Trump's Second Ave Subway Tweet Prompts Cuomo To Call Feds

HARLEM, NY — President Donald Trump got his start as a New York City developer, and it appears he wants to get involved with one of the city's largest infrastructure projects. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who's traded jabs with the President, is all ears, according to reports.

Cuomo called Department of Transportation Elaine Chao on Tuesday, several days after Trump sent out a seemingly random tweet that he's "looking forward to helping New York City and Governor [Andrew Cuomo] complete the long anticipated, and partially built, Second Avenue Subway," the New York Post first reported. Federal transportation officials confirmed the call with the Post.

The fact that Cuomo actually set up the call seems to indicate that he took Trump's tweet more seriously than he let on. Tuesday morning the governor told reporters: "I haven’t heard anything from anyone, so it’s just another tweet as far as I’m concerned," according to the post.

A request for comment from Cuomo's office was not immediately returned. The MTA declined to comment about the tweet, referring Patch to a press release from last year when the agency was given the green light to seek federal funds for the second phase of the Second Avenue Subway.

Phase II will extend the Q line up Second Avenue and into Harlem with new stops at East 106th, 116th and 125th streets. Previous reports indicate that the MTA wants the federal government to cover about one-third of the project's estimated $6 billion cost.

The Second Avenue Subway's first phase was completed on New Year's Day of 2017. Cuomo led the celebratory inaugural ride on the city's first new subway line in decades. The project re-routed the Q line up Second Avenue with new stops at East 63rd Street, East 72nd Street, East 86th Street and East 96th Street. Phases three and four of the project will extend the line downtown to Hanover Square in the Financial District.

The Federal Transit Administration issued a "Finding of No Significant Impact" in the environmental review process for the project in November 2018, which allowed the MTA to seek federal funding. There has been no update since on whether the federal government intends to fund the project, until Trump's Saturday tweet.

Read the full NY Post article here.