The leadership of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has become increasingly frustrated with the protracted and unresolved process of selling development rights over the West Side rail yards, saying it is a distraction from their primary concern: figuring out how to come up with $8 billion.

“If 5% of the energy that we’ve spent on the stadium in the last month had been directed toward the capital program, which is much more critical to our operation, we would have that program today,” the chairman of the state-run MTA, Peter Kalikow, said yesterday.

Although the press and politicians have been preoccupied for months with the sale of the air rights, any eventual sale would probably fill only a fraction of the $8.2 billion gap in the MTA’s five-year, $27.4 billion capital program. The state, meanwhile, has proposed financing $19.2 billion of the capital program through Governor Pataki’s budget plan.

“It’s depressing, that’s the word I’m looking for,” Mr. Kalikow said. “It makes me sad that we can’t focus on the stuff we have to focus on.”

Despite the political wrangling over the air rights, which in recent days has centered on zoning arcana, the MTA continued yesterday to grapple with the shortfall in its 2005-09 capital plan.

The executive director of the MTA, Katherine Lapp, warned during the authority’s board meeting that the shortfall would mean delaying station renovations and equipment upgrades, as well as potentially laying off as many as 1,000 employees whose jobs throughout the state, including 561 from New York City Transit, are budgeted into the capital plan.

Ms. Lapp said newer train cars can run for about 200,000 miles more than older cars before requiring maintenance. Purchasing them would save money on maintenance – and would help the upstate communities whose economies are dependent on MTA procurements Ms. Lapp, who appeared to be speaking to upstate legislators as much as to those gathered for the board meeting, said.

“From Poughkeepsie to Plattsburgh, from Ronkonkoma to Tonawanda, we actually employ thousands of New Yorkers just by buying those cars for the rails and the subways,” Ms. Lapp said. “If we have to defer those, there will be implications for the economies for those areas throughout the state.”

Complicating the financial picture was a report issued yesterday by the state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, who said the governor’s executive budget would require the MTA to borrow $9.7 billion, increasing its already hefty debt burden, which consumes 60% of the authority’s revenue.

The sale of the air rights to the 13-acre site on the far West Side of Manhattan could garner between $100 million and $700 million for the MTA, based on offers made by three companies. The New York Jets’ plan for a new stadium and convention center on the site has the support of Mayor Bloomberg. Madison Square Garden, in seeking to stop the Jets, has proposed high-density housing over the site and has the support of Mr. Bloomberg’s rivals in the mayoral race. An energy company, TransGas, made the highest offer, but its president, Adam Victor, told The New York Sun he had no plans to submit a bid in response to the MTA’s request for proposal distributed Tuesday. And at the center of it all is the MTA.

The maelstrom over the West Side rail yards continued yesterday, beginning with anti-stadium protesters outside MTA headquarters. On the fifth floor and to a packed house, the board approved hiring a consultant, Newmark & Company, to help evaluate the bids due March 21 from companies seeking to purchase the air rights.

Opponents of the proposed stadium, which would be the centerpiece of the city’s 2012 Olympic bid, took center stage yesterday in the form of the City Council speaker, mayoral candidate Gifford Miller, who gave his State of the City address. He urged the council and the mayor to ensure that bids for the rail yards would not fail for lack of proper zoning.

“The whole risk of zoning is on the bidder,” an MTA spokesman, Brian Dolan, said later.

That leaves another potential political fight, part of which will be waged in the City Council’s Committee on Zoning and Franchises. Its chairman, Council Member Anthony Avella, has vowed to block any attempts to change the zoning for the rail yards to accommodate a high-density housing project, such as that proposed by Madison Square Garden. Mr. Avella had a message for the MTA yesterday on behalf of his committee.

“We are not in favor of any rezoning at that site, so please take that into consideration when reviewing the bids,” he said.

The MTA board is expected to vote on the bids at its March 31 meeting.