we run late. We run over budget on some of the ones that came in the past before I got involved. We were able to demonstrate that that's not how we do every project but we can do it the opposite way and credit to the to the design construction team for a...
Carlo Scissura 25:10
Janno I want you to say on L Train for a minute. What did we what can we take from that experience, particularly in a new universe and move it to whether it's I don't know Second Avenue subway or or any other project or expanding service of subways to Red Hook would be nice.
Janno Lieber 25:32
Okay, Spoken like a true Brooklynite!
Carlo Scissura 25:35
Right! I have to give a little plug to Brooklyn projects.
Janno Lieber 25:41
Look
Carlo Scissura 25:41
-down or further down. Come on further down Utica Avenue would be great also.
Janno Lieber 25:46
Absolutely. Well, look, it's we did there was innovation in the L Train. It's not necessarily you know, the cure for for for cancer. But it was simple problem solving that you did not need to demolish the entire bench wall which is six miles of concrete and shut the whole subway down. You could do it by using this modern materials are called FRP fiber reinforced polymer to be a much more selective demolition project we only had to develop a demolish 7% of what was originally planned to be demolished. And to use modern tech systems like the cable racking system which took all the cabling out of a bench wall puts it taking advantage of the fact that all the cables are now I have fire resistant coverings. Put them on a rack so that you can easily access them that you can fix them that you can upgrade them. We're doing that in a big way to in simple innovations like using the old third rail as the negative return rail instead, which avoided adding another set of new cabling that When required to be there was planned to be in the bench wall as well. So no point taking advantage of the state of the art thinking and technology. And also the the experience of bringing in outside experts, the governor brought in the engineering engineering leads from Columbia University and Cornell University. And they helped to point out some ways in which the original design of the project was a little antiquated in order to be updated. All of that resulted in a dramatically faster and better and cheaper project.
Janno Lieber 27:35
And the other thing I'm proud of is that we, there was so much concern about air quality, we came up with a way to we both had 24 seven air quality monitoring and how we did the demolition, with careful monitoring of safety and enclosure and so on, assured the public that there was no impact to the air quality on the platforms in the public areas. And that created great credibility. For the MTA as an organization and as a builder, because we we dealt with a major issue of public concern, as well as getting the project done faster and cheaper. So there are a lot of good things to learn from the rail project, I believe.
Janno Lieber 28:17
We're trying to get our friends at Amtrak to use some of these approaches in the East River tunnel. rehabs Amtrak's hasn't started rebuilding the East River tunnels, which have Sandy damage in them. And we think that we, we should be using the same approaches that we use in the L Train, so that we don't have to shut them down for a long time, which would diminish capacity for both Amtrak and the Long Island Railroad. So we're pushing some of these innovations more broadly.
Carlo Scissura 28:50
Great. Well, you know you one thing I want to mention, I know we mentioned engineers and architects and contractors, etc. But you made me realize another point, the real estate community and a lot of the owners, particularly some of the larger projects going up in Manhattan, are clearly working with the MTA closely. So you look at the SL green one, Vanderbilt. Obviously, the MTA is a big component to that project, and there will be others.
Carlo Scissura 29:20
Can you talk a little bit about how this COVID nightmare will affect things like that, or are we continuing to see those types of investments proceed forward?
Janno Lieber 29:32
Well, it's a good question so that we immediately when the executive order was issued about that exempted infrastructure from the shutdown. We immediately started getting questions about these private sector projects that had transit components, especially one Vanderbilt the SL green job you mentioned and 270 Park that JP Morgan Chase reports in our demolition project But ultimately rebuilding the JPMorgan Chase headquarters at 270 Park Avenue.
Janno Lieber 30:05
In both cases we did is we worked with the other arms of state government. And we made it clear that the portions of the project that were related to transit infrastructure ought to keep going. So that help the developers that helped the contractors, it also helped maintain schedule and it was consistent with the spirit of the executive order. But more broadly, we're seeing in the East Midtown area because of the East Midtown rezoning, that there really is opportunity for transit infrastructure and my part of the MTA the the the construction and development organization to collaborate with the private sector and get more done that benefits the private sector that allows and also improves the the the transportation infrastructure that serves those buildings.
Janno Lieber 30:56
Both of those projects are making significant investments in transit. In public infrastructure, so the public at large was getting a benefit. But they're also getting some benefits under the new East Midtown rezoning and we're working hand in glove with both of them. It's really very exciting model for the rest of the city.
Janno Lieber 31:15
Right now. We are also seeing a discussion about the possibility of including elevators, ADA accessibility as a as a tool in rezonings in the ULURP plot process. Historically, you know, the MTA was doing its ADA elevators, and then the city's rezoning was gonna ask for other public benefits as part of ULURP, we're trying to make sure that ADA accessibility becomes part of those land use decision making tools and I think it's another opportunity for for builders and developers to get better transit infrastructure and more control over the construction related to their project.
Carlo Scissura 31:59
Right. We fully support the ADA being part of the ULURP and the benefits. I think we clearly want to see that happen across the city. And this is no better time than to create these public private partnerships.
Carlo Scissura 32:12
You know, I just wanted to go back to something about the federal government the the triple P's right, the public private partnership has been something that the Trump administration and many of our colleagues and people across the country have been talking about.
Carlo Scissura 32:31
It seems to me that the MTA could offer some valuable lessons about success in triple P's, as we are going out and meeting with Republican senators and talking to them now. So I think it'd be an opportunity Janno for your team to put together some, some select success stories on how, for example, MTA SL green or MTA and JPMorgan Chase, and were we able to get public Plaza new entrances? It's cetera, etc. Without it costing just the state city federal government or the MTA money. So I think that's something we should look at in a in a broader picture.
Janno Lieber 33:10
It's a very good point. I'd like to do that with you. Right.
Carlo Scissura 33:14
Um, you know, we've heard capital, you know, you've mentioned the capital plan a couple of times. For those who don't know, right, there's a capital plan currently going on and then the next five year capital plan, maybe give us a sense of how you see the current plan going, given what's going on. And, obviously, how does this affect the capital plan moving forward?
Janno Lieber 33:40
So as I said, Carlo, at the outset, we in the beginning of calendar 2020, the legislature and the governor enacted a $51 billion capital program that was going to run from 2020 to 2024. Now we also have some work remaining Under the prior capital plan and
Carlo Scissura 34:03
...by the way we have a couple of our audience questions about the remaining on the past one.
Janno Lieber 34:12
Yeah. So so I had announced a plan to knock off about half of the work remaining from the prior capital plans 15 to 19, and the sandy program and so on. In calendar 2020. We were going to, we were going to commit to those projects make procurement, finalized procurements and commit to those projects. So we had about $6 billion coming in that category. And then we were also going to get going another seven $7 billion of work related to the 20 to 24 program.
Janno Lieber 34:48
All of the - and that was great news and we had a plan and we rolled out the schedule, and everyone got very excited. The problem is the right now we have stopped all new commitments dead in their tracks, because of the uncertainty about the financial uncertainty about the operating budget and the consequences of this collapse of ridership and revenue. So we're really dead in the water right now on executing on all of that work. And I'd like to, you know, I'm very much hoping that we can restart it.
Carlo Scissura 35:23
And obviously, financials from the feds would clearly be a good push to restart.
Janno Lieber 35:30
Yeah, I think that that, you know, for our industry and the folks on this call, basically, the the message is, while we are continuing with projects that are underway, everything going forward is a big question mark until we resolve this question of the MTA cap, the MTA operating budget and hopefully, have enough money to, to, you know, re accelerate the capital program, which as I said, is completely stopped right now.
Carlo Scissura 36:00
Right. A couple of questions, Janno on the fast forward program, and also on signaling you want to touch upon that for a minute?
Janno Lieber 36:10
Sure, you know, the fast, the so called Fast Forward program was a recommendation that we, you know, we attack of several different areas where the MTA needed to make progress. This was Andy's idea. You know, the governor had inaugurated before Andy Byford came to the MTA the governor inaugurated the subway action plan which is designed to address all of the things that we're we're undermining, we're causing massive delays and erosion of service. There's about a billion dollars of city and state money together that went towards the subway action plan and that has had real positive results in the form of we had the fastest improvement in service and on time performance across the system, both the commuter railroads and the New York City transit. And by the end of 2019, we were back to a very solid performance statistic, statistical picture.
Janno Lieber 37:08
But when Andy Byford and fast forward proposed was that we, you know, we be more aggressive and ambitious about re signaling that we do more about ADA access. These were all issues that have been talked about for quite some time. But Andy did articulate them. Those ideas found their way into the new $51 billion capital program. So when anyone says Howard's Fast Forward going, I say, you know, you really fast forward to was an influencer on what came out of the MTA capital program at the beginning of this year. As the governor, the legislature enacted it, and that is the program that is now being placed on hold and included re signaling six lines included 70 stations being made ADA accessible, that's considering it's taken us You know, 30 plus years to get to 125 stations being ADA accessible to do five to do 70 stations in five years was very ambitious. And we want to do it and we had a plan underway a procurement underway to start the first 23 of those 70 stations this year.
Janno Lieber 38:19
But again, you know, always coming back to the core news and it's not good. We've had to place those procurements on hold. we're placing additional signalling, jobs on hold for the time being until we can clarify what the financial picture looks like for the capital program.
Carlo Scissura 38:37
Right. You know, one of the things you know, you talked about, and I'm seeing a couple of questions here as well, is obviously you know, the governor's announced may 15, as a target for some things. We're obviously excited that construction seems to be one of the moments or one of the industries that can continue by June 1. God willing They'll be more by June 15, more.
Carlo Scissura 39:02
So we're looking at the next four to six weeks of people getting back to work. And there are fears about getting back on the subway. We hear that all the time. Give us a sense of what, what the MTA is thinking because I think, you know, if employees can cut back on the subway, how are they going to get back to work? Right? So we want to make them comfortable. Give us a sense of what you all are thinking?
Janno Lieber 39:29
Well, you know, the MTA very early on in the COVID crisis, the MTA took significant steps to, you know, increase disinfection sanitization cleaning of major facilities that customers come in contact with, we were cleaning the buses every day. We were cleaning stations disinfecting station three times a day. And we were we had a much more aggressive schedule for disinfection of play cards as well. So that's been going on for quite some time.
Janno Lieber 40:04
The The problem is that the... while people are complying with the stay at home orders. Obviously the subways have become a place where the population which is not the homeless population who are less comfortable in shelters and for wet and been pushed out of some of the public spaces that they frequently congregate in, have been coming into the subway because there are so few people out it's so empty that they, you know, they can get more space, I guess. And now that became a public crisis.
Janno Lieber 40:38
So in addition to addressing the homelessness problem that the governor has, and pushing the city and the NYPD to be more aggressive, and more, you know, more timely and addressing homelessness and extending services to the folks who are effectively living on the subway. The government also directed the MTA to have a much more aggressive cleaning program, a cleaning every subway car every day before the rush hour so that essential workers could have confidence getting on. So we're going to be moving in that direction that, you know, Pat is having discussions with the chamber today, literally on our plan for, for implementing that.
Janno Lieber 41:24
On top of that, we're looking at a variety of different tools to increase public confidence and to grow and to improve the both the perception of the reality of the health conditions on the subway, it's premature to say exactly what's going to be adopted. We're looking very closely at what's been done in Asia and other places that have gone through this pandemic, and come out on the other side. And, of course, all of these additional, you know, these additional steps that we've done just in the construction, side temperature taking additional meaning and so on, cost a ton of money. So it brings us back to the question to the finance, your back to the question whether the money is going to be there.
Janno Lieber 42:10
So both for the reality of what we can clean and also the perception of what we can do to grow public confidence, it always is going to come back to the money available.
Carlo Scissura 42:20
Sure, you know, it is interesting, you mentioned temperature testing and some of the things MTA has done on the construction side. I will tell you, that seems to be a model that many companies are using, and I think it's something that we will see probably more and more in terms of the construction industry.
Carlo Scissura 42:40
Janno, question, two questions, one, from our listeners, with a decrease in ridership has the MTA been able to speed up the process of PTC compliance?
Janno Lieber 42:54
with a profit process of what type of compliance?
Carlo Scissura 42:56
PTC
Janno Lieber 42:58
PTC - You know what we are We have achieved full compliance on Metro North it was already well underway. I think we're very close to full compliance on Long Island Railroad. The only significant gap is that Amtrak has not gotten to full compliance. So there's some areas where Amtrak's PTC technology on Amtrak trains doesn't adequately comply with and aligned with what the Long Island Railroad has done.
Janno Lieber 43:29
So both of our railroads are really pretty far along in compliance with PTC and they haven't lost a step in the during the COVID crisis. So it's one piece of good news we've continued to make progress on on and we're, I think we're comfortable that we're in compliance with the federal deadlines.
Janno Lieber 43:50
Just let me say that, you know, one of the things that people forget is automatic train operation, there are a number of other tools that support safety of Train systems or commuter rail systems. So we've gotten to a much safer railroad, both Long Island and Metro North quite some time, even before achieving full compliance with PTC and now we're almost there on PTC.
Carlo Scissura 44:16
That's amazing. Um, another question given that ridership is obviously, you know, tiny right now, do you find that some of the construction projects that are continuing are moving quicker? And can that help save money so that we can get some other projects started?
Janno Lieber 44:36
It's something that I'm personally extremely interested in, I think and we, we - go ahead Carlo
Carlo Scissura 44:44
No, I was gonna say I think a lot of us are interested in it.
Janno Lieber 44:47
Yeah. We have plans of how we could accelerate work. There. There are a couple of issues. One is transit you know, some of our work depends on force account support. transit, New York City transit, the railroads, the employees on the on the operating side who are there to whether it's safety supervision or access and protection and so on flagging. So we have been somewhat constrained during the height of the COVID pandemic, because they were so short staffed in really growing work, but we did get support for the L Train project and many of and preserve our GO's our outages on the weekend.
Janno Lieber 45:33
We are looking seriously at whether there are opportunities to accelerate some work by having additional outages and, you know, doing work in stations when the stations get, you know, very little ridership. So that is something that's seriously under under review and under consideration, I think it's a great opportunity provided again that the railroads and transit can support it with flagging and the force account personnel we need.
Carlo Scissura 46:02
Got it. How's Penn Station doing these days? I know that was a big initiative of the governor with the new entrances and the expanding of the concourses and the walkways, maybe a quick update on that.
Janno Lieber 46:17
Sure. So number one, the couple different things Moynahan station that conversion of the big post office into a new terminal for the Penn Station is on scheduled to be completed towards the end of this year.
Janno Lieber 46:33
So that's going to be a huge and dramatic and transformation will change to the whole Penn Station complex with you know, 40 plus new escalators and stairways down to platform it just spreads the load, it will be a much better and more, you know, Grand Central quality passenger experience, especially for Amtrak riders with retail and modern amenities. So that's great.
Janno Lieber 46:59
The Other thing that I've been driving at is this new entrance that is coming a series of three escalators and a stair dropping down from right in the middle of 33rd Street just west of Seventh Avenue. That project is ongoing. It's lost a little schedule because the glassmaker for the the enclosure the the hood that that will sit over the entrance, the canopy rather that will sit over the entrance with the stairs and escalators is in Italy and they got shut down you know all about Italy. Carlo
Carlo Scissura 47:33
I know a lot about Italy!
Janno Lieber 47:36
Yeah, so so they got shut down for a few weeks. So we're pushing on that schedule regained
Carlo Scissura 47:41
Bu tthey are reopening may 4 in Italy. So that's good.
Janno Lieber 47:47
We're all we're all over and trying to figure out how to regain that time. So that's going to provide better access to the Long Island Railroad concourse at at the so called the A level Where the subway comes out that Seventh Avenue subway, and the long the long hallway Where, where, where people access long island railroad tracks and trains.
Janno Lieber 48:11
In addition to that, we're expanding the width of that concourse and making it a taller ceiling. That's the project that is that that is going to take a couple more years. And that's underway as well. We need to confirm a few things to make that proj- sure that project can can maintain schedule, but that is going well.
Janno Lieber 48:30
So we've that we've got a strategy for improving the Long Island Railroad experience. We've got the morning ahead station. The next phase is the two things the governor has proposed, which is what do we do with rethinking existing Penn Station when Amtrak leaves to go to Moynihan station across the street? That is to say, what do we do with the whole Amtrak area of Penn Station and to expand into the so called blocks 782 to move to create a new area For Penn Station where there could be new tracks and platforms to the south of the existing station, so taking over the block between 30th and 31st Street, I've got major studies that include Amtrak and NJT going on right now and they are continuing a pace through the COVID crisis. There's a GPP general project plan study being done by the STC, the state economic development entity that would propose how do we how do we lay out this whole district and rezone it so that we can both build new commercial office buildings like Hudson Yards around Penn Station, but also get some of the revenues necessary to acquire this new real estate and build the extension to Penn Station
Janno Lieber 49:46
So we're addressing the customer experience in the existing pen, and we're creating hopefully significant new tracking platform capacity, or allow us to run more trains because ultimately The capacity of Penn Station is exhausted right now. We need more more space for more trains. That's what the governor's proposed. And that's what we're planning right now.
Carlo Scissura 50:09
And obviously, you've got our support on that. And I can't think of a better stimulus infrastructure funding thing from the federal government given again, that that would affect not just the New York Region, but what effect just all the way down to Washington and south. So I think, great, great opportunities. And you know, I think it makes us all realize that even in this horrific time that we're living through and horrific economic times, and physical times and health times, the planning must go on. So I think Janno it I would be remiss if I didn't say again, it's our hope that the MTA will continue the planning, so that the architects and the engineers could be planning and get ready for when the money comes in because We don't want to wait a couple of years. We got to keep the train going. No pun intended, of course.
Janno Lieber 51:07
Yeah. Amen.
Carlo Scissura 51:08
So let me see we got maybe one or two more questions.
Carlo Scissura 51:25
Here's a good question. When you're back and running, and it comes back in, are you going to have a plan to prioritize capital projects moving forward? Or will it be just back to work on on what was already moving?
Janno Lieber 51:42
Well, right now we are maintaining progress on everything that was a commitment before COVID hit. So like, as I said, I have 500 projects underway. It's roughly 60% construction and and 40 percent design. And they have kept going. And we have managed them, as you know, with an app and telecommuting and very intense telephone and other management to keep them go. So we haven't stopped. We've lost a little schedule in some places where COVID, you know, affected the workforce. But we haven't stopped anything that's underway.
Janno Lieber 52:25
But what we have stopped are the projects that we haven't committed to, which are both projects in the 15 to 19 plan and the prior capital plan, but also projects for the 20 to 24 capital plan that were not yet procured, and we're not yet committed to. I have to tell you, though, Carlo, that you know, even the projects that are underway, if we're not able to start to address the financial condition of the MTA and the operating budget by getting the federal funding I keep talking about, we're going to come under pressure as far as projects that are already committed to because the the cash flow situation has become so dramatic that it could very well eat into our ability to fund existing projects that are already underway.
Janno Lieber 53:18
I know that is a scary prospect for all of us, especially for the industry. But I have to tell you, it's that serious. We need the operating budget support the federal emergency relief that we've been asking for. I believe that we're going to have support from other major transit systems for that they're going through the same thing, although a little more slowly than the MTA. But we have to get our message across and Washington or capital construction could be affected even the work that's underway.
Carlo Scissura 53:49
Right, right. Well, good. I think this is a this is an amazing Janno. I know you're busy. I know there's a lot going on. operating capital, homelessness, cleaning, I mean, there's what's happening with the MTA is probably more than is happening to some states across the US.
Carlo Scissura 54:08
So we've got a couple of minutes left. So before we end up, how are you doing? What's been happening in, in your life, any good takeout restaurants, you want to give a plug to?
Janno Lieber 54:22
Actually, like so my, my kids have become, but pretty good cooks. That's a major change for our family. My my big challenges I've told you with three kids distance learning from home, right, is bandwidth. Our I think one element of our infrastructure system that we need to work on is is is a high speed internet. So bandwidth doesn't continue to be an issue. If we're going to be telecommuting and streaming and zooming. We're gonna need more bandwidth.
Janno Lieber 54:56
But I you know, I can't help but come back to point that I made earlier, which is, you know, this industry is the best stimulus investment that there is-
Carlo Scissura 55:07
I agree.
Janno Lieber 55:09
And and you guys are great at making that point. It needs to be got across to, folks, as you said there is there is bipartisan support, it is a mystery. Why would that one issue they haven't been able to do something in Washington now is the moment God willing, once we address the the emergency relief for operating budget, stimulus investment, will help the economy recover. We have all those shovel ready projects that I was talking about the projects that I was planning to approve and procure and get going in 2020. They're all just sitting there waiting for stimulus funding. So I hope that by the time that we next get together, maybe we'll call it you know, Java with Janno or
Carlo Scissura 55:58
Yeah, I love it.
Janno Lieber 56:01
Espresso with Carlo, but but I hope that by the next time we get together, we're able to be talking about what are we going to do with the stimulus money? What are we going to do to show the country what how much you get out of investment in infrastructure in New York. That's that's what I dream of.
Carlo Scissura 56:19
I have the same dream. And I will tell you that, and I will end with this that our number one priority for the building Congress, of course, safety and getting people back to work in a good way. But it's going to be landing that major stimulus bill and the funding to New York. And my job, along with many of us is going to be convincing our friends who are senators in Oklahoma and Wyoming and other places, why the critical importance of New York - and the good thing is we started doing that. And that's the story of what it means to win. Invest $1 in New York. And I think now more than ever, it's critical.
Carlo Scissura 57:04
One last point, I know a couple of questions. Will you be able to watch this again? Yes, check our website in a little bit. And I think in tomorrow's e blast, you'll be able to get it.
Carlo Scissura 57:15
So Janno I thank you. Please thank Pat Foye, your entire team. And really the women and men on the front lines at the MTA, for keeping us going during this time.
Janno Lieber 57:28
And same back to the contractors, to the designers, to the other professionals who have helped us to keep all of this going and put us in a position to accelerate God Willing when the time comes. Stay safe everybody!
Carlo Scissura 57:42
Thank you, everybody. Have a great day. Get out a little bit. shop local wherever you live and, and we'll be back together soon. Have a great day. Thank you.
