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.
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