Tuesday Headlines: Albany Rules Edition

Marc Molinaro can’t even wait to win his election before stopping by the state Capitol.

Molinaro, a former top federal transit official, Congress member, county executive, gubernatorial candidate, Assembly member and mayor, is running for a safe Republican seat in the Catskills and a chance to be in the Assembly minority. He was eager to chat about transit policy with Albany reporters on Monday.

The district he hopes to represent is west of the Hudson River, a region famous for its dearth of transit options. When asked about his take on remedying that, Molinaro told reporters that the MTA is the “biggest, most-bloated public authority in the world,” and its poor operations hold back useful investments in the Hudson Valley.

“We’re looking for the next new thing, instead of shoring up the existing infrastructure and creating the connectivity. I personally think the MTA should spend more time investing in making sure the system runs as efficiently and effectively as possible, and then creating, whether it’s a rapid bus connection or light rail connections west of Hudson, and all of that is doable through real smart use of federal and state resources. But we don’t.”

He added that working with Amtrak seems to be an unnecessary stumbling block in New York, and the scuttled Metro-North expansion to Albany could have been handled better.

“It also sounded to me like the governor and others made an announcement and hadn’t worked out the details,” Molinaro said. “So, I mean, I don’t know who got in whose way, but I would say to you that there needs to be greater collaboration.”

But even if he won’t necessarily need to move heaven and earth to claim the 102nd Assembly District being vacated by Chris Tague (R-Schoharie), he still has the voters in mind.

“This district’s connectivity to the Amtrak station in Rensselaer County and in Hudson and the economic region that we live in, yeah, there is impact,” he said. “So we are impacted by whether or not there is access to the city. Is it the first thing they talk about? No, certainly not.”

More news:

• We haven’t heard any livable streets or pro-bike policies coming from GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman, but he got a clean hit on the governor over her embrace of Uber’s insurance fever dream. (NY Post)
• And Blakeman’s access to state matching funds will be decided this morning when the state Public Campaign Finance Board meets. He’s putting the whole debacle down to partisan warfare. (Newsday, NY Post)
• Federal investigators are probing to see if a New York City Council member, a Hochul aide and the husband of a Brooklyn Democratic Party bug wig took bribes in relation to migrant contracts. (NY1)
• Renesslear won a Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant that its mayor says could spur projects near its Amtrak station. (The Times Union)
• Housing developers are eyeing the parking lot of the Newburgh-Beacon Ferry for a new project. (Mid-Hudson News)
• Anthony Constantino’s petitioning strategy could damage his North Country congressional campaign. (NCPR)
• Safe street advocacy group Reconnect Rochester opened a new downtown office near the Regional Transit Service hub. (The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle)
• Trial lawyers and crash survivors rallied against Hochul’s auto insurance scam yesterday. (Streetsblog Empire State)