When the Senate finally approved the MTA funding, our state’s less-than-august legislature did so with nary an air of finality. They do so more with the last sigh of someone fed up with the topic.

For months — since February — the state legislature has dealt with transit issues on a near-daily basis. They have known for over a year that the MTA’s financial Doomsday would arrive in 2009, and they did nothing. While Gov. David Paterson solicited a Richard Ravitch-inspired plan that would have cut congestion while funding a transit renaissance in New York, our backwards legislature couldn’t stomach the costs of that plan.

In the end, the Senate acted six weeks after the MTA’s self-imposed deadline passed. They acted at the 11th Hour and at the behest of a very unpopular governor. The resulting compromise — discussed in detail here — are far from satisfactory, and while the ink has hardly dried on the approved bill, it is receiving a less-than-enthusiastic reception. William Neuman and Nicholas Confessiore have more:

The State Legislature passed a series of new taxes and fees late Wednesday night meant to keep New York’s base subway fare from rising above $2.25 this year. But the hastily drafted bill, approved largely along party lines, raised many questions about how the plan would work and how effective it would be in stabilizing the struggling Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

In the short term, the plan would appear to raise significantly less money this year than in some earlier projections, although legislative staff members said it would be enough to get the authority through the year. There were also questions about how a 50-cent surcharge on yellow cab rides in New York City would be collected from thousands of taxi drivers and owners…

Questions also remained about the authority’s capital spending program, which is only partially financed in the rescue plan.

The bill’s problems though are immediately evident. First are the economics behind it. The MTA is facing a deficit this year of $1.8 billion. Since the taxation and fee structure won’t be enacted until part of the way through 2009 though, the money may not be there to cover the whole deficit.

According to reporters from Albany, the MTA will receive just $1.1 billion this year. Where the other $700 million will come from is up in the air. A recent move by the MTA Board to lengthen the agency’s fiscal year to 18 months may provide them with an opportunity in 2010 to balance the books this year. The answers though are hazy.

Of additional concern are problems of collection. As the Daily News editorial board explained yesterday, no one knows how to collect this taxi surcharge. The Taxi and Limousine Commission has never enacted a city-wide fee of this nature, and considering the relatively loose and independent reporting procedures for cab fares, there is no simple system in place here.

Beyond the short-term impact though are the long-term problems. As John Petro from the Drum Major Institute detailed in a short post entitled “MTA Rescue Spineless” and on SAS yesterday, Albany is again forcing the MTA to borrow to maintain a state of good repair and fund necessary upgrades and expansion plans.

“Without long-term investments in capital needs, the MTA will forever be facing budget shortfalls, deferred maintenance, crumbling stations, and stalled projects,” he writes. “We will be back at square one soon enough. This vicious cycle needs to end.”

Petro is spot-on. The approach to transit in New York City is completely broken. We may have averted Doomsday today, but these issues will not go away until the state’s approach to transportation undergoes a massive reform. As long-time SAS reader Boris said earlier this week, “Even among New Yorkers there are many people who don’t think the subway can, or should, be better than it is. It’s all they know.” That attitude is a recipe for sub-par transit in a city aiming to keep up with smarter and better-equipped global competitors.

In the eyes of the vast majority of New Yorkers, Gov. David Paterson will emerge as something of a transit savior this week. As the press has noted in detail, he brokered the the deal to save the MTA. He worked out a compromise among Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith and the Senate Democrats that guarantees around $2.2 billion a year to the MTA.

It is a plan without bridge tolls and without much in the way of resources for the MTA’s capital needs. It is a plan that includes a payroll tax, a taxi charge and a slew of registration fees. It features a 10-percent fare hike this year and mandated hikes in 2011 and 2013. It also avoids Doomsday, and for that — for the simple act of getting something together months after a March 26 deadline — the politicians will pat themselves on the back.

“This has been very difficult on the commuters of the MTA region,” Paterson said last night. “We can assure them this evening that there will be no surprises, that there will be no further cuts or fears about fare hikes or toll increases. We have resolved that issue this evening.”

If only life were that simple. Anyway, let’s look, courtesy of Gotham Gazette at what we do know. David King writes:

The plan will raise $1.5 billion a year from a payroll tax of 34 cents of every$100 dollars of payroll that will target all employers in the 12 counties that serve the MTA. The state will reimburse school districts for the payroll tax they contribute.

• $500 million will be raised from a 10 percent increase. Politicians had hoped to limit any fare increase to 8 percent.
• 85 million will be raised from a fifty-cent surcharge on taxi rides. The fee was reduced from the originally proposed $1.
• $130 million will be raised from a $25 fee on vehicle registrations in the 12-county MTA region.
• $35 million will be raised from an increase of the fee on car rentals.
• $10.5 million will come from an increase on the fee on driver’s licenses.

And thus, as long as the economy doesn’t continue to nose dive, as long as payrolls stay steady, as long as taxi rides stay constant and driver’s licensing and car registration numbers do not dip, the MTA won’t have to worry about that pesky multi-billion-dollar budget gap.

On the fare front, details are still sketchy. We’ll know more once the MTA releases its official figures later this week. William Neuman and Nicholas Confessiore have some preliminary numbers. The base fare will increase from $2.00 to $2.25 and a 30-day unlimited ride MetroCard will cost around $89, up from $81 but a far cry from Doomsday’s $103 price tag. Fares are also set to rise by 7.5 percent in 2011 and 2013 to match cost-of-living increases..

On the capital funding front, Nueuman and Confessiore offer up a few details. They write, “Under the agreement, about $400 million will be set aside each year from the payroll tax proceeds for capital needs. That will pay the cost of borrowing about $6.5 billion through bonds, enough to get a start on the capital plan.”

The problem of course is that final phrase. It’s “enough to get a start on the capital plan,” and it’s enough to set the MTA back on a course of building through borrowing. I guess we should be thankful the capital plan was given any consideration. Earlier this week, as Streetsblog noted on Monday, Paterson had removed capital funding from the rescue plan after a weekend tirade from Sheldon Silver. Facing pressure from transit advocates and editorials from The Post, The Daily News and The Times, the politicians caved.

While the legislature will probably vote later today to approve this funding package, the work of the transit advocates is just beginning. As this debate has shown, New Yorkers are woefully uneducated on transit issues, and politicians aren’t helping the cause. The MTA needed to avoid this Doomsday, but it also needs the other half of the Ravitch Report — long-term capital investments and system-wide improvements. We can’t rest until that day arrives.