People

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.

If his State of the State address yesterday offers any indication, transportation policy isn't going to be a top-tier priority for Andrew Cuomo. He didn't mention pressing issues like the MTA's looming deficits or the state's crumbling infrastructure, instead focusing his attention on ethics reform, Medicaid and reorganizing state government. He did, however, repeat his proposal to institute a $100 million competitive grant program to encourage smart growth around the state, suggesting that campaign promise has momentum early in his administration.

Andrew Cuomo has been governor for all of three days, but even his small first actions could have big implications. With the state's massive deficit looming, Cuomo won't be able to avoid tough choices and big fights, and transportation is very much in the crosshairs. Bigger news could come as early as Wednesday, when Cuomo announces his emergency financial plan -- in which he could announce raids on the MTA's dedicated finances in the hundreds of millions -- but already a picture of this year's agenda is beginning to emerge.

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.

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.

Albany's repeated plundering of the MTA's dedicated funds has robbed transit riders of more than $140 million in the past year alone. With a $9 billion budget gap looming, straphangers could end up paying again very soon. An impossible fix, you ask? I know the subject is Albany and we've all been conditioned to think that change is hopeless, but as it happens, all it takes is one person, the governor of New York, to say enough is enough.

Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch opens his new report on transportation funding in his characteristically blunt fashion: