State Legislature

While Majority Leader Malcolm Smith insists he can round up enough votes to pass the latest Senate MTA rescue plan, The Daily Politics reports that Bronx Assemblyman Peter Rivera participated in a rally today outside City Hall in protest of the proposal's $1 taxi surcharge, a facet of the bill that has also drawn fire from Mayor Bloomberg.

Just days after saying he would keep his MTA rescue advocacy efforts behind the scenes, Mayor Bloomberg today criticized the Senate's latest toll-free plan. The Daily Politics has quotes from a morning Q&A session:

The Municipal Art Society came out with a report yesterday urging New York State to start analyzing greenhouse gas emissions in its environmental review process (SEQRA). MAS argues that the policy could be adopted without changing existing laws, which raises an interesting question to ponder on this Earth Day afternoon: Would the State Senate's latest MTA funding plan pass muster if it were subject to an EIS that factors in climate change?

How's this for windshield perspective? One of the loudest foes of a sensible MTA funding solution, Fare Hike Four member Pedro Espada, doesn't even reside in the Bronx district that he represents. Rather than make his home in the transit dependent 33rd District, Espada lives in leafy Mamaroneck, reports Marcia Kramer of CBS2:

In what seems like a potential victory for common sense, state lawmakers are considering a bill that would require New York motorists to stop and see what they hit after they collide with something.

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.

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: