State Legislature

Celeste Katz at the Daily Politics has the scoop. Here's the statement from the western Queens Assemblyman who envisioned licenses on every bike and cameras in every bike lane:

Remember last month when Council Member Eric Ulrich came out with the idea of creating a complicated new bureaucracy to register and identify New Yorkers who ride bikes, a proposal that would build an expensive and redundant personal identification system on top of our existing ID systems, opening the door to increased harassment of cyclists by law enforcement?

Legislation to bring automated speed enforcement to the city is drawing fire from the New York branch of AAA.

The fate of the payroll mobility tax, which brings in $1.34 billion a year to the MTA, just grew a little shakier. The four members of the State Senate's new Independent Democratic Conference, who split off from the minority Democrats last week, have come out with their agenda and included in it is a call to "reform" the tax and even consider eliminating it. Any cut to the mobility tax would spell disaster for transit riders.

A broad coalition of good government groups, transit and environmental advocates, and unions sent a letter to Andrew Cuomo on Friday [PDF] urging the incoming governor to protect straphangers by ensuring that transit revenues are spent on transit.

New York State might be home to more transit riders than any other state, but when it comes to the transportation policies on the books, we don't look quite so green.

It's been 20 months since the state legislature passed an MTA funding package with a conspicuous missing piece. In early 2009, the transit agency was reeling from the recession, and straphangers were about to get walloped by deep service cuts and a 23 percent fare hike. Albany responded by enacting just a partial fix: a regional payroll tax and a smattering of new fees on taxis and car rentals. Tolls on the East and Harlem River bridges were supposed to be part of the deal -- getting car commuters who benefit from the congestion-busting effect of transit to contribute their fair share. But the State Senate insisted on preserving the free ride for motorists.

In Albany this week, legislative leaders declined to take action to close the state's current $315 million budget deficit. That pushes the problem into 2011, when a new governor and likely a Republican State Senate will be in power. Whether dedicated MTA funds will still be used as a piggy bank, at the expense of transit riders, will be up to next year's leadership.