In their annual legislative agenda, released today, transit funding dominates the environmental organization’s transportation agenda. “Mass transit and good transportation infrastructure are critical not only for the environment, labor mobility and safety – they are literally the lifeblood of the state’s economy,” explained NYLCV communications director Dan Hendrick. “It’s high time for our state leaders to roll up their sleeves, fix the MTA and invest in our future.”

The three transportation-specific agenda items are: preventing any additional raids on dedicated transit funds, funding the last three years of the MTA capital plan, and raising the gas tax to account for inflation (state gas tax revenues fund both road projects and transit).

The first two of those goals, however, were also included in NYLCV’s 2011 agenda and if anything, 2012 looks like a less promising legislative environment for transit funding. If the Cuomo administration wasn’t eyeing more raids on dedicated MTA funds, they likely wouldn’t have “eviscerated” the unanimously-passed transit lockbox bill late last year.

NYLCV’s sustainable development goals may have a better chance of passage, however. The organization hopes that Cuomo’s regional economic development councils continue to fund smart growth projects, for example. The first round of grants won acclaim for mostly building upon existing infrastructure rather than promoting sprawl; the Long Island grants, in particular, went to revitalizing downtowns and areas near the LIRR.

Hendrick promised that in the upcoming election cycle, in which New Yorkers will vote for their Assembly and State Senate representatives, NYLCV will be holding legislators accountable for their positions on transportation and sustainability. “This year, we are sharpening our political approach by clearly connecting these transportation goals with our endorsements and campaign decisions,” said Hendrick. “Lawmakers who advance our sustainability agenda will earn NYLCV’s endorsement and be eligible for PAC support for their re-election campaigns. Those who do not, will not – and, in fact, we may well end up campaigning against lawmakers who oppose good transportation investments.”

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.

Topping the transportation agenda is a call to protect dedicated transit funds. Raiding dedicated transit funds and cutting the MTA payroll tax should be off the table, NYLCV says. More ambitiously, NYLCV urges the state to find new revenue sources to pay for the MTA’s largely unfunded capital plan, which pays for repairs and expansions of the system.

The agenda also calls for the state to pass a complete streets law, to craft an economic development plan which would reduce the emissions from freight transport, to quickly implement the state’s new smart growth law, and to support a Cuomo-style plan for competitive smart growth grants.

The New York League of Conservation Voters just released the questionnaire that will be guiding their endorsements for state legislators in 2010. NYLCV is one of only two organizations in the state that endorses candidates based on their support for sustainable transportation. While the organization will be judging candidates on their support for important transportation reforms like complete streets and smart growth policies, they aren't asking about urban transit issues like MTA funding or bus lane cameras.

The NYLCV stands out among environmental organizations for its focus on electoral politics. The questionnaire is a central piece of the group's endorsement process; even the strongest environmentalists are ineligible for their support without filling one out.

Transportation and planning issues make up a major part of the questionnaire, along with clean energy and water quality. Top priorities include complete streets legislation, which would require streets to be designed for cyclists and pedestrians, and the Smart Growth Public Infrastructure Policy Act, which would require state agencies to prioritize infrastructure spending in areas where infrastructure already exists, helping to curb suburban sprawl.

"Those are our two items we thought had some momentum this year, items that could get passed in this complicated budget environment," said NYLCV's Dan Hendrick. According to Hendrick, these priorities were worked out after conversations with transportation advocates like Transportation Alternatives, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, and the Empire State Transportation Alliance. (Unlike NYLCV, the transportation groups don't have the legal ability to endorse candidates.)

Absent, however, are two issues critical to making transit in New York City an attractive transportation option instead of cars: MTA funding and camera enforcement for bus lanes. NYLCV has made both issues high priorities in recent years. Congestion pricing was one of its top issues in 2008, and the group has asked about bus lane cameras on past questionnaires. 

The lack of attention on MTA funding is partly a reflection of just how dysfunctional the state capital has become.

There simply wasn't enough momentum in Albany for any sort of comprehensive MTA rescue for NYLCV to ask about it, said Hendrick. "They have completely avoided MTA discussions," he added. 

As for bus lane enforcement, Hendrick said that it's still one of their top lobbying issues, but that the NYLCV decided it would rather not ask upstate legislators about a New York City-specific piece of legislation.

The MTA and bus cams might still come up in the interview section of NYLCV's endorsement process, Hendrick said, which the group can tailor for specific candidates. Given NYLCV's unique position to make sustainable transportation an electoral issue in Albany, hopefully they'll track where pols stand on the important transit issues that didn't make it onto their questionnaire. 

How to change the equation? An intriguing attempt is currently unfolding in southern Queens, where, in less than a month, voters will choose a replacement for Joseph Addabbo, who left the City Council following his election to the State Senate in November.

The New York League of Conservation Voters and the Campaign for New York's Future have launched a voter education campaign devoted to transportation issues in the 32nd council district, a car-dependent area that includes Ozone Park, Broad Channel, and part of the Rockaways. "So many folks head to the polls and they think about how their candidates stand on education, or what their stance is on guns and crime," says Dan Hendrick of the NYLCV. "The objective of this campaign is to make sure that transportation and mass transit are voting issues as well."

The campaign is not endorsing a specific candidate, but drawing attention to the need for better transit service and to the area's crippling traffic. Broad Channel and Rockaway residents have been in the news lately for griping about tolls on the Cross Bay Bridge. NYLCV intends to broaden the discussion. "One of their big needs is more express bus service," said Hendrick, who envisions the campaign as a continuation of last year's public debate about congestion pricing. "Because the area is so car-dependent, [rush hour] congestion is a real problem in that district."

A local partner, the South Ozone Park Civic Association West, is helping to organize a candidates' forum next Wednesday, where voters can get their would-be council members to go on the record with a transit platform. Six candidates are in the running [PDF] (including, still, Michael Ricatto).

"We really want to heighten the sense of accountability of our elected officials," said Hendrick. "Whoever gets elected, they'll go into office knowing, 'Transit is a big priority in my district.'"

Voters in the 32nd council district go the polls on February 24. When regular City Council elections roll around later this year, Hendrick said, NYLCV plans to build on this model and ramp up transportation campaigns in more districts. "Definitely the idea here is to replicate this on a much larger scale in the fall."

Planning advocates recommended doing away with parking requirements and "unbundling" the cost of parking from the price of housing. "There's no reason for parking to be paid for by people who don't own cars," said Tri-State Transportation Campaign director Kate Slevin, adding that the construction of parking should be "a choice rather than a necessity."

Minimum parking requirements are especially ill-suited to affordable housing developments, said Elena Conte of the Pratt Center for Community Development (pictured at the mic). "[A parking minimum] really makes no sense at all for communities where less than 20 percent of households own cars, because it drives up the cost of housing and takes up valuable space that otherwise could be used to create additional units or public space."

Representatives of Environmental Defense and the New York League of Conservation Voters rounded out the proceedings, calling on the city and state to take stock and head off the traffic-congested future that excessive off-street parking threatens to bring about. "We're building the infrastructure to encourage more people to drive with very little understanding of the environmental impacts," said Josh Nachowitz of NYLCV.

T.A.'s Paul Steely White tied the issue to preserving New York's streets for people on foot, noting that more off-street parking means less sidewalk integrity: "Curb cuts enable cars to drive across the sidewalk and block the sidewalk; it erodes the pedestrian environment."

Major planning groups, including the American Planning Association, the Regional Plan Association, and the Municipal Art Society, have also signed on to the report and urged Mayor Bloomberg to revise the city's ad-hoc policies governing off-street parking. According to one organizer behind the effort, this marks the first time all three organizations have lined up behind the same transportation reform.

Streetsblog will have more soon on the recommendations being advanced by this coalition.

The Times reports that about a dozen lawmakers, including Bronx Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, are refusing to complete the NYLCV's candidate questionnaire, and have notified the league preemptively to say they don't want its endorsement.

What has irked some lawmakers is what they saw as a threat in the cover letter accompanying the questionnaire. In the letter, the league said it would use its new political action committee, Climate Action, to support candidates who advanced the group's agenda. Some legislators said they viewed that as a veiled warning that the league would use the money it raised through its committee to defeat candidates who opposed Mayor Bloomberg, above, and his congestion pricing plan.

The league or its political action committee "has the right to contribute to any candidate it wants," wrote Jeffrey Dinowitz, a Democratic assemblyman from the Bronx, "but I am deeply troubled by the very clear implication that a candidate will be rewarded or punished based upon a legislator casting a specific vote the way you would want it cast."

Yes, assemblyman, an interest group basing its support on a candidate's record is indeed troubling. Oh, wait ... 

For the league's part, NYLCV Chair Charles S. Warren says lawmaker positions on congestion pricing will not be a "litmus test," but adds, "we’re going to look for concrete accomplishments in furthering the environmental agenda.”

Mr. Warren, who said he did not know how many legislators had responded to the league’s questionnaire, added that the league was dissatisfied with the Legislature’s environmental record lately. “There’s a frustration on our part and on the part of a lot of other environmental organizations,” he said.