Can any political party credibly claim to represent New York City transit riders in next Tuesday’s elections?

Well, we can safely rule out the GOP and any party that gives its ballot line to Carl Paladino.

Then there are the New York City Democrats, who have, if anything, been an even bigger obstruction to transit funding than Republicans the past few years, having stymied both congestion pricing and bridge tolls. Current standard-bearer Andrew Cuomo has done nothing to distinguish himself on transit in his policy platforms or his debate performance.

What about the labor-backed Working Families Party? The WFP is the most influential third party in New York right now (some might say the most influential party, period), using its coveted electoral ground game and ballot line, which Cuomo will benefit from on Tuesday, to advance its platform.

In this promo for the WFP, celebrity spokesperson Matt Damon holds up a MetroCard to symbolize how the party will stand up for working New Yorkers. Sorry Matt, but the WFP is a pretender on transit policy too. In theory, the WFP platform includes support for transit, but in practice, the party hasn’t delivered for riders. Silent on congestion pricing and a non-factor during the bridge toll debate of 2009, the WFP has done little besides shield lawmakers from accountability for allowing the recent rash of service cuts and fare hikes to unfold.

The WFP is trying to claim a mantle that it just doesn’t deserve.

WFP chair Dan Cantor. Photo: City Hall

"Our plan at this point is to push on all three," he said, meaning the MTA, Mayor Bloomberg, and Albany. Next on their list, he indicated, is Bloomberg, "the one in a position to make things move at the moment." He later mentioned Governor Paterson by name as well.

Flushing out the mayor is all well and good. And New York is better off if the governor withdraws his proposal to fund transit by shifting the tax burden to the city. But while Collinsworth said the WFP wants to "get legislators to admit" that we need a more comprehensive solution, he never named the most powerful person in New York state -- Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. He never raised the prospect of targeting State Senate obstructionists like Carl Kruger and Pedro Espada.

By now, it should be abundantly clear that we're looking at a funding shortfall which the MTA Board can't fix without making life miserable for transit riders. An advocacy strategy that deflects attention from Albany insulates those with real power from the public pressure they should be forced to reckon with.

Last fall, the party's candidates emerged victorious from crowded fields in two citywide elections, and several more gained seats in the City Council. The WFP website claims that "Democratic weakness and bowing to corporate interests is why the Working Families Party exists." When it comes to transportation policy and our Democratic legislators' penchant for dodging progressive reforms, however, the WFP hasn't been much of a spine-stiffener.

The WFP was a non-entity in the public debate when congestion pricing came up in Albany in 2008, and again last year when bridge tolls needed just a few more votes to clear the State Senate. Even though we know that funding transit with road pricing can now help save working families in New York $2,300 per year, the same pattern holds true today.

"We're still taking the temperature of the viability of the different funding options out there," said Collinsworth. "I can't say that there's one that we favor."

Photo: Brad Aaron.

Expanded Public Transportation through Bus Rapid Transit

Due to a mass transportation system that leaves many City neighborhoods without access to fast, reliable service, today 750,000 New Yorkers travel over an hour to work (with two thirds of them on their way to jobs that pay less than $35,000). Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) dedicates lanes on existing streets and coordinates traffic lights to provide high-speed bus service to underserved neighborhoods -- a far cheaper and quicker alternative to building new subway lines. Will you support the following actions to expand the City's BRT network:

Calling on NYDOT to increase dedicated lane space, create the necessary bus stops, and plan for other capital improvements necessary to BRT expansion?

Passing a resolution in support of State legislation to install enforcement cameras on City streets?

Setting aside dedicated lanes is probably the toughest political lift for effective BRT implementation. Optimally, on a one-way corridor like First Avenue, two traffic lanes plus some portion of the parking lane would transfer from car traffic and storage to BRT service and stations. Meanwhile, enforcement cameras -- a necessity for BRT corridors that lack physical separation -- have already met stiff resistance from Assembly transportation chair David Gantt.

The party's other transit planks don't set the bar very high. (Candidates are asked to support "broad-based revenues" for the MTA -- a demand that, like Albany's latest transit-funding package, lets car commuters off the hook.) With the second phase of the city's BRT roll-out gaining steam, and federal funding for future corridors looking likely, it helps to have the Working Families Party line up behind BRT as an electoral issue. To speed all trips for bus riders, it would help even more to have a strong political advocate for fees on driving.

Yesterday's rally in Union Square drew hundreds of transit riders calling on the State Senate and Albany leaders to enact a long-term solution for the MTA's enormous funding shortfall. Judging by the cheering sections in the audience, most of the crowd was mobilized by the Facebook group "1,000,000 People Against the NYC MTA Fare Hike" and Transportation Alternatives. The Working Families Party, the event sponsor with the most political muscle, sent one representative but no speaker or even a display table for gathering signatures.

With state leaders sending signals that they're ready to accept another stopgap transit plan, the rally was an occasion to remind Malcolm Smith and company that the merits of transportation policy matter. "Albany has been missing in action for almost a decade," Elena Conte of COMMUTE told the crowd, calling out the Senate Majority Leader for making a junket to Puerto Rico in the midst of the MTA crisis. "Show up and do your job so the people of this city can get to theirs."

As Conte and other speakers emphasized, the New Yorkers who have the most to lose from doomsday fare hikes and service cuts are those who can least afford it. "Where I live, we're not talking inconvenience, we're talking survival," said Carl Van Putten, 76, a resident of Hunts Point, where the Bx4 bus line is slated for elimination.

Repeating a theme sounded by Mayor Bloomberg, teachers union head Randi Weingarten, and Kathy Wylde of the Partnership for NYC in a joint letter sent to Albany the same day, TA director Paul Steely White said it's time for the State Senate to buck up. "There is no politically expedient way out of this crisis," he said. "It's time our leaders started making the hard decisions needed to keep 8.5 million straphangers moving."

WFP director Dan Cantor (center) at a "Halt the Hike" rally last week. Photo: Working Families Party.

If there was any doubt before, now it should be clear: The latest transit rescue package proposed by Malcolm Smith is too skimpy to get the job done. By refusing to ask car commuters to shoulder any of the burden, the plan Smith put forward would merely postpone the day of reckoning for straphangers.

Tomorrow the State Senate is expected to vote on that plan, or some variation on it. For months obstructionist senators have excused their own inaction by pointing fingers at the MTA for what they deem a lack of transparency. But now the Senate might pass a transit funding package without holding any public hearings whatsoever. How opaque is that? The utter lack of transparency or discussion about this latest plan should be enough to preclude any votes from senators looking to burnish their good government cred.

The new budget numbers also set the stage for tomorrow's big rally in Union Square, where the Working Families Party and transportation advocates will gather to protest the doomsday fare hike and service cuts. The Senate's proposal is a band-aid that won't deliver what this coalition demands: a long-term, sustainable revenue stream that will protect straphangers from paying more for a deteriorating transit system. A real remedy, like the Ravitch plan, needs a united front behind it in order to regain momentum. This rally must be a galvanizing moment, and the person best positioned to deliver is Dan Cantor, head of the labor-backed Working Families Party.

Here's a chance for the Working Families Party to make a strong push for a robust transit plan. A plan that will put the city's subway and bus systems on sound footing. A plan that will spare working New Yorkers from worse fare hikes and deteriorating service.

Car commuters are one constituency asked to sacrifice next to nothing in the Senate's latest proposal, even though the average income of the city's car owners more than doubles that of the transit-riding, car-free majority. The official position of the Working Families Party is that the MTA funding plan should be "based on the Ravitch principles." Coming out with a more forceful position at tomorrow's rally -- like a full-fledged endorsement of the Ravitch plan itself, including bridge tolls -- could change the terms of the debate.

WFP director Dan Cantor. Photo: Drum Major Institute.

That's not the case at all. We don't have a specific position on tolls per se -- but we're for bailing out the MTA whatever it takes. If it's got to be tolls, fine. Vehicle registration fees? Fine. Gas tax? Fine. Payroll tax, you get the picture. The important thing, from our view, is that they find a way to halt the hike.

The real reason we're ramping up? Now that the budget is over, we finally have time to breathe.

Behind the scenes, he said, the party has been more active:

We were working Senate Democrats to support the Silver/Ravitch plan best we could given that we had another huge ask in front of them at the same time -- raising taxes on rich people so as to prevent devastating cuts to hospitals, classrooms, homeless shelters, etc.

Because of that effort, the WFP is widely viewed as a driving force behind the state budget currently inching closer to completion. But arguably, there's no more important pocketbook issue facing a broader swath of New York City working families than fare hikes. Not to mention the dire consequences of leaving millions to rely on an underfunded, declining transit system.

For two years running now, the WFP has been a no-show in public during a critical debate to fund transit, first via congestion pricing and then via the Ravitch Plan. The headlines this morning highlighted one of the problems with playing catch-up this time around: Once a few renegade New York City Dems pulled the string on Ravitch, the whole thing began to unravel. How might this story have unfolded differently if the WFP had gotten out in front of the issue and thrown more of its considerable weight behind the plan?

Millions of New York City bus riders are counting on an MTA rescue plan to maintain service and hold fares down.

A plan to save transit service and spare New Yorkers the burden of drastically higher fares would seem to match the Working Families Party agenda perfectly. The party has a public transportation plank, and has touted a halt the hike website in tandem with the Straphangers Campaign when higher fares loom. The car commuters who would pay bridge tolls earn far more, on average, than the transit riding majority. But on the question of the Ravitch Plan, the party has been mum in public.

"We haven’t taken a pro position on the Ravitch Plan itself," said WFP spokesman Dan Levitan. "We haven’t had the bandwidth to do a public campaign around this, since we've been fighting so hard on the general budget. We've been trying to defend the Silver/Paterson [transit funding] compromise in the Senate."

In the last election, three of the key players in the Senate hold-out were endorsed by the party: Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, Fare Hike Four member Hiram Monserrate (indicted on six counts today for assaulting his girlfriend), and Kevin Parker, a bridge toll opponent whose Brooklyn constituents face a slew of service cuts [PDF]. Will the Working Families Party ballot line still be available to these legislators if doomsday comes to pass?