Albany gridlock kills MTA’s golden ticket … for now

Albany gridlock, long the bane of New York politics, is killing Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion fee plan for now. With the end of the legislative session arriving last week, a battle of political wills between Gov. Eliot Spitzer and State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno left the fate of the congestion fee plan up in the air until the middle of July.

Early last week, it seemed as though Bruno and Spitzer would come to an agreement on a whole slew of legislative issues. But Spitzer’s refusal to budge on the issues of campaign finance reform, Bloomberg’s refusal to amend his plan (rightfully so), and Bruno’s unwillingness to bend resulted in a deadlock at the end of the State Senate’s current session expired.

The Daily News has more:

A deal on Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan collapsed [Thursday] night as the legislative session wrapped up with the state’s top Republican accusing Gov. Spitzer of sabotaging progress on a host of issues by being “obsessed” with campaign finance reform…

Spitzer administration and City Hall officials thought a deal had been sealed among the governor, Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) on the mayor’s plan to charge motorists for entering a large swath of Manhattan. But the agreement broke down when Bruno discovered he could not get approval from his fellow GOP senators on the campaign finance reform part of the package of bills, officials familiar with the talks told the Daily News.

The proposed agreement would have allowed the city to set the toll zone and pick the technology to implement it, and a state commission would have review authority over how revenues would be channeled and how enforcement would be carried out.

All of this political mumbo-jumbo basically means that favors weren’t cashed, deals weren’t made, and the congestion fee plan, which may net nearly $800 million a year for the MTA’s coffers, will sit on the shelf for a few more weeks. There is, however, a snag. At one point, Bloomberg and the City believed the federal government would toss around $500 million our way to go toward the implementation of this plan. It’s part of President Bush’s lame-duck efforts to pretend to care about the environment. Now, because of the Albany gridlock, that money may be in jeopardy.

The Times has more on that story:

Mr. Bruno and city officials said they were hopeful the plan could still be salvaged, though it seems unlikely that one would come together in time to qualify for as much as $500 million in federal aid. The Bush administration has said it could grant the money to New York if it puts the plan in place by midsummer.

So once again meddling in Albany has interfered with the operations of the City, an entity largely independent from that area we know as Upstate New York. We have to wait around for some pols from Rensselaer make nice with our governor in order to pass something we know will benefit New York City and its public transit infrastructure. But such is life in New York City.

I’m still confident we’ll see the congestion fee passed. I’m still confident the congestion fee will help the MTA by sending much-needed funds our way. And maybe, just maybe, this congestion fee will serve as a springboard to a run for the presidency for Mayor Bloomberg. But whether or not that is a good idea is a topic for another day.

Update: The Times has an editorial today supporting congestion pricing. More on that later.