Ben Fried

So, just in time for Earth Day, the State Senate has proposed an MTA rescue plan that's bad for both business and the environment. Here's a refresher on the basics: The plan calls for an eight percent hike in transit fares and existing tolls, and a higher payroll tax (85 percent of the non-hike revenue comes from this one source), combined with a smattering of fees on renting and owning cars. Half of the $190 million from a new $1 "drop charge" on cabs won't even help the New Yorkers who pay it, going instead to fund bridge and highway projects outside the city.

Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith has come out with another MTA funding proposal, which again gives commuters who drive across East and Harlem River bridges a free pass. The $1.76 billion it would generate annually for the MTA falls more than $300 million short of the projected revenue from the original Ravitch plan ($2.1 billion). Liz Benjamin at the Daily Politics has the details:

The ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria is packed right now for the RPA's 2009 Regional Assembly, where Richard Ravitch just accepted a lifetime achievement honor. Many luminaries from the worlds of transportation, planning, and politics are here, and I've got a few minutes to post some interesting exchanges from earlier in the day, so here goes.

On Monday, state DOT Commissioner Astrid Glynn tendered her resignation, leaving the agency's top job during a critical period for statewide transportation policy. Governor Paterson engineered Glynn's departure, according to the Daily News, following her three-week vacation to Borneo that came while DOT is still deciding how to spend its pot of federal stimulus cash. With state politicians also discussing solutions for the MTA budget crisis in tandem with funding for the state's road and bridge program, crucial decisions will take shape without an established leader at the helm of the transportation agency.

State legislators are about to head home for the Easter and Passover holiday, leaving transit riders to twist in the wind a while longer without an MTA funding plan in place. Martin Malave Dilan, chair of the State Senate's transportation committee, gave Politicker's Jimmy Vielkind one last debriefing before the legislative break:

One of the more common excuses we've been hearing from local pols during the current MTA crisis is that "service never improves," so why bother to fund transit? Set aside, for the moment, the fact that subways and buses are moving way more New Yorkers than they did just a few years ago. Courtesy of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, here's an interesting case study of service actually getting worse and why it happened.

State Senator Andrew Lanza called this afternoon in response to yesterday's post about his MTA rescue stance. He first took issue with the characterization of Senate Republicans as "refusing to budge" on a transit funding plan, saying that his conference has effectively been shut out of the process. "If they wanted to come forward with an MTA rescue package," he said of the Democratic leadership, "there's not a thing a Republican can do."

Here's State Senator Andrew Lanza, a Staten Island Republican, explaining why he supports tolls on the East River bridges. For Staten Island drivers looking at a $3 hike in cash tolls to cross the Verrazano (or a $1.32 hike for locals with E-ZPass), the sight of other motorists getting a free pass into Manhattan must be a source of perpetual gall and resentment.

It's a long walk from the Red Hook West houses to the nearest subway stop at Smith-9th Street, and even longer to train connections at Fourth Avenue. Without night-time B77 service, a lot of commuters from the largest public housing project in Brooklyn will have to make that trek -- including a dash beneath the BQE -- on a regular basis. With MTA rescue talks currently at a standstill in Albany, about 100 Red Hook residents marched yesterday in protest of the austerity measures that will soon take effect. Clarence Eckerson documented the rally, organized by the Red Hook East and West Tenants Association.

New York City's red light cam program is on track to expand by 50 percent, pending legislation currently winding through Albany. Since 1994, the city has run a red light camera "demonstration program" -- with proven safety benefits -- which has to be renewed this year to continue. The bill would extend that program for five years and increase the number of cameras from 100 to 150 (here's the legalese).