Building Infrastructure and Saving Money
October 29, 2012
Around Town by Neal Tepel
The City has now adopted Comptroller John Liu’s Capital Acceleration Plan, designed to create jobs, address the City’s infrastructure challenges and save taxpayer money. This is Comptroller Liu’s innovative plan to ensure New York City’s global competitive edge and long-term economic growth.
The idea of speeding up existing capital projects came from Mr. Liu, who laid out the plan in a speech earlier this year, and Mr. Bloomberg offered him credit. The mayor described the program as a triumph of cooperation among city offices that can occasionally quarrel.
New York City will speed up spending on more than $1 billion of infrastructure projects to take advantage of record-low interest rates, said Mayor Michael Bloomberg on october 17, 2012 at a news conference.
The projects could create about 8,000 jobs, mostly in construction, and save more than $200 million in debt service because of historically low interest rates.
Liu first proposed a detailed acceleration plan last May. It originally called for the city to spend up to 2 billion in infrastructure spending, rather than the $1 billion the city is expected to spend. Authorized projects include road and bridge repairs, waterfront infrastructure development, and improvements to schools and libraries.
