LIRR/MNRR Future Fleet Needs

The MTA still wants to move ahead with another purchase of the steel dinosaurs even though federal authorities approved a massive regulatory overhaul in 2018 that now allows the agency to buy high-tech trains — common in Europe — that are dramatically faster, lighter and cheaper.

“MTA rolling stock procurement is too conservative and is asking for trains that are less advanced than what the international vendors make — too heavy, for one,” said Alon Levy, who is part of a team at NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management studying why US transit agencies struggle to build and operate as efficiently as their major international counterparts.

“So just building to these specs costs more than building to the specs of standard European regional trains.”
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Despite the problems, the transit agency hopes to double down and buy at least 432 more cars — lightly updated and known as the M9-A — for both the LIRR and MetroNorth, officials confirmed to The Post.

The value of the new order is at least $1.4 billion – and the likely cost rises to $2.8 billion when factoring in the cost of financing, a Post analysis found.

Officials are still pushing ahead even though federal officials OK’d the regulatory overhaul — known as alternative compliance — which allows railroads like the LIRR and Metro-North to operate train cars commonly used in Europe with only tiny modifications.
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