New York area transit agencies get $3.7 billion in new Sandy recovery funds

Public transit systems in the northeastern United States that were damaged and flooded by the storm resulting from Hurricane Sandy will get a total of $5.7 billion in federal disaster relief funds to recover from the storm and to better prepare them for future floods.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Thursday that four transit agencies will get $3.7 billion in new funding, on top of funding announced in March. All figures are in U.S. dollars.

Hurricane Sandy was downgraded to post-tropical storm status when it made landfall about 200 kilometres south of New York City, near Atlantic City, N.J., on Oct. 29, 2012.

Published reports indicate the storm flooded both the New York City subway system and the Port Authority Trans Hudson (PATH), a railway that connects lower Manhattan with the New Jersey communities west of the Hudson, including Jersey City, Hoboken and Newark.

The $3.7 billion in new funding will be allocated to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York, the New York City Department of Transportation, New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Of that, “$2.4 billion is allocated for recovery and rebuilding projects, while $1.3 billion is dedicated to increasing the transit systems’ resiliency in the face of future disasters,” the transportation department stated in a press release.

“Today’s announcement of $3.7 billion in disaster assistance brings the total dollars allocated by (the Federal Transit Administration) so far for all Sandy recovery activities to $5.7 billion, and is just the latest step by the administration to support the ongoing recovery of the communities impacted,” the transportation department stated.

Projects could include elevating storm drains to reduce the volume of water that pours into stations below street level, the transportation department stated, adding they could also include the installation of water pumps and back-up sources of power for lighting and pumps.

Water inundation heights in the area approached 10 feet, according to the Annual Global Climate and Catastrophe report, published by Aon Benfield’s Impact Forecasting unit. That report estimated insured losses from Sandy at $30 billion, which includes $7.2 billion National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) payments. Total economic losses were estimated at $72 billion.

In January, Aon Benfield had described the storm as the “costliest single event” of 2012.

Last March, the federal transportation department announced $1.4 billion in disaster relief aid “primarily to assist the transit agencies that incurred the greatest storm-related expenditures.”

At that time, a separate $21.9 million allocation was announced to reimburse the New York City transportation department for various activities undertaken before, during and after the storm, including protecting the Staten Island Ferry, the East River Ferry service and Governors Island. That included moving transit equipment to higher ground.

In March the federal government also announced funding to public transit agencies northeast of New York, including the Greater Bridgeport Transit District, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority and the Connecticut Department of Transportation.