Installing modern subway signals along the perpetually crowded Lexington Avenue line in Manhattan. Adding elevators to 70 subway stations in a system where only about a quarter of the stops are wheelchair accessible. Extending the Second Avenue subway north to East Harlem.

These are some of the key pieces of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new $54 billion blueprint to overhaul the subway and the rest of the city’s floundering transit network.

On Monday, transit leaders released their proposal for the agency’s largest ever capital plan, a critical document that offers a wish list of projects to tackle over the next five years.

The price tag might seem stunning — it is $20 billion more than the last capital plan — but it reflects an aging system with immense needs, from the subway and buses to commuter railroads.

“At the end of this five-year period, New Yorkers will see a revitalized and modern system for the 21st century and beyond,” the authority’s chairman, Patrick J. Foye, said at a news conference.

Now comes the hard part: convincing state, city and federal leaders to provide huge sums of money to pay for it all.

The agency is starting from a better position than in some other years. Earlier this year, state leaders approved congestion pricing, a plan to toll drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan. Congestion pricing and other new state revenues are expected to raise $25 billion for the capital plan.

But Mr. Foye said he needed $3 billion from Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has had a long-running battle with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over who is responsible for funding the subway. Mr. Foye said he planned to meet with officials at City Hall on Monday to brief them on the capital plan and to seek their help.

The spending plan includes many items likely to make New Yorkers and transit advocates rejoice: more than 1,900 new subway cars; 500 electric buses; adding a third track on the Long Island Rail Road’s main line; four new stations in the Bronx along Metro-North Railroad; and improvements to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

The highest level of spending would go toward the subway, which fell into crisis in 2017 after years of underinvestment. Officials want to spend $7 billion to upgrade signals on six new pieces of the subway, including the Lexington Avenue line’s 4, 5 and 6 trains and $5 billion on station accessibility, including new elevators and ramps at 70 stations.

The capital plan relies on $2.9 billion in federal funding for the next segment of the Second Avenue subway, which would extend the Q line to 125th Street in Manhattan. Federal officials have not signed on to a funding agreement, though President Trump recently posted on Twitter that he supported the project.

Transit leaders suggest that the rest of the funding come from the authority taking on more debt, $3 billion from the state government and other sources. The authority already has a mountain of debt — it is projected to reach $41.8 billion by 2022, according to the state comptroller.

The subway’s leader, Andy Byford, has fought to make subway signals a major priority while occasionally sparring with Mr. Cuomo, who controls the authority. On Monday, Mr. Byford said the capital plan “exceeds my wildest expectations” and warned subway riders that he would need their patience during station closings to upgrade the system.

“I’m ecstatically happy,” Mr. Byford told reporters.

Emma G. Fitzsimmons is a transit reporter in New York. She previously covered breaking news at The Times and worked as a local reporter at the Chicago Tribune. @emmagf

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