Pricing is Alive. JFK Rail Link and SMART Fund May be Dead.
Annie Karni reports in today's New York Sun that the outlines of a congestion pricing bill may be hammered out in Albany before Memorial Day, though not exactly as Mayor Bloomberg initially proposed.
Karni writes that MTA executive director Lee Sander would prefer to see the $3.75 billion earmarked for a direct rail link from Lower Manhattan to JFK Airport allocated to the Second Avenue subway instead.
Critics of the JFK Rail Link, which have included the Regional Plan Association, say the project would benefit fewer riders than a new subway line. Because it would cut down on the commute between Long Island's North Shore and Lower Manhattan, some say it would mostly benefit downtown developers by narrowing the large gap between Midtown and Downtown rents.
Sander also doesn't like PlaNYC's proposal to direct congestion pricing revenue to a new transit funding authority known as the SMART fund.
Mr. Sander on Friday expressed grave misgivings about the creation of a new funding authority at an oversight hearing run by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat of Westchester.
State Senate leader Joe Bruno is reported to be enthusiastic about Mayor Bloomberg's plans.
"He called the mayor's presentation last week to Senate Republicans 'outstanding,'" and sources say he is likely to support the mayor's plan.
And Karni's sources speculate that State Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver may be willing to swap his beloved one-seat ride to JFK for the completion of the Second Avenue subway.
"The city needs a full length Second Avenue Subway, as opposed to the money being spread out in smaller pieces of big projects," the chief attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, Gene Russianoff, said. "The problem over the last 10 years has been that if you're for all of the projects, you're really for none of them. That's why they've inched along."
