Transit

Former MTA CEO Lee Sander spent the last two-and-a-half years doing his best to make the MTA a transparent, accountable public agency, and in doing so restore its reputation. He let the sunshine in, but was unable to undo the damage to the agency's image caused by years of attacks from transit advocates, unions and politicians.

Thank Albany. By segmenting the 30-35 percent transit fare increase into three stages, the legislature has opened the door for a broad-based campaign to put an end to fare hikes and institute genuine transportation reform.

In this scene from last night's State Senate vote on the MTA funding package, Fare Hike Four member Ruben Diaz, Sr. relishes his substantial influence over the final bill:

We'll have more on the details of the MTA funding deal as they emerge. For now I'd like to focus on its most salient feature: The failure to impose new fees on car commuters, whose daily trips would slow to a standstill without a functional transit system.

It's pretty much a done deal, with an official announcement from the three men in a room expected shortly. What's the plan? The sordid details are still emerging, but Politicker's Jimmy Vielkind has some numbers:

Now that Governor Paterson has backtracked on his pledge to secure a long-term solution to New York's transit funding crisis, the push is on to spin the slapdash result as a responsible outcome, not a capitulation to Albany's lowest common denominator.

We're getting dangerously close to transit Armageddon.

Heading into the weekend, Governor Paterson is still keeping a tight lid on exactly how he plans to handle the MTA's huge funding shortfall. Lately, Paterson has taken to joking about this crisis by saying that "light bends around Albany" -- a not-so-veiled reference to Senate Democrats and their closed-door machinations. I first heard the line a few weeks ago at the RPA Regional Assembly, where we all laughed and ate up the governor's act.

Let's recap the last week of the MTA funding saga. On Monday, Malcolm Smith and the Senate Democrats introduced a "conversation starter" bill that had already been lambasted as insufficient and backwards. On Tuesday, the MTA finance committee announced that revenues from taxes and fares have plummeted deeper than expected, turning the $1.2 billion doomsday budget gap into a $1.8 billion chasm. On Wednesday, Governor Paterson claimed that he had "some new ideas" to break the legislative impasse. Yesterday, some Paterson staffers started to let slip what the governor had in mind, and today we woke up to the big news.