1) “No, they [the legislature] could do anything they want to.”
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Sure they could have. But there are two questions to ask, then:

A) What was the likelihood they would have done nothing?
B) What would have happened if they hadn’t taken action?

In answer to question A, we obviously disagree on this. I believe that the legislature wasn’t bluffing or dissembling when its members said they’d find funding – since their stance was demonstrably different than in previous years, and that the spotlight of the Daily News and the public counts for something. You and others might not agree. I believe it was worth the try.

As for question B, I have in front of me the MTA’s financial documents, which I’ve again reviewed. The MTA did not need a fare hike in 2008, and especially in early 2008, according to its own documents. (It will end the year with a surplus, even without a hike.) So why not wait for possible new revenues?

(What are new revenues? They do include taxes, but typically taxes that are more equitable than a fare hike, which falls disproportionately on those who can least afford it. They also include congestion pricing, which would absolutely be a “new” revenue, since it does not exist in New York City currently.)

If the cash didn’t come through, the MTA still “could do anything they wanted to,” by raising the fare in the spring, of course.

Not addressed in your response: the role of the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign. Since the group has existed since about 1980, and Gene Russianoff has lobbied for fair and adequate funding (both capital and operating) in Albany since then, you’d think that they might have actually had a clue about what they were doing in opposing the hike. I don’t think the Straphangers Campaign was hoodwinked or something. In fact, they led the battle with Assembly Member Brodsky, even as they oppose him on congestion pricing.

2) “They never said they were going to come up with $2-3 billion more per year to fund ongoing capital expenditures. They said they would come up with $300 million just once to push the fare off a few months.”

The perfect is the enemy of the good. The $300 million might have been annual funding –- not just a one-shot. Beyond that, passage of congestion pricing is now in even more danger, although some that money will go toward capital funding (though possibly for wasteful projects like the 7 line extension).

Best wishes for a happy 2008.

No, they could do anything they want to.

(Now, without the threat of fare hike, it will be harder, not easier, to find the new funding sources that Glenn correctly suggests are needed.)

There are no new funding sources. There is only higher fares, higher tolls/congestion pricing, higher taxes, and lower spending on other things — and borrowing more and letting things collapse tomorrow. The latter is the existing policy, which this small fare hike does not change.

They never said they were going to come up with $2-3 billion more per year to fund ongoing capital expenditures. They said they would come up with $300 million just once to push the fare off a few months.

By the way, Gene Russianoff and the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign also opposed this fare hike and worked closely with Assembly Member Brodsky to delay it. Was their plan also to let things “collapse tomorrow?” I somehow doubt it, since it’s been the group’s consistent position — since it first burst on the scene in 1980 or so and certainly when I worked for it — to support a fully and fairly funded capital plan.

The bottom line: Spitzer and Bloomberg (and the MTA itself) deserve the blame for an unwise fare hike that didn’t solve the MTA’s long-term funding. That was the Pataki-Giuliani-
Conway-Kalikow (we could throw Dinkins in there, and Cuomo at times, though he did ok after 1986) approach. It apparently also is the Spitzer-Bloomberg-Sander approach.

For the first time in decades — and I believe I speak with a bit of knowledge on this, having fought fare hikes on the ground several times between 1985-2005 (for NYPIRG’s Straphangers Campaign, for TWU Local 100 and as a columnist for amNY) — the legislature actually was involved and ready to fight for more money to prevent a hike. (A hike that was, by the way, not actually necessary this moment, as a review of the MTA’s finances has shown.)

In the past, a handful of legislators would join in a leafleting event or show up at the board and blabber on for a couple of minutes. There was never the kind of commitment shown here by Brodsky, Silver and even Bruno. It was unprecedented and, I believe, real.

Would they have come through? I think they would have, but we won’t know now. It sure would have been hard for the legislature to have ducked their commitment to find more money if they had succeeded in delaying the hike, don’t you think?

Beyond that, though, the MTA blew a great opportunity to figure out how to get more money from the city (other than for the misguided 7 line expansion) and from other players. And also to balance the burden so that riders aren’t always tapped first, rather than with other key parties.

Now, without the threat of fare hike, it will be harder, not easier, to find the new funding sources that Glenn correctly suggests are needed.

Well, Bloomberg just came out in favor of more sacrifice in the short run in order to stop going deeper and deeper into debt to pay for ongoing normal replacement.

I expect he anticipates having the new, more responsible policy take effect in 2010 after they finished borrowing massively for the current MTA Capital Plan — and he leaves office. At least he proposed that someone should have to pay today, rather than just letting things collapse tomorrow (the Brodsky/Silver/Bruno/Weiner/Pataki plan).

In the meantime, everyone should use this as an excuse to bug their employers to get Transitchek as soon as possible. It will more than offset the increase to the Monthly card