As Election Day nears, New Yorkers will soon go to the polls to select the next state executive, and whether voters realize or not, they’re doing so against a backdrop of the MTA’s shaky financial picture. Yet, the candidates don’t care. Carl Paladino, the GOP candidate likely to be trounced, has no grasp of MTA policy, and Andrew Cuomo’s statements haven’t been much better. The gubernatorial debate earlier this week was a debacle, and I’ve been wondering if anyone has a plan.

While the politicians haven’t come through, today, the Drum Major Institute and Transportation Alternatives have released their version of a pro-transit platform. The report carries with a lofty name — Solving the MTA’s Budget Crisis and Reinvesting in Mass Transit: A Five-Step Platform for the Next Governor of New York State — but it is decidedly even-keeled and common-sensical.

“The governor and state legislature are directly responsible for the MTA’s finances: they decide how much revenue flows to the authority, and only they have the power to put the MTA on sound financial footing,” the introduction reads. “While MTA executives can continue to cut costs at the margins, only a concerted plan led by the next governor can redirect investment to the state’s mass transit system and avert a fiscal disaster. A true Albany reformer willing to make tough choices would move the MTA away from costly borrowing and make smart investments that will drive renewed economic growth, boost the state’s economic competitiveness, and save taxpayers money in the long-term.”

Noting that “without the New York City region’s transit system, it would be physically impossible for the region to be the home of the largest concentration of jobs in the country and the source of $1.2 trillion of economic activity,” the report proposes five items the next governor should do to help the MTA:

1. Return the $160 million taken from the MTA over the last year by the state legislature and prevent state lawmakers from using dedicated transit funds for other purposes.
2. End the fiscally irresponsible reliance on debt by restoring the state’s contribution to the MTA capital program to 20 percent of the program’s cost.
3. Protect millions of straphangers from threats to repeal the mobility tax which, if repealed, would result in yearly MTA budget deficits of over one billion dollars.
4. Create sustainable sources of transit revenue, funded by everyone who benefits from transit, including riders, drivers and businesses.
5. Lead New York’s congressional delegation to secure higher levels of federal funding that would help expand public transit service access to underserved areas.

The report, available on the web and as a PDF, backs up these assertions. For instance, in discussing the payroll tax, a revenue source both gubernatorial candidates have promised to “reexamine,” DMI and Transportation Alternatives lays out why it’s both a necessary and equitable tax. MTA expenditures, they say, for Metro-North and LIRR services are “roughly proportional to the amount of mobility tax revenue” paid by the constituent counties. It might not be popular, but without that tax, the MTA would be another $1.5 billion in the red.

While the first three points are exceedingly simple for the next governor to implement, the real key to this platform is point four. DMI has beaten this drum for years, and Transportation Alternatives has a well: The next governor must be a leading on sustainability in the New York region. The City Council, years ago, requested a home rule measure for congestion pricing that didn’t pass Albany amidst turmoil in the capital. To ensure that the MTA has a source of dedicated funds that also serves to encourage transit ridership, some form of congestion pricing or tolling is a must. It would, says the report, “bring greater fairness to the city and region’s transportation networks.”

Ultimately, New York City voters should press their next governor to find a way to support the MTA. Bashing the organization may be en vogue today, but those in charge are trying to do what they can to maintain a sagging system. What happens if the MTA fails would be calamitous. “Without new sources of revenue, riders face more severe service cuts and fare hikes in the future,” the proposal says. “As a result, drivers will face increased congestion as straphangers abandon the transit system and drive instead.”

Jay Walder, rightly so, doesn’t want to get involved in the current race for governor of New York. During a breakfast yesterday at NYU’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, Walder stressed his firm desire to stay out of electoral politics. “I have successfully avoided being involved in the campaign,” he said, and with just under two weeks under Election Day, he doesn’t plan to jump into the fray anytime soon.

Yet, Walder’s speech — an impassioned defense of the MTA’s cost-cutting measures as well as an acknowledgement that the authority can and should be doing better — can be read as the perfect counterpart to the baseless bashing session in which the gubernatorial candidates engaged earlier this week. Whereas the state’s next executive — the leader who can set the policy tone and name an MTA head — might not know much about the current state of the MTA (or might just be pandering to a public who finds sport in critiquing the public authority), Walder seems to have a firm grasp on the challenges he and his organization face.

Take a listen to the seven minutes of criticism that the candidates for governor lobbed at the MTA on Monday night. If you can stomach the fifth mention of two sets of books — a claim disproved in court six years and debunked yet again last year — without wanting to throw something at these politicians, you’re a stronger person than I.

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The ideas bandied about range from inane to ludicrous. One candidate proposed privatizing the MTA and using the proceeds from the sale of authority property to fund the state’s pension obligations. A few stressed the need for either direct control of the MTA by the state’s governor or New York City’s mayor. No one acknowledged that through board appointments and the political process that the state executive and legislature and city leader already exert significant control over the MTA, and no one fessed up to the fact that the MTA is a state agency that exists because of a grant of power from the legislature.

But that’s neither here nor there. Expecting informed politicians in New York is akin to relying on the G train during the weekends. Let’s instead look at the answer that matters: that given by Andrew Cuomo, the candidate with a 37-point lead among likely voters. His transcript:

“In some ways, the MTA is just a gross symbol of the problem that a lot of these state agencies and authorities have. Number one: it wastes a tremendous amount of money. And number two, nobody’s in charge. In terms of the amount of money they waste, two sets of books, certainly; $500 million in overtime, something like 8,000 people make more than $100,000, the pension system, the payroll system – it’s just another example of government (that’s) inefficient, wasteful – and government just doesn’t get it. Everybody else has to live within their means, not government.

The MTA also has the additional issue of nobody’s in charge. It’s an authority. It’s a joint board. It’s the mayor, it’s the governor, it’s everybody, it’s nobody. Put the governor in charge. If it doesn’t work, it should be up to the governor and everybody should know. The fraud in the MTA – we did a case on the Long Island Railroad, which is part of the MTA – over 90% were on disability (cut off by moderator). It can’t be.”

Nobody, Cuomo said twice, is in charge at the MTA. Someone should tell Jay Walder that because he certainly presents the aura of being in charge. At the breakfast yesterday, Walder spoke of his responsibilities with the right mix of authority and knowledge. The MTA, he said, is probably the most important authority in the state. It provides an “absolutely essential and critical public service,” one used by millions of New Yorkers every day. “That doesn’t,” he said, “exempt us from being as efficient as possible.”

During his speech, Walder laid out the MTA’s internal cost-cutting measures. Regular SAS readers know that the MTA has saved over $500 million this year by cutting 10 percent of its overtime spending, by eliminated 3500 jobs which include 20 percent of its administrative staffing at headquarters, by renegotiated with its contractors and suppliers and by consolidating its organizational structure, among others.

On the one hand, said Walder, the MTA should do this to run a leaner ship, and on the other, it had to do it to regain political support and public credibility. “We need to show people and politicians we were tightening our own belt,” he said. To gain trust, the MTA has to show that it is “using dollars wisely” and “show people we were being more productive and more efficient.”

The problem Walder faces is that no one listens. The public would prefer to blame the MTA for sluggish commutes, weekend changes and dirty stations. No one likes fares hikes or service cuts, but when the political support is gone, the MTA can only do so much to generate savings or create more revenue streams. Since politicians are insulated from responsibility by the structure of the MTA and the way most people don’t understand how public authorities in New York are established, these elected officials and those running for office can simply pile on as the people in charge of the MTA are engaged in a serious and largely successful effort to solve its economic problems.

On Monday, perhaps, as many have said, Cuomo was simply pandering. He was saying what he had to say to shore up his support, and once he’s in office, he’ll do what Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson have done: He’ll let the MTA run itself and let those who know what they’re doing take the reins. Yet, without candidates who speak the truth and take responsibility for the state of public transit in the city, without politicians willing to speak out for the Jay Walders of the city, we’ll be left with eroding support for transit and massive political missteps.

It’s hard to imagine an MTA worse than it had been, but if the next governor would to take control and oust yet another qualified head one year into his tenure at the helm, things could easily go from bad to worse. That’s a fate we cannot afford.

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Due to a last-minute trip to California, I didn’t have the chance to watch the debate amongst the various candidates for governor last night, but when I landed, I watched some of the proceedings online and read the commentary. The proceedings turned into a veritable MTA bash-fest last night, and for seven minutes, the various candidates — including the front-running Andrew Cuomo — proved that they know absolutely nothing about the city’s and state’s most important public authority. They recycled claims of financial mismanagement, highlighted the disproved line about two sets of books and failed to acknowledge the changes that Jay Walder has wrought. A few of the candidates even called for the MTA to be brought under the control of the governor, a foolish plan on so many levels bloth politically and economically.

I’ll bring you more analysis from this debate over the next few days, including some video, but for now, I want to point you to Ben Fried’s recap on Streetsblog. He summarizes:

If Cuomo was trying to say that there’s no political accountability for the MTA, he failed. And his diagnosis — make the MTA a state agency — is off-base. Putting the governor in charge of the MTA won’t make the state legislature less obstinate about funding transit. Until someone with a big bully pulpit, like New York’s next governor, starts describing the threat to transit riders accurately, elected officials will still be able to duck blame for fare hikes and service cuts.

This anti-incumbent election season is as good a time as any for a statewide candidate to turn Albany into the punching bag for transit woes instead of the MTA. It shouldn’t be hard to get some of these points across:

• If Albany hadn’t swiped dedicated transit revenues from the MTA last year, the agency would have had at least $100 million more in its purse — enough to stave off cuts to buses and trains.
• Until Albany sorts out its budget problems, transit riders will be at risk of paying for the state’s fiscal mess.
• MTA revenues nosedived with the rest of the economy in 2008, and Albany dysfunction stymied the full funding package recommended by an independent panel.
• Because the Pataki administration forced the MTA to borrow excessively, transit riders are paying the price.

Someone in public office has got to start telling voters what’s actually dragging the transit system down. Otherwise legislators will just have thicker cover the next time transit gets shortchanged in Albany.

I have absolutely no faith that New York’s next governor will right the state’s transportation ship. Mass transit is too important to the economic health of New York City for our politicians to trample all over it, and until we take the fight to the polls and find some candidates who are qualified and knowledgeable enough to run the state, I might just vote for this guy come Election Day.