Final livery taxi plan to benefit MTA

As state officials gear up to vote on a plan that would allow Outer Borough street hails for livery cabs, we learn today that the MTA may benefit from this transportation measure as well. Call it the law of unintended consequences.

Jeremy Smerd from Crain’s New York posted the following to Twitter earlier today: “Insider says Republicans poised to pass Bberg’s outer borough taxi plan. Deal will create 50-cent MTA surcharge for livery customers.”

Smerd later elaborated in a Crain’s piece. Essentially, the move will guarantee more surface transportation options for those who live north of 96th St. and outside of Manhattan while providing for another source of revenue for the MTA. As I expected, the move will allow Republicans to take aim at the payroll tax next year. Smerd writes:

State Senate Republicans were poised Friday to pass Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to allow 30,000 livery drivers to pick up street hails in the outer boroughs and northern Manhattan. The legislation would also allow the city to sell 1,500 new taxi medallions over three years, which would raise more than $1 billion. The breakthrough on the bill, which had stalled in the final days of the legislative session, came in a last-minute deal that would bring much-needed revenue to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority…

The most important change is a 50-cent surcharge to be tacked on to each outer-borough taxi fare, just as it is in yellow taxis. The revenue, expected to be in the tens of millions of dollars, according to one source, would go to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The second amendment would effectively postpone the legislation’s implementation by six months—meaning new borough taxis would not hit the streets until January. The first 500 of the new medallions will be auctioned in July 2012…

By creating a new, dedicated revenue source for the MTA, Republican senators will strengthen their hand next year when they renew their push to repeal the payroll mobility tax, another MTA revenue source that has been criticized as unfair to suburbanites. Senate Republicans passed a plan to repeal the tax this year, a symbolic move because the bill was ignored by the Democrat-controlled Assembly.

This revenue is still just a partial accounting for the money lost to a potential payroll repeal, but the politics behind the MTA’s economic situation are coming into view. City Council action, Crain’s notes, is not required for any of these measures.