Due to a procedural rule in the New York State Senate, any Senate-endorsed MTA funding plan will not come to a vote until next week at the earliest. Meanwhile, Albany-watchers still do not believe that Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith has the requisite 32 votes to pass any sort of bill, and the MTA is counting down the days until it must unveil 2009’s second fare hike plan.
Tuesday in Albany started with some minor amendments the MTA funding plan approved Monday by the Senate’s transportation committee. The bill, approved along a 10-8 party-line vote, contained a few mistakes that had to be rectified, but because the Senate demands a three-day ripening period for legislation, the bill won’t come up for a vote again until Monday.
According to Elizabeth Benjamin (linked above), the changes were mostly cosmetic. The taxi cab drop-off charge now applies to yellow cars only, and the language requiring a mandatory MTA audit was strengthened to “shall be” from “may be.” No matter the langauge, Newsday’s James T. Madore can’t find 32 Senators in favor of the bill.
Downstate, Mayor Bloomberg finally ramped up his campaigning for the MTA. Bloomberg, along with teacher’s union head Randi Weingarten and President and CEO of Parntership for New York Kathryn Wylde, sent a letter to the state’s leaders in Albany urging support for the beleaguered transit agency.
Meanwhile, Newsday’s editorial board just wants Albany to allocate its discretionary funds to the agency. “Is nobody willing to argue that maintaining subways, buses and trains is a basic governmental responsibility?” the paper asks.
All of this Doomsday politicking leads to one overarching bit of bad news: While I yesterday said that the MTA would have to enact a second fare hike by the fall, amNew York’s Heather Haddon says that the MTA could unveil a second fare hike as early as May if the Senate does not act. Further we go along the downward spiral.