Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch?

The rumors are flying fast and furious this afternoon. Now that it has been pretty-much confirmed that Paterson will appoint a Lieutenant Governor in a few minutes from now, the question of course is...who will that person be? The goal one would hope is that he or she is non-controversial and well-respected. Yet in these times, I don't even think Jesus or Gandhi could fit that criteria for all sides involved. So certainly Richard Ravitch will fall short for Democrats and Republicans.

From The Daily Politics:

Ravitch is the ultimate elder statesman. He has worked for a president (Lyndon Johnson), a governor (Hugh Carey), and is credited with rescuing the mass transit system in the 1980s.

Last year, Paterson tapped Ravitch to head a panel to figure out how to fix the cash-strapped MTA - again.

He also has ample experience in dealing with the unruly Senate - most recently this past year during the MTA bailout negotiations, which did not endear him to the Senate Democrats, who felt he misled them about needing $5 tolls on the East River bridges in order to close the authority's gaping budget hole.

Ravitch later said an Assembly plan that called for $2 tolls would also work. The final agreement ended up with no tolls at all.

UPDATE: The DN's Glenn Blain ran into Sen. Dean Skelos and asked for his reaction to the news about Ravitch. The Long Island Republican replied:

"Payroll tax Ravitch? Well, then he would fit the mold...of Gov. David Paterson because they both love to raise taxes."

No one is going to be happy here, but something has got to give and having Ravitch break ties (assuming the Senate achieves a quorum) is a far better thing to worry about than Espada being #2 to Paterson. As long as the courts approve, Paterson can breathe easier if he decides to leave the state with the second in command.

M.T.A. Bill Gets Green Light From Legislative Leadership

Richard Ravitch is happy, Gene Russianoff is happy and the three men in the room are ecstatic over the fact they got something passed to help out the struggling M.T.A. Although Ravitch and Russianoff would have preferred something better, perhaps a little more comprehensive, they realize that in Albany, simply passing a bill, whether it does the job or not is a success. So with all this cheering, what can straphangers expect to find come June?

From The NY Times:

Under the deal, the base fare for a single bus or subway ride would rise to $2.25 from $2. The cost of a monthly MetroCard would probably rise to about $89 from $81, according to officials in the Legislature. Other fares and tolls, including tickets on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad, would go up about 10 percent.[...]

The legislative leaders also agreed to set a single rate for the payroll tax in all 12 counties served by the authority — a tax of 34 cents for every $100 of payroll. An earlier Senate version of the plan called for a lower rate in three outlying counties.

The payroll tax is expected to raise $1.53 billion a year.

The plan also includes a series of charges on vehicles and drivers in the 12- county region: a 50-cent surcharge on taxi rides, a $25 increase in vehicle registration fees, a 25 to 30 percent rise in drivers’ license fees and a 5 percent increase in a tax on car rentals. Those fees are expected to generate a total of $270 million a year.

So there you have it, the damage, so to speak is spread out amongst straphangers, drivers and employers, though more so on the employers. For a last minute maneuver, Silver, Smith and Paterson did a decent job. The only problem is that the M.T.A. is still going to consider another increase in a few months, so we'll see what the Legislature can do when the next deadline looms.

For now though, subway riders will have to pay a little more instead of a lot, drivers won't be tolled on East River bridges, taxi cab riders are only looking at a 50 cent surcharge instead of a dollar and service cuts will be avoided. For the next few months at least, doomsday has been averted.

Yet for some reason I can't get the thought out of my head that this was all some sort of psychological game played out before us. Drivers are still getting higher tolls where tolls exist and their fees are going up. Mass transit riders still have to pay more after an increase in the fare last year (those of us that buy weekly or monthly cards, which is for most New Yorkers), making the increase on a monthly between 2007 and now roughly 18%. Tolls have also risen at an astronomical rate. Then in 2011 and 2013 the fares will go up another 7.5% each time. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that these costs beat the rate of inflation, and at the same time we have a state government that passes bloated budgets every year.

Next year, instead of acting like pigs at a trough, perhaps our represenatives could get together and revamp the way the M.T.A. is funded, so that we do not have to face a crisis over fares whenever the economy sours. Relying on real estate and sales taxes is simply an unstable solution. When the Republicans were in charge, they probably realized this, but instead of remeding the situation, they tacked on more than a billion dollars in debt to the M.T.A. and magnified the problem. Instead of patting each other's backs over this quick fix, Smith, Silver and Paterson would do right by attacking the core of the problem and ensure that we continue to have the best mass transit system in the country for decades to come.

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.

A Bailout For The MTA

The dire news from the MTA in the last few months has been nothing short of frightening for straphangers. Not only would we have to pay more for a fare, but we'd get less for it. Less service, more nastiness in subway stations, less money in our pockets and more aggravation when waiting for packed subway cars. Well, if Albany lawmakers follow through with their current sentiments, a large chunk of that money will coming out of a payroll tax instead of our checkbooks.

From The NY Daily News:

Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, who previously opposed imposing new taxes, said Democrats would support the proposed tax if the business community agrees to it.

"It's really the last thing we want to take a look at, however, this is a classic example, I think, of shared sacrifice," Smith said Thursday.

The tax of one-third of 1% is a key component of the financial bailout plan crafted by former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch. It would affect payrolls in New York City and the other counties the MTA serves.

Smith noted that most business groups, including the Partnership for New York City, have expressed support for the tax. Ravitch's plan, which has the support of Gov. Paterson, is intended to plug the MTA's $1.2 billion budget gap and head off draconian fare hikes and service cuts.

Even business groups have to realize that at these times, if they want to keep their workers happy, or at least complacent, they have to be able to commute to work without much of their wages going to their subway fare. A 0.33% payroll tax is a lot less of a burden to a business than $22 a month more (for the 30-Day Metrocard) to someone just trying to get by.

I know bailouts have gotten overplayed in the last couple of months, but this one that is sorely needed.

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.

Troubles Ahead For The M.T.A.

Riding on the 4 train this morning, I saw an advertisement placed by the M.T.A. that stated the fare was $1 in 1986 and in today's dollars that's $1.89, further that the cost of an unlimited ride is $1.17. Nevermind how misleading and beneficial they make economic numbers look. If they have to put an ad there to try and manipulate people into having sympathy for the fare increases next year and in 2011, be afraid of what comes next. With bad economic times piled on to an already perilous situation, it'll be more than just the promises of a better ride on the subway that we'll end up losing.

From The NY Times:

Questions in recent months about the authority’s economic future have repeatedly drawn the same response: Wait for the Ravitch commission.

But the stock market’s troubles and the global banking crisis have accelerated the authority’s financial slide to the point that officials are now working to carve deeper cuts in their budget plans for 2009.

And it appears likely that there will be insufficient time for the State Legislature to act on the Ravitch commission’s proposals, meaning the authority will be forced to adopt an austerity budget with both service cuts and fare increases by late December, an official said.

Further, because of sharply falling revenues, an even larger increase in fares and tolls might have to be considered than in the authority’s earlier budget plan, which called for an 8 percent rise in revenues from those sources, the official added.

If you can bear to read more, go to the full article from the Times. When Elliot Sander says they're going to bring painful stuff, then you know it is going to be bad. I am certainly no economist, but next year's dollars will not inflate by eight percent and a fare increase that reflects it will be a far cry from the sympathy-inducing words I saw on the 4 train. Not only that, the ad must have run out of space before it could have mentioned that we get a lot less for our $1 $2 fare with more delays and overcrowded trains. Now it looks as if we can add reduced service to that as well.