Automated traffic enforcement cameras and lockboxes to protect transit funding are at the top of the legislative agenda for transportation advocates in 2012. Image: Wikipedia.

Many of Albany’s biggest transportation issues this year — the bloated and transit-free Tappan Zee, the unfunded MTA capital plan — will be decided by Governor Cuomo. But transportation advocates also have a slate of bills they hope to see make it through the legislature. Last year, the complete streets bill passed after a few prior attempts. Here’s what’s on the table for 2012.

Transit Lockboxes

Last year, lockbox legislation sponsored by Assembly Member James Brennan and Senator Marty Golden passed the legislature unanimously, only to have Governor Cuomo “eviscerate” the bill by amendment. The sponsors have vowed to try for the original language again.

The politics of the lockbox could be different this year if downstate legislators team up with their colleagues upstate. Buffalo Republican Mark Grisanti has introduced his own lockbox meant to protect dedicated funds for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority. He is amenable to working with those hoping to protect the MTA. “If we can get the upstate folks talking about a lockbox bill in the same breath as the MTA, then maybe that sends a louder message to the governor,” said Nadine Lemmon, Albany legislative advocate for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

Speed Cameras

Assembly Member Deborah Glick’s legislation to allow speed enforcement using automated cameras hasn’t gone anywhere in the past, but advocates have declared it a top priority for this year. “It’s speed cams all the time when it comes to Albany,” said Juan Martinez, general counsel for Transportation Alternatives.

The bill has support not only from transportation advocacy groups, but the New York City DOT and public health organizations. “There is a good coalition that’s gotten around it,” said Lemmon. That said, the bill still doesn’t have a Senate sponsor, an indication of how much work is left to be done.

Red Light Cameras

Three bills to increase the number of red light cameras permitted by the state, one each for New York City, Nassau County and Suffolk County, passed the Senate last year only to die in the Assembly transportation committee. Assembly transportation chair David Gantt has a history of blocking bills that would allow localities to implement life-saving traffic technology.

The red light camera bills didn’t have sufficient outside support last year, said Lemmon, who expects more action on the issue in 2012. If necessary, she said, the bills’ Assembly sponsors might be willing to use a parliamentary procedure to force a vote in committee. In the Senate, the bills are sponsored by Marty Golden, Chuck Fuschillo and Owen Johnson, respectively.

Transit Commuter Tax Benefit

The federal government may have let the tax benefit for transit fall to $125 per month while raising the parking perk to $240, but that doesn’t mean New York State has to. Senator Chuck Fuschillo’s legislation would reinstate the full benefit for state taxes. The benefit reduction doesn’t matter much for New York City residents — even now, the tax benefit covers a monthly MetroCard — but for those commuting into Manhattan on the LIRR or Metro-North, it’s a major incentive to take transit.

Fuschillo’s bill passed the Senate but died in the Assembly last year. Though it previously didn’t have outside advocates behind it, that will change in 2012.

Commercial Cyclist Responsibility

It seems that almost every community board in Manhattan has complained about unsafe riding by working cyclists. In order to effectively and equitably improve commercial cyclist behavior, Transportation Alternatives is lobbying for a bill sponsored by Senator Liz Krueger and Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh.

The legislation would place responsibility for traffic violations by working cyclists on their employers. “It’s the business owner who is in the best position to guide the cyclists’ behavior,” explained Martinez. “In order to make those deliveries, they feel they have to ride the wrong way or ride on the sidewalk.” On construction sites, Martinez said, employers receive violations for workers who don’t wear hard hats; he said the principle should be the same for cyclists.

Transportation Alternatives’ push for the bill comes as City Council Member James Vacca is launching his own campaign to regulate commercial cyclists. Under Vacca’s proposal, police would step up enforcement of existing rules and working cyclists would be required to take a new bicycle safety course.

Curbside Bus Regulation

The curbside bus industry is booming, to say the least. In 2007, 4.2 million people rode MegaBus, Fung Wah and other curbside buses along the Northeast Corridor, compared to zero a decade before, and the number of riders continues to grow rapidly. That means it’s easier to travel the East Coast in a way that’s both affordable and sustainable, but it’s also created significant pressures on the neighborhoods in which the buses load and unload, where passengers and luggage cramp the sidewalks.

A bill sponsored by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Senator Dan Squadron would, for the first time, allow the city to regulate how curbside buses work. In theory, the city would be able to shift curbside operations toward streets with more room, or to locations that otherwise fit the city’s transportation vision. Legislation along these lines was proposed by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign in a 2009 report on improving regional bus service.

The bill doesn’t allow for a situation like that in Washington, D.C., however, where the city attempted to charge bus companies an $80,000 annual fee, which the industry said would result in higher fares. Under Silver’s law, the maximum annual fee for a permit is $275.

Last year, the Assembly passed the bill but it died in the Senate. With Silver’s name at the top, its future likely depends on his willingness to wheel and deal with the Senate.

Joe Lhota was confirmed as MTA chairman by the New York State Senate this afternoon. Image: MTA.

This afternoon, Joe Lhota was confirmed as the new chairman of the MTA. Hearings held earlier today provided a glimpse into the kind of leadership New York transit riders can expect from Lhota. The new chairman defended the MTA from the most strident attacks of anti-transit state senators. When it came to the question of properly funding the transit system, however, Lhota chose to protect the Cuomo administration’s political interests, not transit riders.

The strongest accusations of MTA mismanagement came from Long Island Republican Lee Zeldin, who has also led the fight to repeal the payroll mobility tax. In successive questions, Zeldin raised the issues of overtime abuse, pension abuse and overspending on consultants, among others. Each time, Lhota explained that the worst excesses had already been curbed under previous MTA leadership. Finally, Zeldin closed by wishing “for there to be accountability for the taxpayer dollars so there isn’t a need to use taxpayer dollars at all.”

Lhota didn’t let that stand. “There is no way the MTA can operate without taxpayer dollars,” he interjected. “The entire operation of the MTA cannot be paid for from the riders. It was never envisioned that way.” It’s comforting, at least, to know that the head of the MTA will stand up for the concept of public support for transit.

That doesn’t mean that Lhota at any point articulated the need for additional revenues for transit, however. In an effort to make the case for more transit funding, Senator Dan Squadron, who represents parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, asked Lhota how borrowing roughly $7 billion to pay for the last three years of the MTA’s capital plan would eventually affect riders. Lhota fell back on budget-speak to deny that the borrowing would put still more pressure on the fare. “There is to my knowledge no plan to have fare-backed bonds,” he said. However, both State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and transit advocates have sounded the alarm about depending on borrowing to pay for needed repairs and construction.

Similarly, when Bronx Senator Rubén Díaz, Sr. pressed Lhota about whether he’d support tolls on the East River Bridges, Cuomo’s nominee did not mention the MTA’s struggling finances. Said Lhota, “If it’s what the city wants to do and it’s approved and it’s what the state legislature wants to do, I’m the guy who will get it done efficiently and effectively.” Opining on bridge tolls might be outside the MTA chairman’s job description, but Lhota could easily have noted that the transit system needs the money.

Besides Squadron, the other senator to make an appeal for additional transit funding was Brooklyn’s Eric Adams. “If we want to get New Yorkers out of cars, then we need a first-class transportation system,” he said. “Albany has not done enough.” Adams also urged Lhota to add better bike parking at subway stations, saying that he sometimes bikes to the train himself.

Half a world away from Albany, Jay Walder has more to smile about.

Speaking at a press conference in Hong Kong, where he just started his new job as chief executive of the privately-owned Mass Transit Railway Corporation, Walder said: “New York, when I arrived there, was in a financial crisis. The system simply did not have enough money to continue to operate. The assets were not being renewed. And the infrastructure was in terrible condition.”

Walder’s understated comments were picked up by the Times and the Wall Street Journal, among others, but nowhere have we seen anyone point out how little power the head of the MTA actually wields over agency funding. Nor did any reporter or editor take Walder’s cue to highlight years of Albany malfeasance.

To read the Times piece, for example, you’d think the MTA is an autonomous operation, free to conduct business without political interference. There is a passing reference to Governor Cuomo’s gutting of $320 million in annual payroll tax revenue, but no mention of last year’s $100 million Albany raid on dedicated MTA funds. Forgotten is how state senators used congestion pricing as a litmus test for Walder’s confirmation. With Albany unwilling to enact a new revenue stream via road pricing, it fell to Walder to cut spending.

Most glaringly, absent is an accounting of the decades of lawmaker thievery and neglect that preceded Walder and Cuomo, though those misdeeds more than anything will saddle transit riders for years to come, in the form of decreased service, fare hikes, or both. Other than raising fares or selling off assets, the chair of the MTA has very little revenue-raising clout. For whatever reason this factoid never seems to make the papers.

As for Walder, you get the distinct sense that there is no looking back.

“I think we have a very different situation here,” Walder said. “We have a first-class railway. We have a sustainable financial model that is supporting that railway. And I think the people of Hong Kong are benefiting tremendously from what we have.

“I don’t think it’s the same situation as what you have in New York.”

RPP is intended to curb traffic by designating street parking for local residents. On Wednesday the council’s State and Federal Legislation Committee passed a home rule resolution supported by council members who say their neighborhoods are being used as parking lots for out-of-area commuters and sports fans.

While support in the City Council is strong, passage of the Albany bills, introduced by Senator Daniel Squadron and Assembly Member Joan Millman, is not assured. The Bloomberg administration, which introduced its own RPP plan three years ago, has expressed limited interest in the concept. Meanwhile, legislators including Republican senators Marty Golden and Andrew Lanza have said they will work to kill the bill. Even if the legislation clears both houses in Albany, the city would still have to devise and pass a program.

A Court of Appeals decision in a separate case resulted in a reduced charge for the man who killed Karen Schmeer, and will make it more difficult for other victims of traffic crime to find justice. Photo: Garret Savage

On the evening of January 29, 2010, McKie was behind the wheel of a Dodge racing north on Broadway after he and two other men, also in the car, shoplifted over-the-counter cold medication from an Upper West Side pharmacy. Schmeer was on her way home when McKie struck her as she attempted to cross Broadway at 90th Street. She was 39.

McKie was initially charged with murder, but in July prosecutors from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance allowed him to plead to manslaughter. On September 7 he was sentenced to five to 15 years. Vance’s office reportedly backed off the murder charge in light of a recent decision by the Court of Appeals — the state’s highest court — that reversed a conviction in a similar case.

In October 2004, according to court documents [PDF], Michael Edward Prindle led police on a high-speed chase through Rochester after he and another man were caught trying to steal two snow plows. Prindle, who was driving, subsequently rammed another vehicle, killing a passenger. Prindle was convicted of murder, but last February the Court of Appeals overturned the verdict.

From the Prindle ruling:

[W]e conclude that the evidence adduced at trial does not support the jury’s conclusion that defendant evinced a depraved indifference to human life … Here, at most, the evidence adduced was legally sufficient to support a finding of reckless manslaughter.

“The assessment of the effect of Prindle by the Manhattan district attorney’s office is regrettably correct,” says Maureen McCormick, Nassau County ADA and traffic justice trailblazer. “The Court of Appeals decisions in recent years appear to be systematically decriminalizing vehicular cases. Oddly it comes as the legislature — ever so slowly — is attempting to better define and prioritize these cases, at least to a degree.”

The ramifications are significant, as the Prindle decision is one of several to demonstrate bias against cases in which crimes are committed with cars. Last week, the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division upheld the murder conviction of Martin Heidgen, the drunk motorist who in 2005 killed limousine driver Stanley Rabinowitz and 7-year-old Katie Flynn as Flynn’s family returned home from a Long Island wedding. The case made national headlines due the gruesome nature of the crash, the unquestionable innocence of its young victim, and the vigor with which McCormick’s boss, Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice, pursued it. But with Heidgen’s legal team set to mount another challenge in the Court of Appeals, the ultimate outcome is in doubt.

To give prosecutors a better shot at getting justice for victims like Karen Schmeer, McCormick says it’s up to Albany to correct loopholes in state traffic law — as the Court of Appeals itself has suggested. “In a common law society it is incumbent that the legislature reacts swiftly to decisions that do not represent the intent or spirit of the legislation that the Court purports to interpret. That does not really happen here with the speed necessary to be effective.”

“Much needs to change,” adds McCormick. “We keep working toward that change.”

Assembly Member James Brennan wants the state government to force more parking into Atlantic Yards. Image: NYS Assembly.

Brennan is working on legislation that would force Forest City Ratner to build more off-street parking at the Atlantic Yards site, as was first reported in the Park Slope Patch. Currently, an 1,100 parking space surface lot is slated for the site.

Tonice Sgrignoli, a legislative aide for Brennan, said the legislation is still being researched and no details are available at this point. According to Sgrignoli, ESDC eliminated a requirement to build underground off-street parking that had been in an earlier agreement with Forest City Ratner and this legislation would likely undo that change.

When Streetsblog asked why Brennan thought that Atlantic Yards should have more parking in the first place, Sgrignoli replied that “Anyone who’s ever tried to drive a car and park it in that area will understand why it’s important to provide parking.”

Hopefully, Brennan himself has a more sophisticated understanding of parking policy. As former Boerum Hill Association president Jo Ann Simon said, no conceivable amount of off-street parking is going to free up on-street spaces so long as they are cheaper than going to a garage and available to anybody. “If people drive there, they will always try and find something free on the street,” she said. What happens on-street — many in the area, including Simon, have long pushed for residential parking permits — Simon said, “is entirely irrelevant to whether there should be more off-street parking to serve the arena.”

Simon’s argument is borne out by the reality at Yankee Stadium. There, despite a whopping 9,000 off-street spaces, area residents still complain that on-street parking is impossible on game day, according to a Crain’s report.

Moreover, building extra parking will simply mean that more people are able to drive to the area instead. “Brennan’s proposal to compel more off-street parking in one of New York City’s most transit-accessible locations betrays a terrible lack of understanding regarding transportation and mobility,” said University of Pennsylvania parking expert Rachel Weinberger. “His idea will invite more traffic through his district, more traffic in adjoining districts, and by requiring all of that parking, other development is preempted.”

Agreed Simon, “You induce drivers if there is parking there.”

Steven Higashide of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, which has analyzed the plans for Atlantic Yards and is a member of the Brooklyn Speaks coalition, said that underground parking had been a part of the Atlantic Yards plans, but was removed when the amount of development planned was scaled back.

“The only way Atlantic Yards can become part of a vibrant urban fabric is if the city and developer work to reduce driving to the site,” said Higashide. “Providing hundreds or thousands of extra parking spaces won’t do that.”

Under a bill passed by the state legislature, law enforcement can now pull you over for distracted driving. The penalties will be weaker than under a proposal by Gov. Cuomo. Image: OregonDOT via Flickr.

Legislation beefing up the state’s distracted driving laws passed the state legislature at the end of what was a fairly productive session on transportation issues last month. If signed into law, the bill should help prevent some of the 10,000 crashes caused by distracted driving each year in New York state. What passed the legislature is slightly weaker, however, than the distracted driving bill put forward by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Right now, the state’s distracted driving laws are weakened by the fact that texting or using other handheld electronic devices while driving is only a secondary offense. Law enforcement can only issue a ticket for it if they’ve pulled over the driver for another offense. Under both the legislative version of the bill, sponsored by Senator Carl Marcellino and Assembly Member Harvey Weisenberg, and Cuomo’s version, distracted driving would be made a primary offense.

New York is one of only four states that ban distracted driving but do not make it a primary offense.

Also under both pieces of legislation, lessons on the dangers of distraction would be added to driver’s education courses.

The fundamental similarities of the two bills suggest that Cuomo might sign the legislation. “We know that he wants texting laws to be stronger,” said Kathy Wilson, a spokesperson for Marcellino.

Cuomo’s legislation, however, was slightly tougher than what passed the legislature. “It’s not as stringent,” admitted Wilson. The biggest difference between the two, she said, was that Cuomo’s bill would increase the number of points added to a distracted driver’s license from two to three, while the legislature’s version would not.

“The Governor and the Legislature’s versions of the distracted driving law make the current law enforceable,” said Transportation Alternatives’ Lindsey Lusher Shute. “Governor Cuomo’s version of the distracted driving bill is undoubtably stronger and is likely to be more effective at getting bad drivers off the road over the long term. Points, being a highly effective deterrent, are appropriate and necessary tool to solving the growing problem of distracted driving in New York State.”

The state legislature earned a solid B on sustainable transportation issues this term, according to a report card issued Wednesday by the New York League of Conservation Voters. Legislators earned top marks for passing complete streets legislation and a transit funding lockbox, but were penalized for their continued attacks on the MTA’s budget.

Transportation was one of four issue areas covered by the NYLCV scorecard, which can be read in full above. Since the group can endorse candidates for elected office, while no New York group focused solely on transportation can, their prioritization of these issues adds political heft to transportation advocacy efforts.

The NYLCV grade is based on four goals. The group wanted the legislature to stop stealing dedicated funds from transit riders, pass lockbox legislation to make future raids more difficult, protect the payroll mobility tax, and pass complete streets legislation.

For passing the lockbox and the complete streets bills, legislators earned an A. The State Senate brought down the legislature’s score by voting to phase out the payroll tax; because that proposal went nowhere in the Assembly, overall the legislature earned a C on that issue. For taking another $100 million from the MTA for use elsewhere in the budget, Albany earned a D.

A few of NYLCV’s priorities from earlier this year didn’t make it into the final scorecard. Notably, a Cuomo campaign plan to create a smart growth competitive grant program and a call for finding new revenue to pay for the MTA’s unfunded capital plan were both included in the group’s January policy agenda, but were not scored in Wednesday’s document. The year is only halfway through, of course.

It is striking that, when it comes to Albany and transit legislation, sustainable transportation advocates are forced to stay on the defensive. The two transit-related provisions were only about protecting what is already supposed to go to transit riders, and Albany couldn’t even pull that off in full. In 2010, the NYLCV candidate questionnaire avoided asking about transit funding entirely, on the grounds that there just wasn’t any hope of forward progress. That dynamic will have to change fast; the MTA’s capital program will be largely unfunded as of the end of the year.

As the Tri-State Transportation Campaign points out on its blog, Cuomo’s signature is still needed to turn the complete streets and lockbox bills — as well as important legislation like the city’s livery taxi plan and a bill enabling cities to set up land banks to deal with vacant and abandoned properties — into law. All eyes now turn to the governor’s mansion.

The East River Greenway currently ends a few blocks south of the United Nations. Under a complicated land swap that is moving closer to completion, the city would be able to eventually connect the greenway through Midtown. Photo: Amy Zimmer/DNAinfo

The State Legislature took another step forward in the long and arduous process of filling the Midtown gap in the East River Greenway two weeks ago. By passing a law that would allow a swap of land between the city and the United Nations to move forward, DNAinfo reported yesterday, Albany cleared the way for a deal to be negotiated.

Under the terms of the arrangement reported by DNAinfo’s Amy Zimmer, the city would give part of the Robert Moses Playground, located just south of the UN headquarters, to the UN, which would build a new office tower there. In return, replacement park space would be added elsewhere and a segment of the greenway could be built between the UN and the water.

The deal would also allow the city to sell two buildings it currently leases to UN-related tenants and use that money to pay for the greenway connector. Though the Parks Department says the greenway will have a functional, no-frills design, the cost is still estimated to reach $150 million.

If it comes together, the deal would lead to the creation of a north-south trunk on the East Side that would provide a continuous, safe route for biking and walking. On the West Side, the Hudson River Greenway is now the busiest bike path in the country and the cycling backbone for all of Manhattan. It currently attracts cyclists from the East Side who go out of their way for the safety of biking apart from city traffic.

The general outline of the deal has the support of the Bloomberg Administration, as well as State Senator Liz Krueger, Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, City Council Member Daniel Garodnick, and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. The empowering bill still needs to be signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo to become law.

The Albany legislation includes a sunset provision. If the UN and the city don’t ink a memorandum of understanding by mid-October, the legislation will expire.

Assuming that a deal is worked out — the momentum seems to be building in that direction, but there are a lot of moving parts — a completed East River Greenway would still be many years away. A feasibility study requested by the city in April, for example, would take two years alone.

Under a plan passed by the State Legislature last Friday, it would become legal to hail certain livery vehicles from the street outside the Manhattan core. Image: James Adams for the Daily News.

Legislation passed by the State Senate last Friday night could clear the way for Mayor Michael Bloomberg to completely revamp taxi service in large swaths of the city through the introduction of a new class of vehicle authorized to pick up street hails only outside the Manhattan core. The improved service should make it easier to live car-free in the majority of New York City. It also would provide a small source of revenue to the MTA.

Under the plan, the city can issue 30,000 new permits to livery cabs, each of which will allow the holder to pick up street hails. In exchange, the permit holders will pay a $1,500 fee and submit to a slew of regulations intended to make the new class of livery vehicles more like yellow cabs.

Those regulations should be a boon to many riders: a uniform paint scheme and taxi lights so that the taxis can be identified without honking, a meter and rate card to eliminate the need to haggle over the price of a trip, credit card machines to enable more payment methods, and GPS tracking.

As taxis often serve as complements to public transit — especially true in outer-borough neighborhoods where many people live outside of walking distance to a subway station — improving their utility can advance progressive transportation policy. Taxis are already a major component of the city’s transportation system, with yellow cabs alone moving over 600,000 people a day.

So that the new borough taxis don’t simply join yellow cabs in the profitable center of Manhattan — 97 percent of yellow cab trips start there or at an airport, according to GPS data — their permits would only be valid for the other four boroughs and above E. 96th Street and W. 110th Street.

The plan was passed through the state legislature in an end-run around the yellow taxi industry’s decades-long sway over the City Council. In the Assembly, it passed by a wide margin of 110-28; the idea to take the vote to Albany instead of the council came from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in addition to Bloomberg, according to the New York Times. In the Senate, the plan passed by 40-21, with a strange coalition of support that divided Democrats, Republicans, the New York City delegation, and the upstate delegation.

The bill still requires the signature of Governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo has yet to take a position on the plan, and as the Times’ Michael Grynbaum has reported, his father, former Governor Mario Cuomo, has close ties to the yellow cab industry.

Financially, this bill is an enormous boon to the city, with a small amount thrown in for transit riders. In addition to the $1,500 fee on each of the 30,000 new street hail permits, the plan allows the city to auction off another 1,500 yellow cab medallions for an expected return of around $1 billion.

At the same time, the 50-cent taxi ride surcharge passed as part of the 2009 MTA rescue package will apply to the new outer borough street hail rides as well. That surcharge raises around $41 million a year from the trips made by the more than 13,000 yellow cabs, according to Crain’s. In a scenario where 30,000 new vehicles are generating surcharges, the new livery system could raise twice that (though if the outer borough taxis make fewer trips per day or aren’t fully subscribed, those ambitions won’t be realized). Considering that last year’s service cuts saved only $77.6 million each year, that’s a significant revenue stream.

That said, it’s a revenue stream that could potentially cost more than it helps. Reports Crain’s: “By creating a new, dedicated revenue source for the MTA, Republican senators will strengthen their hand next year when they renew their push to repeal the payroll mobility tax, another MTA revenue source that has been criticized as unfair to suburbanites.” The payroll tax brings in $1.5 billion for the MTA, making any new taxi surcharges small change in comparison.

With the MTA in search of $10 billion in new revenue for its capital plan, moreover, the surcharge isn’t enough to forestall what could be major fare hikes or disastrous deferred maintenance.

The lockbox already passed the State Senate, where it was sponsored by Brooklyn Republican Marty Golden, and the powerful Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver announced his support for the bill last night.

The bill should be on the Ways and Means Committee agenda this morning, said Lorrie Smith, the legislative director for lockbox sponsor James Brennan. “If Silver’s supporting it, then it should be on that agenda,” said Smith. The Ways and Means agenda has not been released yet, however. “We’re in kind of a holding pattern since late last evening,” Smith said.

There is still room on the calendar to pass the lockbox, said Smith, even as the time remaining in the session continues to tick away. If Assembly Republicans do decide to delay the bill with a fight over the payroll tax, as Silver’s office was worried about last night, however, that could complicate matters. “If that were to come about, it would be a problem,” admitted Smith.

“We have to hope that Senator Golden will ask them to let this go through,” said Smith. Streetsblog has a call in with Golden’s office to see if he’s communicated the importance of the lockbox legislation to his Republican colleagues in the Assembly.

Whyland said that the only thing standing in the way of the Assembly passing the measure could be time constraints, as tonight is supposed to be the last of the session. “The one thing that could jeopardize it would be attempts by suburban Republicans to attach amendments about the MTA payroll tax. That’s a non-starter,” said Whyland. While those attempts could be beaten back, he said, it would take extra time to do so. If a delay happens, the lockbox bill could be abandoned in order to make time for legislation that is a higher priority for the Democratic caucus, such as rent regulation.

The State Senate voted for the lockbox yesterday, so an Assembly vote would send it to the governor’s desk.

We’ll have more on this story as it develops.

Since 2009, Albany has stolen $260 million in dedicated funds from the MTA in order to patch up the state’s budget.

James Brennan, the sponsor for the bill in the Assembly, is working to get it on the Ways and Means Committee agenda for tonight, said his legislative director, Lorrie Smith. The session will continue tomorrow, so the bill could also pass the Assembly then. Especially at this point in the session, the future of the bill is in the hands of Speaker Sheldon Silver, who will decide whether it comes to a vote.

The Assembly version of the lockbox bill currently has 39 sponsors and is backed by an unusually broad coalition of labor, business groups, and transportation advocates.

New York City Democrats Carl Kruger (yes, he still votes) and Malcolm Smith both reversed their 2009 support for transit funding that their constituents rely on -- the payroll mobility tax -- in last night's vote.

Under the bill, sponsored by Long Island Senator Lee Zeldin and Majority Leader Dean Skelos among others, small businesses and schools would first be exempted from the payroll tax. By 2014, the seven suburban counties of the MTA region would be exempt while the New York City payroll tax would be cut by more than a third.

In addition to every member of the Republican majority, the bill garnered the votes of eight Democrats. Every Democratic state senator from outside New York City voted to repeal the payroll tax. Shockingly, so did Queens Senator Malcolm Smith, who while majority leader in 2009 was responsible for shepherding through the Senate the MTA funding package that had the payroll tax as its centerpiece. Every Senate Democrat voted for that bill at the time, meaning the six non-freshmen Democratic nays from last night flipped their votes (here’s the roll call), whether because of a different political climate or the knowledge that this was merely a symbolic vote.

The Senate Republicans estimate that reducing the payroll tax by this much would take roughly $840 million away from the MTA each year. Their bill does include a few offsets in the form of existing revenues redirected to the MTA, which they claim would leave $375 million in total cuts to transit.

Capitol Tonight reporter Liz Benjamin, however, spoke to one source who said those offset estimates were wildly off the mark. Benjamin reports:

According to an Albany insider who crunched the numbers of this, by the time the bill is fully implemented in 2014, it would generate a budget gap for the MTA of about $800 million a year. That would be offset slightly by a statewide sales tax intercept, but the annual estimated hit to the authority is still hovering at about $768 million, this source maintains.

Even more fantastically, the Republicans are claiming that their cuts need not result in any increased fares or reduced service.

“There is absolutely no doubt that the MTA, without increasing fares or cutting services, can balance its books after this legislation is implemented,” said Zeldin in a statement. “One must question the motives and veracity of any individual or group that attempts to dispute this fact going forward.”

When Albany stole $143 million from the MTA in late 2009, of course, it led to last year’s unprecedented wave of service cuts and fare hikes. Moreover, with a $10 billion deficit in the MTA’s capital budget, enormous fare hikes or service-worsening deferred maintenance are already in transit riders’ future unless Albany acts to provide new revenue for the MTA. Question our motives all you want, but Zeldin’s claim is nothing short of delusional.

Benjamin’s source lays out what’s more likely to happen if the Senate Republicans get their way:

Well, the MTA pretty much has one major revenue generation option: Fare increases.

If the split was 50-50 between the subway system and the rails (LIRR and Metro North), fares would increase 15 percent and 30 percent, respectively, according to this source. If the MTA decided only the commuter lines should take the hit, which one could argue makes sense, since that’s what services those seven counties, fares would have to up a whopping 64 percent.

“It’s ironic that the Republican majority in the Senate would pass payroll tax relief bill that would drive a high fare increase for rails,” this source said.

Just months ago, Queens Assembly Member Michael DenDekker was reaping widespread scorn for his proposal to require every cyclist in the state, even those just off their training wheels, to obtain a license. He also floated the idea of enforcing non-existent helmet laws with the widespread use of cameras. (He eventually withdrew the bike license legislation.)

Now he’s claiming that in retaliation for his bike bills, a “rogue cyclist” vandalized his car, identifiable due to its special State Assembly license plate. In response, he’s trying to pass a state law making it a felony to damage the property of someone known to be an elected official.

Assembly Member Michael DenDekker

At a press conference today, DenDekker showed security footage from his home, which you can see above, that shows a cyclist deliberately breaking the mirror off the side of his car before riding away, allegedly the only such incident in the area that night. He theorized, though he admitted he lacked much evidence, that it was a response to his proposed anti-cyclist legislation.

All elected officials suffer such incidents as “retaliation for our positions on legislation,” he claimed, going so far as to state that the foundations of democracy were shaken when elected officials were subject to the threat of violence.

And then DenDekker went there. He compared his broken-off mirror to the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and nineteen others this January, and his assailant to a potential Jared Lee Loughner. “I believe this person is capable of doing something so violent, after you see the video,” DenDekker warned.

If his legislation isn’t passed, DenDekker warned, the consequences could be dire: He’s considering not renewing his special State Assembly license plate, reverting to the regular seven character plate next year instead. This will, of course, be a loss to everyone in his district: “We put those license plates on so that when we’re at public events, our constituents can know we’re there.”

We’re just wondering if DenDekker will ditch his parking placard, a form of ID with more tangible benefits, as well.

Assembly members Joe Lentol and Nelson Castro signed on to sponsor the transit lockbox bill after advocates made the rounds at Albany on Tuesday. Photos: NY Assembly

Efforts to protect dedicated transit funds from Albany budget raids moved forward on Tuesday as a coalition of transportation advocates went to the state capitol to lobby for transit riders. The transit lockbox bill immediately picked up five sponsors, and more seem poised to sign on.

Advocates from the Straphangers Campaign, Transportation Alternatives, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and WE ACT for Environmental Justice met with a number of legislators. The broader coalition of lockbox supporters, which includes a number of labor unions and business representatives, has lobbied for the legislation separately. So far, five new legislators — Senators Daniel Squadron, Liz Krueger, Andrew Lanza and Assembly Members Joe Lentol and Nelson Castro — have signed on as sponsors since the lobby day, according to T.A. State Policy Director Lindsey Lusher Shute, and more should join over the next week.

T.A. has set up an e-mail action to connect New Yorkers with their state representatives. Let them know their support for this bill will help protect transit riders from future service cuts and fare hikes.

With the MTA facing a capital funding shortfall nearing $10 billion, some legislators are connecting the dots between protecting the integrity of existing transit taxes and securing support for new revenue streams. “When Senator Squadron was approached he was initially concerned about the effect the lockbox bill might have on efforts to raise more funding for public transit, especially in light of the capital program needs,” said Lusher Shute. “But then, almost in unison the Senator and our team exclaimed, ‘How can we raise more money without protecting what we have?!’”

The other good news is that the Senate and Assembly versions of the legislation have been amended to be identical, “same-as” bills. “The only way a bill can pass the full legislature is by being passed with the same language in both houses as a ‘same-as,’” explained Lusher Shute. “Having a ‘same-as’ on the lock box bill means that there’s real cooperation between the houses (and in this case, parties), and that both sponsors are committed to getting the legislation passed. There are a lot of bills that pass one house to make a statement, but a ‘same-as’ bill that is being pushed in both houses is intended to make real change.”

Adriano Espaillat voted for a gas tax holiday -- which won't even help lower costs at the pump -- on the dime of the 70 percent of his constituents who don't own a car. Photo: Chu for Daily News

The New York State Senate voted for a “gas tax holiday” yesterday, moving to eliminate the three state taxes on fuel for the busy Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day weekends this year. The estimated loss of revenue would be $60 million.

The 48 state senators who voted for the gas tax holiday wanted to ensure that drivers didn’t have to pay for the environmental and social costs of their actions — a misguided enough goal — but their desperate attempt to pander wouldn’t even have been a success on those grounds.

As economists from across the political spectrum have stated, a summertime gas tax holiday wouldn’t reduce the price at the pump. Oil companies would charge the same rate and pocket the difference. The libertarian Cato Institute, no friend of taxes, called gas tax holidays a “holiday from reality” in 2008. If we really must pander to motorists, surely we can all agree that New Yorkers deserve better panderers.

Those state senators, however, are savvy politicos. They can’t deliver the goods, but they know their audience. That’s where the gas tax vote is especially revealing.

Even if a gas tax holiday worked as promised, reducing the price at the pump instead of increasing Exxon’s profit margins, it’s a sure thing where the money comes from: the state’s transportation budget. If the gas tax holiday costs $60 million, that’s $60 million in new revenues needed for the MTA and state DOT, or $60 million more in cuts to things like education. While only drivers would even theoretically benefit, everyone else would pay the price.

Voting for a gas tax holiday means you’re worried about appeasing drivers in your district and not too concerned with sending everybody else the bill. That’s probably good politics if you’re Patrick Gallivan, the Western New York senator whose district has a 96 percent car ownership rate according to Streetsblog’s analysis of Census data. More outrageous is the fact that many New York City senators seem to agree.

The worst offender is new Upper Manhattan rep Adriano Espaillat. He voted for the gas tax holiday even though 70 percent of households in his district do not own a car. He thinks all of them need to pay to keep things easier for the other, wealthier, 30 percent. Almost as galling are the yes votes from Senate Transportation Committee chair Martin Dilan (whose district is 66 percent car-free), Ruben Diaz, Sr. (63 percent car free) and Eric Adams (62 percent car-free). Adams and Bronx Senator Jeff Klein had floated a similar idea in 2008, proposing to suspend tolls on bridges and tunnels while giving drivers a “gas tax rebate.”

Now that such a shameless pander has actually come up for a vote, kudos are due to Shirley Huntley, Toby Ann Stavisky and Diane Savino, the only three senators who voted against the gas tax holiday despite having a majority car-owning district. You can see the full, short list of senators who voted against handing the oil companies extra millions in the roll call.

Luckily, there is no indication that the Republican-sponsored plan is going anywhere in the State Assembly.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver could make a slew of transportation bills move through his chamber or let them languish as in years past. Photo: Daily News

This year’s legislative session is rapidly coming to a close in Albany. With the state legislature wrapping up its regularly scheduled official business on June 20, the Capitol is entering a period of intense activity as legislators and lobbyists make a final push for their priorities.

Albany has some big items on its agenda this month: rent regulations, a property tax cap, ethics reform, and gay marriage. Somewhat below the radar, the push is on for a number of street safety and sustainable transportation priorities as well. Time is of the essence, as advocacy momentum built up over the year dissipates after the session ends. Bills that falter this time around will have to start over again after the legislature reconvenes in January.

If support gels for any of the following bills, the legislature can act extremely quickly to turn them into law. That’s especially true in the Assembly, where Speaker Sheldon Silver controls a large majority and where most of this legislation is currently stalled or has died in past sessions.

Complete Streets

Complete streets legislation would require planners to consider the needs of all road users when designing a road receiving state and federal funding. Last year, it passed the State Senate but stalled out in the Assembly.

After talking with the legislation’s opponents, complete streets supporters made some revisions to the language, and an updated version of the bill is headed to the Senate Transportation Committee today, said Nadine Lemmon, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s Albany legislative advocate. As now written, the complete streets bill would cover the large set of projects that already need to conduct extensive reviews as part of the federal approval process, which involves filling out thick binders of paperwork. “We’re targeting projects that already have to do a lot of review and we’re just adding two pages to their world,” said Lemmon.

Purely local projects wouldn’t be covered, but Lemmon argued that as towns or counties prepare complete streets plans on some projects, they’d grow more familiar with the concept, leading to what she called a “trickle down effect.”

In the Senate, the complete streets bill is sponsored by both Charles Fuschillo and Martin Dilan, the chair and ranking member of the Transportation Committee, respectively, along with twelve other senators. In the Assembly, however, the companion legislation hasn’t been introduced yet. That said, Lemmon reported that preliminary conversations about the bill with both the governor’s staff and state DOT officials have been encouraging.

Automated Enforcement for Speeding and Red Lights

Using automated cameras to enforce the speed limit would save lives, but local governments need state approval to do so. Legislation to allow New York City to install such cameras was introduced in the Assembly by Manhattan rep Deborah Glick last week, said Transportation Alternatives State Policy Director Lindsey Lusher Shute. The bill is now in front of the transportation committee. Companion legislation hasn’t been introduced yet in the Senate, she said, though she thinks that Brooklyn Republican Marty Golden may sponsor it.

Though the bill currently has 12 co-sponsors, “it’s going to take quite a few more sponsors and attention by the transportation committee to move,” said Lusher Shute, especially “given the reluctance of the chair to adopt more automated enforcement legislation.” Transportation Committee chair David Gantt killed legislation to allow bus lane enforcement cameras in 2008. Concluded Lusher Shute, “It’s not as close as we’d like.”

Another Golden-sponsored bill, to allow New York City to increase the number of life-saving red light cameras in use from 150 to 300, has moved quickly through the Senate. It passed through committee there and now only awaits a floor vote. Again, however, the Assembly version is stuck in the transportation committee.

Transit Funding Lockbox

The broad array of groups supporting legislation to make it harder for Albany to steal dedicated transit funds is headed up to the Capitol today, said Lusher Shute. The coalition includes transit advocates, labor and business leaders.

The bill is currently in front of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee. Assembly sponsor Jim Brennan urged supporters to contact Ways and Means chair Denny Farrell at a press conference last week.

Lusher Shute sounded optimistic about the lockbox’s chances. “There are tons of groups behind it,” she said, and legislators’ memories of recent fare hikes and service cuts are fresh. “It’s very possible that we could move that this session.”

Crossover Mirrors

An effort to require large trucks on New York City streets to be equipped with mirrors that enable drivers to see pedestrians in the blind spot in front of the cab got a big boost last week, in the form of a mayoral press conference supporting the bill. By standing with the bill’s sponsors, Golden and Brooklyn Assembly Member Joan Millman, Mayor Bloomberg showed that the legislation is a top priority for the city.

Yesterday, the bill passed the State Senate, where it was sponsored by Golden. In the Assembly, the bill is still in front of the transportation committee, but the Daily News reports that it could clear the whole chamber as soon as tomorrow.

Assembly Member Jim Brennan makes the case for protecting dedicated transit funds from raids. Senator Marty Golden stands behind him to the left and TWU Local 100 President John Samuelson is on the far right. Photo: Noah Kazis

Momentum is growing in the push to protect dedicated MTA funds from Albany’s predations, but with only one month left in the legislative session, time is ticking. Assembly Member Jim Brennan and Senator Marty Golden, the bipartisan sponsors of the transit funding lockbox bill, stood today with a broad coalition of transit advocates in the Times Square subway station to make a final push for their legislation.

Since 2009, Albany has stolen $260 million in dedicated funds from the MTA in order to patch up the state’s budget. The theft of those funds worsened an already bad fiscal situation for the transit authority, leading to devastating service cuts and fare hikes.

In order to keep Albany from continuing to use public transit as its piggy bank, Brennan and Golden introduced legislation that would make it more difficult for the state to divert dedicated funds. First, it would forbid the governor from including dedicated transit funds in “blanket sweeps.” In recent years, however, only $1.3 million of the $260 million stolen from transit were taken using this mechanism.

To completely prevent the legislative sweeps that have made up the rest of the raids on transit, it would be necessary to pass a constitutional amendment. Brennan and Golden’s bill aims to raise the political cost of stealing from transit by introducing a set of disclosure requirements.

For the legislature to steal dedicated transit funds, they would be required to pass a “diversion impact statement” outlining how much was being raided from each mass transit fund, how much had been raided over the past five years, and an estimate of what those raids would cost in terms of service, maintenance and security. These important sunshine measures hadn’t been included in an earlier draft of the legislation, but were a top priority for transit advocates and added later.

Both Brennan and Golden argued that the disclosure requirements would be very effective in dissuading their colleagues from raiding transit. “It highlights the issue,” explained Brennan, with the disclosure requirements making transit raids stick out more in a budget that totals 135 billion dollars. “Legislators will get more involved earlier in the process.”

Golden added that his Republican colleagues would hate to see taxes approved on false grounds, singling out the payroll mobility tax, which is much-loathed in the Senate Republican caucus. “When we find out that we didn’t need that money, why did we take it in the first place?”

Both legislators cautioned that it will take a big push to get the lockbox bill through the legislature before the end of the session on June 21. “We have a fight ahead of us,” said Brennan. While neither identified any sources of direct opposition, they said that the challenge will be to make protecting transit riders a top priority when hundreds of other bills are competing for time and attention. On the Assembly side, Brennan urged supporters to focus their energy on Ways and Means Committee chair Denny Farrell, whose committee has jurisdiction over the bill.

One group that will be lending its muscle to protect transit is the Transport Workers Union Local 100. Local 100 president John Samuelsen identified a lockbox as the most important legislation on the table for transit riders. It doesn’t make sense to add new revenues through something like bridge tolls before securing existing ones, Samuelsen argued. “Without a lockbox in place, it’s all a moot argument.”

Samuelsen’s comments are auspicious because, as both Brennan and Golden noted, separate from any transit raids, the MTA’s capital budget faces a $10 billion deficit starting next year. If the capital program is left unfunded, transit riders will be forced to pay vastly higher fares or suffer 70s style disrepair. “We as a state do not contribute enough into our mass transit system,” said Golden, who noted that finding the money to fully fund the MTA is “obviously a hard job.”

Also standing in support of the lockbox bill were representatives of the New York Building Congress, Transportation Alternatives, the Straphangers Campaign, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Reinvent Albany.

Republican Senator John Bonacic would allow New York City to institute East River bridge tolls... for a price. Photo: nysenate.gov

Five Senate Republicans, led by Sen. John Bonacic, are making transit advocates an offer they can probably refuse. The payoff is appealing: state authorization for bridge tolls on the East River bridges. But the price they are demanding in return, the total repeal of the payroll mobility tax outside New York City, is too high to pay.

The basic contours of a road pricing-for-reduced payroll tax swap could potentially turn into a big win for transit riders — the right deal would reduce traffic, improve bus speeds and reliability, and raise a substantial amount to plug the gap in the MTA capital program.

Bonacic’s bill, however, is not the deal transit advocates want to aim for. It would only authorize the New York City Council to institute tolls over the East River bridges, not the Harlem River bridges (a fact which may be related to the fact that four of the five sponsors represent the Hudson Valley, not Long Island). And it seems that the rate to charge motorists would be left up to the city. So right off the bat there’s a lot of uncertainty about whether the City Council would act and what level of tolling they would consent to.

If the city charged $2 tolls in each direction, as was proposed by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and endorsed by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio in a 2009 plan, East River-only tolls would likely raise around $240 million, according to an analysis by road pricing expert Charles Komanoff. (UPDATE: Due to revisions in his model, Komanoff now estimates that $2 tolls would bring in $300 million.)

In comparison, the seven suburban counties in the MTA region contributed roughly 30 percent of total payroll tax revenues. In 2010, the payroll tax brought in just under $1.35 billion. Without the suburban counties, that would have dropped by $405 million.

In other words, swapping the suburban payroll tax for $2 East River bridge tolls would end up costing the MTA roughly $165 million each year.

The Bonacic bill does not appear to have an Assembly equivalent yet, suggesting that it isn’t going anywhere right now. It does, however, mark the first attempt to legislate an often-suggested swap: a lower suburban payroll tax in exchange for bridge tolls or congestion pricing. A differently structured deal, one which partially reduces the suburban payroll tax while guaranteeing a more robust road pricing system, could be much more attractive, especially given that raising revenues through bridge tolls has the added benefit of cutting congestion and speeding up buses.

It’s possible, of course, that the city would decide to charge more than $2 each way under Bonacic’s plan. Even if the new bridge tolls were as high as the currently-tolled MTA bridges and tunnels, however, that would barely make up for the lost payroll tax revenue. Using the Independent Budget Office’s recent calculation of bridge toll revenue and holding constant the share of Komanoff’s East River bridge estimate to the total Silver plan revenue, even tolls that high would only raise around $517 million. That would net the MTA a small profit (but unless the tolls steadily increase over time, it could be an ever-shrinking profit — by 2014, the suburban share of estimated payroll tax revenue is projected to reach $485 million).

More importantly, once you’ve traded away suburban payroll tax revenue, you can’t get it back. There’s only one chance to get this deal right, and if you institute tolls just to offset a suburban tax break, you can’t use the revenue to pay for system repairs. To close the MTA’s potentially disastrous $10 billion capital plan deficit, both the payroll tax and bridge tolls will be necessary.

While the congestion-busting effects of East River bridge tolls are tempting, transit riders can’t afford to give up one source of funding without getting a bigger revenue source in return. Otherwise New York is still on track for a combination of rising fares and deteriorating transit service. The verdict on this version of the payroll tax-for-bridge tolls swap should be clear: No deal.