Doomsday Budget

Carl Kruger (left), Pedro Espada, Jr. (center) and Ruben Diaz, Sr. refuse to budge on the issue of East River tolls.

When the MTA starts cutting service and raising fares in less than three weeks, remember the faces of the men up there for they will be the reason why. Democratic State Senators Pedro Espada and Ruben Diaz, both representatives from the Bronx, and Carl Kruger from Brooklyn are hell-bent on avoiding tolls for no good reason.

Never mind that the overwhelming majority of their constituents don’t have cars and those that do, don’t use them on a daily basis. Never mind the role of transit trumps the use of cars. Reality has no place in this debate apparently.

In Brooklyn, only around five percent of commuters rely on the East River bridges for their daily commutes. In the Bronx, the numbers are similar: 5.7 percent of Bronx drivers commute alone to Manhattan via the Harlem River bridges while another 2.1 percent carpool. Of the remaining 92 percent, 29.9 percent rely on transit to get them into Manhattan while another 30 percent rely on transit for non-Manhattan-bound commutes.

So what do the Bronx politicians say? No tolls. Not now. Not ever. Elizabeth Benjamin, writing about a triumvirate she calls the Three Amigos and I call the Three Stooges, has news of this disloyal opposition:

The Three Amigos – Sens. Carl Kruger, Pedro Espada Jr. and Rubuen Diaz Sr. – who recently reaffirmed their relationship and started strategizing again as a team, today issued a joint statement demanding that the MTA go “back to the drawing board” and do everything possible to avoid tolling the East and Harlem river bridges.

The three senators are “demanding” that the MTA agree to a forensic audit conducted by an outside entity and a complete accounting of all its assets – including real estate holdings, which is an issue other lawmakers have been hammering on for a while now.

The trio is open to the idea of a payroll tax, which is the other revenue-generating proposal made by the Ravitch Commission, but called the tolls a “non-starter.” “The Ravitch plan, and the attempt to foist it on the Legislature during budget negotiations, is ill-conceived and misguided,” the senators said in a press release…”Tolls hurt the ridership of our city, hurt the general public, and hurt the small business community. It is our shared belief that no plan should annex the boroughs. That is what tolls on the bridges would accomplish.”

I already pay $4 a day to go from Brooklyn to Manhattan. If I lived in Manhattan as my parents do, I’d pay $4 a day to go from Point A in Manhattan to Point B. Why people who live in the outer boroughs and drive — often unnecessarily — should get a free ride at the expense of my subway system is well beyond me. I don’t expect the Three Stooges to offer a coherent argument on that point though.

Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith can’t get any Republicans to cross the aisle to support taxes yet. He is stuck with a 29-30 vote and needs these three — rogue opponents with the Democratic party to his own position as Majority Leader — to fall into line. While Diaz has two half-cooked plans to fund the MTA, they are laughable and impractical 11th Hour solutions. Explains Benjamin, “One that would require the state to buy prescription drugs from Canada and another that would force ConEd to pay taxes.”

In their press release — ridiculed by Streetsblog commenters — they urge the MTA to “go back to the drawing board.” Start over from scratch three weeks before an era-defining moment in New York City history, they urge.

“Why should I be punishing my state and the people from my district?” Diaz Sr. asks. Well, Mr. Senator, by not supporting transit that is exactly what you’re doing. If the MTA fails, if Diaz’s precious drivers maintain their free rides while everyone else pays, I wonder who exactly will be punished.

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.

Hot on the heels of Albany’s appeals to populist anger at the MTA comes more news about the state of the proposed Ravitch plan to save transit. It sounds like there will be some backroom politicking over the next few weeks as the MTA Board’s self-imposed March 25 deadline draws near.

In a somewhat surprising about-face, the New York Post urges Malcolm Smith to see Sheldon Silver’s $2 toll plan through the Senate. The Post has mostly protested taxes and tolls, but this latest missive believes that, because Richard Ravitch is a trustworthy source, the MTA really does have this budget problem. Another audit just months after Ravitch conducted his own thorough investigation would be an unnecessary and costly political diversion.

“Smith doesn’t seem to have the foggiest idea of how to save the system. And if he doesn’t know, how will he convince defiant members?” writes the paper’s editorial board. ” If he thinks the Senate’s constituents will be unhappy with tolls, what will they say about massive fare hikes? Or, in the not-too-distant future, a crippled mass transit system? It’s that serious.”

The Daily News’ editorial board takes a similar tone with Smith. Blame him, they say, when the MTA is in shambles.

Business leaders who recognize what an underfunded MTA means to the economy are calling upon State GOP representatives to support a bailout. New York’s partisan lines are thickly drawn, but if the business community starts pushing this proposal, state Republicans may just rally behind the tolls.

Finally, the Post notes the MTA bailout may get stuck in Albany for months. Senator Smith has indicted that he wants to tie the MTA’s money into the state budget, and any deal on the state budget is still months away. Smith’s office publicly denied this allegation and has stressed a desire for a speedy resolution to this problem.

That sound you hear is the Doomsday clock ticking ever closer to midnight.