“How to Build a $3.4 Billion Bridge in Record Time” is the title of a scheduled discussion featuring Howard P. Milstein, chairman of the state Thruway Authority, at an upcoming Crain’s NY forum on infrastructure issues.
In fact, work on the New NY Bridge is still in the pile-driving stages, and no one can say whether even the first of the two spans will be completed on schedule in two years, much less whether the whole thing will come in on budget. Moreover, the Cuomo administration still hasn’t produced a financial plan for the project.
Under the circumstances, a better title for Milstein’s segment might be: “How to Start Building a Bridge You Hope Will Cost $3.4 Billion More or Less on Time — Without Explaining How You’ll Pay for It.”
For now, the Thruway Authority’s 2014 budget projects a 47 percent increase in targeted toll revenues over the next three years in support of the general bond resolution that was necessary to start work on the bridge. In a bond offering statement last year, the Authority said it would create a “toll and finance task force” by the end of 2013 to identify revenue options to help pay for the project. Six months into 2014, however, the task force still hasn’t been formed.
Maybe Chairman Milstein will use Crain’s appearance to pull a rabbit out of his hat.
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