Streetsblog New York City

State Senator Andrew Lanza called this afternoon in response to yesterday's post about his MTA rescue stance. He first took issue with the characterization of Senate Republicans as "refusing to budge" on a transit funding plan, saying that his conference has effectively been shut out of the process. "If they wanted to come forward with an MTA rescue package," he said of the Democratic leadership, "there's not a thing a Republican can do."

I agreed that the Democratic majority shoulders most of the responsibility for the current impasse, but when I suggested that he could have stepped forward to support the Ravitch plan, Lanza disputed the implication that he should be asked to support a pre-existing solution and reiterated his opposition to a payroll tax.

We had a long exchange about the root of the MTA's financial troubles, which I'll try to summarize as concisely as possible with minimal editorial comment.

He started by claiming that his criticism of the MTA is "not just bashing."

"The MTA comes forward every year almost in shock as to their budget situation," he said. "They have proven that they don't have a handle on their own finances." I argued that this was due mainly to the volatility of their current revenue streams, which the Ravitch plan would help to address.

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Here's State Senator Andrew Lanza, a Staten Island Republican, explaining why he supports tolls on the East River bridges. For Staten Island drivers looking at a $3 hike in cash tolls to cross the Verrazano (or a $1.32 hike for locals with E-ZPass), the sight of other motorists getting a free pass into Manhattan must be a source of perpetual gall and resentment.

Lanza spends most of this video, however, in standard MTA-bashing mode, lashing out at the agency and unnamed politicians in other boroughs who "support" the doomsday scenario. Not a word about his fellow Senate Republicans, who refused to budge on an MTA rescue package that needed only a few more votes to pass. Lanza himself is on the record opposing the payroll tax in the Ravitch plan, so, by his own logic, you could say he also "supports" higher tolls on the Verrazano.

When you're about to set off a scenario of mutually assured destruction, the person who blinks first helps everyone win. Lanza could play a big part in walking the State Senate back from the brink of doomsday, and holding down the one-way toll on the Verrazano. All he has to do is reconsider the Ravitch plan and rally a few other Republicans to do the same. Hard to see how anything else would fulfill the promise he makes here to fight the MTA austerity plan "every step of the way." We called his Albany office to inquire about his plan and expect a response later today.