Weiner Steps In To Offer His Own MTA Bailout Plan

With Majority Leader Smith unable to get a bailout passed in his divided Senate, others are trying to make it work in his place. Smith's leadership skills are practically non-existent and the most we get out of him are half-hearted excuses. So what better time is it for the half-hearted mayoral candidate and full-time Congressman, Anthony Weiner to come back and grace New Yorkers with his presence. Weiner isn't just back to talk though, he's got a plan that could do the job that Smith is unable to get done.

From the NYT Cityroom:

Representative Anthony D. Weiner on Monday released his version of a rescue plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in which tolls on the East River and Harlem River bridges that would be paid only by people who do not live in New York City.

Mr. Weiner, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Queens and Brooklyn, and who is is planning to run for mayor in November, has long been an opponent of putting tolls on bridges where they don’t already exist.

But he said on Monday that making new tolls — which he would set at $4.15 — payable only by non-city residents would be a compromise that could gain traction in Albany and would be a bit like reviving the commuter tax, which was eliminated 10 years ago.

He predicted the tolls would raise $391 million a year.

While it is still a change in position for Congressman Weiner to put tolls on the bridges in any form, it is more amenable to the Senators that represent city dwellers that have to cross those East River bridges each day. In politics, compromise is the name of the game (except for the Republican party that wastes space in Congress) and Weiner is willing to move if it fixes the budget gap and keeps fares from going higher. If the idea gains traction with reticent State Senators, the plan will definitely earn him points if he ever decides to start running a full-on campaign to challenge Bloomberg.

Gang Of Three Back Together Again To Scuttle MTA Bailout Bill

It is crunch time in Albany for the budget and in regard to mass transit in New York City, that is very serious business. The M.T.A. has already approved massive fare increases and tremendous service cuts if they do not get capital from the Legislature. The Assembly is ready to help, but the State Senate is unfortunately a partisan battleground. With the divide between Dems and Repubs so slim, who else would get in the way of legislation to help straphangers than the infamous Gang of Three (Kruger, Espada and Diaz). Screwing their party over for individual gain is nothing new but these men represent the very New Yorkers that depend on mass transit.

As the Gotham Gazette points out, it hardly makes any sense:

Most of Krueger’s constituents do have a car but do not use it for a daily drive to Manhattan’s central business district. Of the 32 percent of his constituents who commute to that part of Manhttan, about 84 percent take mass transit.

In Diaz’s Bronx district more than five times as many people take mass transit to the business district as drive. Two thirds of his constituents do not even own a car. In Espada’s adjacent Bronx district, more than 70 percent of residents do not have a car and less than 4 percent drive to the central business district as compared with 29 percent who take mass transit.

“Taxi drivers have to pay, too, and they will have to increase their fares. Who is gonna pay for that? The people,” Diaz told Gotham Gazette. Or at least all those residents of the South Bronx who take cabs to work every day.

I know that gentrification has been an issue in the city for a while now, but it hasn't reached the South Bronx. Up there the 4/5/6, the 2 and the B/D trains along with myriad bus routes are what moves people around, not Yellow Cabs that start at $2.50 just to get in the door. What this action means for Malcolm Smith is that it will be up to Republicans to make the deal go through. If Golden, Lanza and Padavan are responsible for the bill's passage, they can tout "hero" status for their re-election campaigns while leaving Malcolm Smith looking like a Leader who can't get his herd in order.

If Smith were smart, he should be working very quietly to rid Manhattan and the Bronx of their 'Gang problem.' That way we can add three more solid, progressive Democrats to the caucus two months before the November election.

The Bell Tolls For Free East Side Bridges?

Yesterday brought sad news for many a Queens and Brooklyn resident. Lower Manhattanite and Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver endorsed a form of the Ravitch Plan so that all bridges leading into New York City will be tolled. The idea has been repulsed for decades by many local politicians, but Silver's statement yesterday could quite possibly be the final battle in this debate.

From PolitickerNY:

ALBANY—Praise is flowing in for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has softened his opposition to implementing East River bridge tolls to raise money to plug the M.T.A.'s massive deficit.

Silver just told me as he left the building for the day, "Either you're for a fare increase and a substantial reduction in services, or you provide the revenue to the M.T.A."

"I'm not happy about it, but given the choice of the two, I think the conference would support the revenue enhancers over the fare increase," he said, noting that would include a bridge toll about the cost of a single subway ride. "We believe everybody should pay."

It has always been a losing proposition for a politician to come out in favor of tolling the Manhattan, Williamsburg and Brooklyn Bridges but in these times there really is no other choice. Opponents say that once the bridges are tolled, it is only a matter of time that a small $2 toll will be at the same price as the GWB or the Lincoln tunnel. I agree with that sentiment, but in these times we all need to pull together. Cutting service and spiking the cost of a Metrocard would be ridiculously unfair to straphangers. We have subways for a reason, so please, use them.

With that hurdle out of the way, the Ravitch Plan goes to the State Senate before the Governor's desk. Whether they will approve of bridge tolls is still up for debate, but they must know we have to do something to stop a rapid rise in the price to ride the subway.

So Much For Thompson's Driver's License Plan

The budget deficit for the MTA's budget is steadily growing larger, but the plan to help solve the flailing in the air. The MTA proposed to cut service and increase the fare, which sucked. The Ravitch Commission offered to put tolls on the bridges and raise taxes from businesses in the area. Then Comptroller and official Mayoral candidate William Thompson came up with a plan to increase driver's license fees. The only problem though, is that Thompson and his ally in the Assembly, Micah Kellner, didn't do their math correctly for the public.

From Second Avenue Sagas:

Right now, those of us with New York State drivers licenses pay, more or less, around $50 once every eight years to renew our licenses. It was my understanding that this alternate plan would simply raise this rate to $100 every eight years. The way I figured it, this new fee would generate an additional $42 million a year and not the promise $300 million Kellner and Thompson had noted.

The catch, you see, is that Kellner and Thompson would charge New Yorkers that $50 fee every year. Instead of paying $50 for eight years, we would instead be paying $400 extra over that eight-year period to enjoy the privileges and benefits of having a drivers license no matter how little or how much we drive.

And of course that means that everyone gets charged (those with licenses) no matter how much you drive and whether you use the bridges or not. So at least the tolls are part of a usage program where Thompson wants it across the board. It isn't exactly a fair proposal and the way it was presented hinted that it doubled the fee, not 8x. As SAS says, this proposal is bogus, I agree.

M.T.A. Scares Us With Large Fare Hike So The Eventual Increase Doesn't Look So Bad

Straphangers were shocked to see that the M.T.A. was considering increasing the fare to $3 a couple weeks ago, so $2.50 isn't that bad, right? Paterson, on the advice of the Ravitch Commission see's an eight percent increase instead of a twenty-three percent hike. Obviously the lower number is better, but perhaps the first amount was just meant to dull our reaction to an eventual hike.

From The NY Times:

Gov. David A. Paterson said for the first time on Wednesday that he supported a financial rescue plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that includes charging tolls on bridges over the East and Harlem Rivers. The plan, he said, would substantially reduce the size of a fare increase the authority had sought.

The governor also spoke favorably about a recommendation in the plan for a tax on company payrolls in the region. The measures are aimed at helping the authority overcome a projected $1.2 billion deficit next year and a gaping multibillion-dollar hole in its long-term capital budget.

The governor said he was still reviewing the plan, but was “quite pleased with what I see so far.” “As an alternative to a fare hike,” he said, “I think it’s very viable.”

The plan, developed by a commission appointed by Mr. Paterson and headed by Richard Ravitch, a former authority chairman, is expected to be made public on Thursday, though many details have already come to light. If it is enacted, the plan will allow the authority to eliminate a severe round of service cuts it had proposed for next year.

Escaping service cuts is great news and tolls on the bridges in my view at least is decent news (though there has to be exceptions). As for a payroll tax, it is better than losing service, but these are hard times for businesses in New York City and should only apply to those that aren't struggling to survive (sans greedy Wall Streeters teetering on the edge).

Getting away from the reliance from real estate revenue is a good thing in this crazy economy. Though what we really need to do is get the state and the national government to chip in to make our subway work without it working those that ride it every day.

The Return Of The Congestion Pricing Saga

You could never count Luke Skywalker out in a George Lucas movie and neither can one give up hope on congestion pricing in New York City. It is being used all over Europe and somewhat in Southeast Asia, and is determined to make its debut in New York. The only thing is it might have to take on a different look to pass the test up in Albany.

From The NY Daily News:

City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said it's too soon to eulogize congestion pricing, which died behind closed doors in Albany last month.

"Most big things in New York don't go through the first time around," Sadik-Khan said at a panel discussion at the Regional Plan Association's annual conference.

"At the end of the day, the failure on congestion pricing that occurred last month was just a setback," said a fellow panelist, former Deputy Mayor Marc Shaw. "I think it will be reconsidered in the near future."

He predicted congestion pricing would come back in a somewhat different and "purer" form: tolls at the East River bridges and across 60th St.

No matter the percentage of people that decry congestion pricing and tolls in general, there is going to have to be a way to solve three traffic problems of ours. One is the pollution another is funding mass-transit and last but not least reducing the congestion (duh) in the city. Asthma rates are ridiculous, building projects such as the 2nd Avenue subway and getting as many unnecessary cars out of the city are prerogatives that must be accomplished. So if Bloomberg's vision didn't work out, something else must have to be tried.