People

A bill from Assembly Member Jim Brennan, who chairs the Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, would create a transportation finance authority to collect new taxes and help fund the MTA as well as roads, bridges, and transit statewide. It's the first major transportation funding proposal to come out of Albany this year.

News came yesterday afternoon that Governor Andrew Cuomo is changing leadership at the state Department of Transportation, replacing Joan McDonald with former Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll. Cuomo canned McDonald, who's been on the job since 2011, over a dispute about snow removal in Buffalo, according to Jimmy Vielkind of Capital New York.

State lawmakers have introduced legislation that would prohibit police from detaining, but not charging, bus drivers who hit pedestrians and cyclists.

There's $100 million for Bus Rapid Transit in the Assembly's budget proposal, and advocates are working to ensure the funds emerge intact from closed-door negotiations with Governor Cuomo and the State Senate.

It's easy to get annoyed with the MTA: Your train is slow and crowded, the station is dirty, the bus is late -- and to top it off, you just got hit with another fare hike. You're paying more for deteriorating service, and the only place to direct your anger is a faceless bureaucracy known as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Is there anyone responsible for this mess?

Andrew Cuomo is not going to seize the chance to lead New York City out of its hellish traffic congestion and fund key improvements to its transit system, judging by this tweet from New York Times reporter Thomas Kaplan:

Next month's MTA fare and toll increase will be the seventh hike in 15 years, noted "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz this morning. "But there is one traveler that hasn’t seen any change in the cost of travel," he said. "And that’s the person that drives into Manhattan."

As Albany contemplates paying for the MTA capital program by borrowing as much as $15 billion, it's worth pausing to examine the debt load straphangers are already shouldering. To put it in perspective, the MTA carries more debt than Bolivia, Tanzania, and Luxembourg combined, according to numbers compiled by the Straphangers Campaign. The MTA owes more than at least 30 nations, including several with populations much larger than New York City.

Mayor de Blasio unveiled his preliminary budget proposal this afternoon. In an address outlining the broad strokes of the budget, de Blasio called out Albany for neglecting the MTA and warned that inaction on federal transportation funding could undercut the Vision Zero program.