WHEREAS, pursuant to Executive Order No. 168, a disaster has heretofore been declared in the five boroughs of New York City and the Counties of Dutchess, Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester that incorporate the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Region in the State of New York due to increasingly constant and continuing failures of the tracks, signals, switches and other transportation infrastructure throughout the system including at Pennsylvania Station located in the County of New York (Penn Station), that have resulted in various subway derailments, extensive track outages, and substantial service disruptions impacting the health and safety of hundreds of thousands of riders;

WHEREAS, the ongoing failures of the tracks, signals, switches and other transportation infrastructure throughout the MTA’s rail and subway system continue to pose an imminent threat and have a vast and deleterious impact on the health, safety, and livelihood of commuters, tourists, resident New Yorkers, as well as business and commerce in the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District (MCTD), which is the recognized economic engine of the State of New York, and thereby have adversely affected the New York State economy;

WHEREAS, the track outages and service disruption necessary to implement the Amtrak Repair Program, and other repairs necessary to fix tracks, signals, switches and other transportation infrastructure throughout the MTA’s rail and subway system continue to be necessary to protect the public, health and safety of commuters, tourists, resident New Yorkers, and will continue to worsen the transportation disaster emergency that currently exists due to the condition of Penn Station and the MTA’s rail and subway system as a whole; and,

WHEREAS, it continues to be necessary for the MTA and its subsidiaries and affiliates to take significant and immediate action to assist in the repair of the tracks, signals, switches and other transportation infrastructure and in the mediation of such track outages and service disruptions due to this disaster emergency;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, ANDREW M. CUOMO, Governor of the State of New York, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the Laws of the State of New York, do hereby extend the state disaster emergency declared pursuant to Executive Order No. 168 and extend all of the terms, conditions, and directives of Executive Order No. 168 and the terms, conditions, and directives for any extensions of the same for the period from the date that the disaster emergency was declared pursuant to Executive Order No. 168 until April 23, 2018; provided that the temporary suspension of any laws, rules, regulations or guidelines pursuant to this and any future extensions of Executive Order 168 shall apply to the extent the Chairman of the MTA or his designee, which shall only include the MTA’s President or Managing Director, determines it necessary for the purposes of awarding any contracts, leases, licenses, permits or any other written agreement that may be entered into to mitigate such disaster emergency.