After another day of MTA politicking, clear battle lines are being drawn in the fight over the transit agency’s future. In a surprising turn of events, State Democrats are opening up to the reality of tolls while State Republicans are preparing to fight the payroll tax proposals.
Most welcome is the news about the Democrats. Based on reporting by Glenn Blain and Pete Donohue, reality is finally setting in, and New York’s elected representatives have finally realized that service cuts and fare hikes would impact far more people than bridge tolls. The due of Daily News reporters write:
MTA and state officials made “significant progress” toward a plan that could avert the shutdown of some subway and bus routes, authorities said Wednesday.
Sen. Martin Dilan, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said Democratic opposition to tolls on East River bridges as part of solution to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s fiscal crisis appears to be softening.
“Members are starting to find that a majority of their constituents use the subway to Manhattan and more of their constituents will be impacted” if the MTA’s doomsday budget, including whopping fare hikes and service cuts goes, into effect.
Referring to Sen. Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens), Dilan said, “I think the leader has confidence that he can probably get most members on board if we get some sort of givebacks from the MTA in terms of more accountability, transparency, greater fiscal transparency.”
While I’m happy to applaud this news, Sen. Dilan talks as though his co-Senators are just getting around to realizing this point now. I know New York politics has never carried with it a very good reputation, but are State Senators really that clueless? Do they not realize that their constituents have long used the subway in far greater volume than the city’s roads? Can they not do simple math? As long as they save the MTA, the ineptitude of our State Senators doesn’t matter.
Meanwhile, Sheldon Silver believes he now has enough votes in the Assembly to pass his $2 toll plan. Republicans, however, are planning to vote against any MTA bailout with taxes, and City Council members — whose constituents are the same transit users as the State Senators’ — may block transfer of the bridges to the MTA on some sort of quasi-home rule/anti-toll basis.
“A real property transfer is subject to our land use review procedure,” Councilman Lew Fidler, D-Brooklyn, said to Crain’s New York. “I surely would object on that basis and join any lawsuit brought if it were done without our consent..I realize that two bucks is not a burdensome amount, but if you think that amount will remain so low, I have a bridge to sell you.”
If the State Senators can embrace reality, why can’t Fidler? The MTA doesn’t have time for politicians to learn that the subways are truly where populist sentiments lie. That is a lesson that must be embraced now and not after everyone is mad over bad, expensive subway service. This Great Transit Awakening better speed up. It has three weeks.
4 comments
Forget paying for the subway. Fidler should wake up and realize his constituents don’t want their tax dollars to pay for this: http://gothamist.com/2009/03/0....._on_hi.php
Transfering the bridges to MTA control and using tolls to finance their maintenance would certainly be helpful to the city budget.
We should legalize marijuana and use those tax dollars to fund the mta.
That would be a revolutionary idea that would benefit everyone involved!!!
And it would free up more cops to fight real crime instead of someone burnin’ a joint not bothering anyone.
Without federal approval, it can’t happen. Not that it’s a bad idea, but it needs more than state legislative approval.