New York City’s Borough Presidents don’t have much power within the city’s government. They have small discretionary budgets, can appoint Community Board members and are largely ceremonial. Because New Yorkers love a figurehead, though, serious politicians can use the BP spot as a spring board to greater ambitions. Many a former Manhattan Borough Presidents have moved into Gracie Mansion, and Scott Stringer is looking to do the same.

Armed with the support of his long-time family friend and native Manhattanite Scarlett Johansson, Stringer must overcome the presumptive front-runner Christine Quinn’s edge, but he is a vocal and tireless campaigner. As Borough Presidents go, he has also been a friend of transit — at least as much as he can be in his role. He hosted a conference late last year about the future of transportation in New York City and seems to recognize that our mass transit system powers Manhattan and the city’s economy.

Yesterday, at a speech before the Association for a Better New York, Stringer laid out his views on transit. We know he endorsed a commuter tax plan, but he had far more to say on the subway system. “We have a basic problem: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority—the central nervous system of our regional transit network– is a fiscal house of cards,” he said. “That’s not just bad for straphangers. Without a healthy MTA, our region’s 1.2 trillion dollar economy could come to a screeching halt. Without action, we risk becoming a first-class city with a second-rate transportation network. We cannot let that happen.”

In his speech, Stringer laid out what he called a “roadmap” for the MTA. This wasn’t about taking cheap shots at the beleaguered transit authority or flat-out ignoring transit as our current Governor has done. Rather, this was a speech about paying attention, making some hard choices and investing in our present and future. He issued a call for a New York City Transit Trust Fund with dedicated revenues from the mortgage recording fund; he urged Albany to embrace Sam Schwartz’s traffic plan; and he called upon the restoration of the commuter tax.

He said:

“Under my plan, the New York City Transit Trust will also leverage private dollars, but will do so responsibly, by tying the infrastructure bank to a dedicated revenue stream – our existing Mortgage Recording Tax. Now as many of you know, the Mortgage Recording Tax is a fee that gets paid every time property changes hands in the City and the 7-county MTA region. Today, those fees flow directly into the MTA’s operating budget.

Now, unfortunately, the MRT is a horrible source of operating funds – it swings wildly from year to year, making solid projections very tough. At the height of the housing bubble, the Mortgage Recording Tax and other transfer taxes generated $1.5 billion for the city and the MTA. But by last year, with a flat market, revenues dropped 75 percent to just $400 million.

Relying on a source of revenue that can plunge 75 percent over a five year span is no way to run a railroad, much less the nation’s largest transit system. Over the long haul, however, we know that the Mortgage Recording Tax brings in an average of $400 million a year. A dedicated revenue stream of that size can be used to leverage over $10 billion in capital that could be quickly put to work.”

What then would the city be able to do with this money? Spend it wisely, says Stringer. Echoing a point I’ve made before, he leveled his sights on current projects. “We can’t be throwing precious dollars at projects like the Fulton Street station in Lower Manhattan,” he said. “That station is costing taxpayers 1.4 billion dollars and will do nothing to add capacity when work finally ends in 2014.”

With the added dollars, we could reimagine the transit network, he said. Stringer would expand bus rapid transit. He wants to add light rail to 42nd St., and he wants to deliver an AirTrain to La Guardia. He even spoke of the Triboro RX line. “Here’s why it is not a pipe dream: The line is built entirely along existing rights of way,” he said. “That means no tunneling, which is the biggest hurdle in this day and age to building new subways.”

It’s unclear what Stringer’s political future is right now. The 2013 mayoral race is both a long ways off and very unsettled. But no New York politician has taken such a vocal and ardently pro-transit stance as Stringer did yesterday. For that, he deserves a good long look even as his ideas would face steep opposition in Albany. He might just be the city’s best hope for a better transit policy.

Stringer’s speech is available in full right here.