As the legislative session in Albany winds down for the summer, there’s been a flurry of activity relating to the MTA. Unfortunately, that activity, despite a stridently-worded editorial from the Daily News, hasn’t yet involved a confirmation vote from the Senate for Tom Prendergast, but a recent Newsday story says that Senators are pushing for action on the nomination before next week is out. Still, there’s transit news aplenty so let’s dive in.
Transit Lockbox (S3837)
The transit lockbox is back. Since the late-2000s raid on the MTA budget, transit advocates in Albany have been pushing for legislation that would make it hardly and politically inconvenient for the state’s executive and legislative branches to reappropriate money that’s supposed to go to transit. The Senate first passed the lockbox concept in 2011, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo later stripped the bill of most protection.
The Senate is at again. With only three votes against — including one from the same Bill Perkins working to roll back the 125th St. bus lane — the lockbox bill moved out of the Transportation Committee on Tuesday and was approved by the full Senate on Wednesday. If passed by the Assembly and signed by Cuomo, the bill would require a memo with every mass transit funding diversion outlining the total amount taken, that amount as the volume of current fare revenue, the cumulative amount taken over the previous five years, and a detailed statement of impact on service, maintenance, security and the capital program.
Streetsblog penned a piece yesterday on this legislation, and its supporters are guardedly optimistic. The Assembly should take it up early next week, and then Cuomo will have to make a decision. “I don’t think the Governor can water the bill down this time,” Gene Russianoff said to Stephen Miller. “For Cuomo, the option is only yes or no.”
Purple Lights for Select Bus Service (S5703)
It’s been nearly five months since a bunch of Staten Island politicians threw a fit over the MTA’s Select Bus Services’ flashing blue lights. The buses are no longer easily identifiable from great distances, and riders have called upon action from Albany to permit the MTA to employ some form of flashing lights. Slowly, legislation is winding its way through the halls of government that would allow for colored lights on Select Bus Service vehicles.
This new bill would amend the state’s vehicle and traffic law to permit buses owned and operated by the MTA or New York City Transit as part of the Select Bus Service to use flashing purple lights to indicate such service. The bill has the support of Jeffrey Klein in the Senate and Micah Kellner in the Assembly and so far has been referred to committee by each chamber. I’ll keep an eye on this one. Hopefully it can move forward.
Assessing the Impact of Service Cuts (A6249)
Finally, we have another intrigued bit of policy: The Senate and Assembly have both passed a bill requiring the MTA to issue a report detailing service cuts. The bill would require the agency to report detailed information on all services eliminated since 2008 and would be due by December 31. The report would require info on the following:
- The number and geographic breakout of all customers impacted by such service reductions and eliminations, for each route;
- The actual revenue savings versus the anticipated savings from such service reductions and eliminations, for each route;
- The costs to fully restore such service reductions and eliminations, for each route; and
- A detailed plan for full restoration of services that have been eliminated or reduced since January 1, 2008; or, alternatively, a detailed plan for equitable restoration of subways, buses, and commuter rails that substantially mitigates the negative impacts of such service reductions and eliminations and fairly restores the services across all impacted neighborhoods and regions.
Most, if not all, of this information is available piecemeal in MTA budget and board documents, but this report would be a cohesive summary of the past five years’ worth of transit rollbacks and a way forward. It’s unclear if Gov. Cuomo will sign this bill into law.
17 comments
It took them five months to figure out that purple/violet is the only other color option? Seriously? That should’ve taken 5 hours, including getting the bill passed and the MTA getting on the phone with their LED supplier to get an order set-up.
On the lockbox issue, this is a big test for Cuomo. This and the public campaign financing in NY State are a litmus test of what his goals are. Is he just building up his name to run for president, or is he an actual leader who wants to improve this state? We already know the answer, but surprise us, benevolent leader.
Governor Cuomo has already shown his true colors and his agenda for the last two years is probably left of Karl Marx and totally mis-aligned with what NY state needs but simply what the most vocal and minority leftists in the Presidential Primaries would want . In the end, even if he were to win the nomination which would be a stretch a Cuomo ticket in 2016 would probably flame out in a wipe out like Dukakis or McGovern . Though I am pro choice and have always been , his agenda in that regard is so extreme that even typical liberals outside of New York City would gag.
I for one am not voting for Gov Cuomo for his reelection in 2014 . Doubt he is going to get the resounding reelection margin he is looking for and I am a down stater but am fed up with al of his posturing and pandering
LOLWHAT?
He’s slashing taxes and education funding while raiding the MTA’s budget on a yearly basis. He’s completely ignoring public transport while focusing entirely on MOAR ROADS. On what planet is he remotely left-wing? Left of Karl Marx is downright hilarious. Cuomo is barely to the left or Reagan, let alone Marx.
Damn the education system in this country is crap.
The left-right dichotomy so misses the point. Cuomo is left of people like Bush on civil liberties, right on economics and most other domestic policy. I’d put him as being on the whole left of “liberal” Lautenberg, who was pro-transit.
Anyway, the real partisan divide in America is sanity and competence. Democrats occasionally have some of both, but Republikans almost never do. He thinks everyone should be his ideal of car-driving, suburb-dwelling “middle class” paper pusher. Bloomberg, Quinn, and Weiner basically hold views that are hard to distinguish from each other – and they’re all authoritarians (“right-wing”).
They released a document detailing the impact of the 2010 service reductions about a year after they occurred. For instance, here’s the one for MTA Bus: http://www.mta.info/mta/news/b.....232011.pdf
Oh, and here’s NYCT: http://mta.info/mta/news/books.....uation.pdf
Why does the state legislature want this information. Do they want to celebrate as they and their supporters prepare to decamp to Florida?
And some of the service cuts were perfectly appropriate and should not be reversed.
Yes they may have been, but the MTA never provided the justification to prove they were. There were just too many inaccuracies and misleading statements or missing numbers in the documents they provided.
I am not against service cuts per se. They are certainly necessary some times, but the MTA has the responsibility to make the case for it showing proper numbers, not by stating alternatives exist that no one would actually use such as using the B65 instead of the B71.
Did anyone ask the MTA if theyre actually able to order purple lights at an acceptable cost?
Non-snark: Is there any reason why purple would be more expensive than blue?
I know the dyes used to create purple are more prone to fading from long-term exposure to sunlight than blue is. Not sure why that would affect LED lights, though.
Generally speaking, different color LEDs are made from different materials, giving off a different color light. They are usually not white LEDs with colored plastic, though some are.
Maybe because it’s less common? Everybody and their mother “needs” LEDs that come in red or blue or white. Purple? Not exactly the biggest seller.
Somewhat snarky…I’ll assume the feeling is that the MTA can’t do anything inexpensively. 😉
More practically, blue LED are /very/ common these days. Mind you, some modern electronic lighting gizmos use multiple LEDs and can very easily change the color – see the Empire State Building, et al. I’m not sure what’s in the SBS lights – it could be as simple as a filter over a white light, but it probably isn’t.
(Pure snark) For all we know, it might have been cheaper to follow a previously recommended suggestion of hiring EMTs to drive the SBS fleet…
Its twofold.
There is the issue of visibility. If you want the same effectiveness at night, you need brighter purple LEDs due to peak rod sensitivity at blue green wavelengths. Peak cone (daylight) response for non colorblind people is a light green.
http://www.telescope-optics.ne.....sponse.htm
Blue fits in RGB color scheme for led lighting and signage applications. Light blue (esp flashing blue lights) has a law enforcement/emergency vehicle market. Purple is a different story.
Simple solution: red lenses over existing blue LEDs.