On the merits, the texting "ban" is weaker than another bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, which the transportation committee never brought up for a vote. Under the Gantt bill, a driver could be fined, but not pulled over, for texting behind the wheel.

"While we certainly support the intent of the bill, we have questions about specific language which would seem to greatly restrict its actual application," said TA's Peter Goldwasser in an email. "In short, unless an individual is committing another, different violation in the first place, then he or she is not subject to receiving a summons for violating this new offense."

In 2007, there were nearly 10,500 crashes in New York where the contributing factor was driver inattention or distraction, Goldwasser noted. Shouldn't that be enough reason to make distracted driving a standalone violation?

On balance, this bill would be a step forward for street safety in New York, but with the State Senate in the midst of its epic breakdown, the odds of it becoming law -- during this session, at least -- are vanishingly small. (So far, there's not even a version of this bill in the Senate.) This will be something to keep an eye on in the next legislative session. The speaker, the transportation committee chair, and the whole Assembly are on record supporting this bill, so there's no reason it shouldn't pass again when the opportunity arises.

Sheldon Silver. Photo: Daily News.

When we contacted Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's office, a spokesperson told us that it's up to the committee chair to move the bill forward. That would be Rochester Democrat David Gantt. But why should one person have such power when the overwhelming majority of his members disagree? And is Gantt really the guy making that call -- or is it Sheldon Silver?

To get a sense of the dynamics at work here, Streetsblog called Laura Seago, a researcher at NYU's Brennan Center for Justice and co-author of the aptly titled report on Albany dysfunction, "Still Broken" [PDF].

"I would be surprised if Sheldon Silver wasn't involved," Seago said of the texting ban. "This is something we see all the time, unfortunately, which is that the speaker controls everything that comes to the floor."

While Gantt makes a convenient target, and it's conceivable, in Seago's words, that he was "acting freelance" on this one, the fact remains that Silver could easily move the texting ban forward if he chose to do so.

In a legislature that functions democratically, the members of the transportation committee could also override the objections of their chair or the leader of their chamber. But that's not how things work in Albany.

"Most state legislatures make committees the place where legislation is robustly debated and made," said Seago. Next door in Connecticut, she notes, bills introduced in committee are required to have a hearing and a vote, but in New York, "we just don’t have that." Here, the leaders of each legislative chamber -- Sheldon Silver in the Assembly, Malcolm Smith in the State Senate -- maintain control over the committee process, and there’s no viable way for the rank-and-file to force a vote on a bill.

The Assembly, says Seago, is a "democracy of one."

If you're wondering why Sheldon Silver would choose to block a popular measure to reduce the public safety risk posed by distracted drivers, it may be instructive to look at the long battle to ban driving while talking on a cell phone. That fight lasted several years, and when the state legislature finally passed a bill, in 2001, it did not include any restrictions on hands-free cell phones -- to the delight of the telecom industry and its lobbyists in Albany, and despite studies showing that hands-free phone calls pose just as big a risk as those on handsets.

As a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, I'm pretty much required to hate Tom Brady. However, two Super Bowl wins in the last four seasons (that'd be six all told, but who's counting?) have salved the wounds of those AFC championship losses at the hands of Brady in 2001 and 2004. And hey, the man rides a bike.

Here's Brady with son Jack and dog Vida, photographed in Boston after a Patriots practice session earlier this week.

Also to Brady's credit: Unlike certain Albany legislators, he and the Patriots are big believers in camera technology.

One in four American motorists text and drive, despite the fact that distracted driving is implicated in 80 percent of all crashes. Photo: Switched.

Buffalo Assembly Member Mark Schroeder called Gantt's office last Wednesday seeking clarification on the chairman's plans for the texting-while-driving ban. The bill needs Gantt's blessing to get on the transportation committee calendar, and Schroeder wanted to know the deal. Would Gantt allow the bill to come up for a vote? Like us, Schroeder is still waiting for an answer.

Bill sponsor Felix Ortiz, a Brooklyn Democrat who has pushed legislation to deter distracted driving for more than a decade, was able to get a few minutes of face time with Gantt last week. In classic foot-dragging style, the chairman told Ortiz that he would prefer to address distracted driving with a more "comprehensive" bill that penalizes all forms of inattentiveness behind the wheel. Seems reasonable enough, right? Well, not quite. As Ortiz told Streetsblog: "This is how things die here."

Gantt's gambit is a tried-and-true Albany maneuver, deployed to kill bills softly by offering an alternative that can be spun as an acceptable substitute. But how plausible is Gantt's alternative?

The chairman has his own bill, no. 786, that would create a new class of traffic infraction called "inattentive driving," defined loosely as any non-driving activity that "unreasonably interferes with the free and proper use of the public highway" or "unreasonably endangers other people who are using the public highways." That may sound good in principle, but the language leaves too much unspecified to serve as effective legislation, or to garner the support needed to become law in the first place.

"Texting needs to be addressed by itself," Ortiz said. "It doesn’t make too much sense to have a comprehensive piece of legislation."

Compared to Gantt's bill, the texting ban gets to the point much more directly. It would simply extend the prohibition against cell phone use while driving to include all texting activity.

If the proof of a bill's legitimacy is in its co-sponsors, then Gantt's bill is pure smokescreen. Introduced more than four months ago, it has no co-sponsors and no corresponding version in the State Senate. The texting ban, by contrast, enjoys the support of 48 co-sponsors. A Senate version has already cleared that chamber three years running.

Given the strong rank-and-file support for the texting ban, it's remarkable that one member of the Assembly can effectively halt its progress. While press reports hint that proponents of the bill may somehow skirt Gantt's stonewalling, the way forward is murky at best. A spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said that it's up to the transportation committee chair to bring any bill up for a vote, and that there are no plans to consider any distracted driving legislation outside the normal committee process. The Speaker's office did not answer requests to comment specifically about chairman Gantt's position on the proposed texting ban.

Red-light running "events" have declined dramatically where cameras have been installed. Source: NYCDOT.

Notably, Rochester Assemblymember David Gantt, who has consistently blocked automated enforcement measures from his position as chair of the transportation committee, signaled yesterday that he won't stand in the way of this one, reports Gannett:

Gantt said Wednesday he will no longer object to the measure and sponsored legislation this week to let Rochester have the cameras, which take snapshots of vehicles that run red lights.

Gantt said he still has reservations about whether the cameras invade privacy and increase safety. But he said legislative leaders and Gov. David Paterson have been pushing for the measure, so Rochester should be included.

Gantt's openness to new automated enforcement programs is welcome, but the fact that he still harbors reservations about safety benefits suggests he's not keeping up with the growing body of research on the subject. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, in a report released last May, found that red light cameras yielded a 68 percent drop in the number of front-to-side collisions involving injuries. New York City's own camera program has reduced red-light running at camera-equipped locations by as much as 72 percent. (Both stats are cited in this NYCDOT report [PDF].)

Automated enforcement also figures heavily in plans for Bus Rapid Transit in New York, since planners are counting on bus-mounted cams to help keep exclusive BRT lanes clear of private vehicles. Similar cameras in London have improved bus speeds significantly. The last time bus-cam legislation came up in Albany, civil liberties groups did not raise objections, but Gantt spiked the bill citing worries about Big Brother.

Sheldon Silver and David Gantt

Gantt is also responsible for holding back automated enforcement measures like red light cams and speeding cams, which would save lives and deter the reckless driving that prompted Silver to call for zero tolerance traffic enforcement a mere two weeks ago.

After the bus cam vote, the Times editorial page exhorted Silver to remove Gantt from the chairmanship, citing his years of "micromanaging New York City's traffic from afar and for bewildering reasons." Gantt's standard anti-enforcement rationale -- privacy concerns -- was even more perplexing given that the bus cam bill had garnered the blessing of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Nevertheless, Silver just re-upped for two more years of Gantt at the helm of the transportation committee.

We asked the speaker's office why Silver made that call. We're waiting for a response, but a spokesman said the speaker does not usually comment on committee appointments.

So what does an Assembly member have to do to lose a committee chairmanship (and the hefty salary perk that goes with it)? Get caught asking for $500,000 in kickbacks from undercover federal agents. After Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio was nabbed soliciting cash in exchange for favors in Albany, Shelly declined to re-appoint him. Making life more difficult for New York City bus riders, unfortunately, doesn't rate.

Biggest Setback: After being approved by an unprecedented civic coalition, the mayor and New York City Council, congestion pricing -- the one policy measure that simultaneously reduces traffic congestion while raising money for mass transit and livable streets -- died in an Albany backroom without even a vote.

Lobbyists of the Year: Walter McCaffrey and the Committee to Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free (below). It turns out New York City government is controlled by a handful of Queens Democrats, suburban state legislators and the Automobile Club of New York.

How Not to Lobby a State Legislator: Brooklyn State Senator Martin Malave Dilan's car is towed during a congestion pricing meeting with city officials.

Most Sociopathic Elected Official: Bronx State Senator Jeff Klein nearly crushes a cyclist with his black Mercedes and then tells him, "Get your hands off my car, you f*#king a55hole." Unfortunately for Sen. Klein, this particular cyclist happens to run a pretty robust media operation.

Most Disappointing Elected Officials: During the congestion pricing debate, three State Assemblymembers stood out for their enormous potential to exert leadership and their utter inability or unwillingness to do so. Deborah Glick, Joan Millman and Hakeem Jeffries all represent districts that would have overwhelmingly benefited from New York City's congestion pricing plan. Yet, Glick could only find reasons to oppose it. Millman decided she supported it -- two hours after the proposal was killed by her Democratic Assembly colleagues. And Jeffries had the gall to demand increased subway service on the G line three weeks after helping to eliminate the revenue source that might have paid for it. If only New York City were represented in the state Assembly by an aggressive, attentive, self-aggrandizing politician like...

Elected Official of the Year: You've got to hand it to Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky -- he works hard for his constituents and supporters. Unfortunately for New York City's traffic-choked neighborhoods, beleaguered transit riders and asthmatic kids, his constituents are the metropolitan region's wealthiest car commuters and his supporters own a bunch of parking garages in Manhattan. While New York City's legislators rolled over and played dead, Richard Brodsky worked his butt off to make sure that New York City's congestion pricing plan -- a plan approved by the Mayor, City Council and a state commission -- died a quiet death in the Assemly's Democratic conference. Brodsky did incredible damage to New York City in 2008 but he also showed us what effective representation in Albany might look like.

Worst Elected Official: Rochester Assemblyman and transportation committee chairman David Gantt continued his decade-long effort to deny New York City the ability to deploy automated traffic enforcement systems on its streets. He loosened up a little bit though. This year he introduced legislation that would allow counties outside of New York City to use red light cameras -- as long as they purchased the technology from a Swedish firm represented by one of his cronies. Shocking? Not really. Just another day in Albany.

Most Opinions Fewest Solutions Award: From now on, this will be called the Anthony Weiner Award.

Most Moronic Idea From Albany: State Senators Jeff Klein and Eric Adams put on their serious, fighting-for-the-people faces and proposed suspending tolls on New York City bridges and tunnels and giving drivers a $200 gas tax rebate ahead of Memorial Day weekend. Not planning to burn lots of gasoline for your summer holiday? These two have nothing for you.

Red light cams have been proven to increase safety on New York City streets. Photo: mwilkie/Flickr

Red light cams are a proven life-saving technology, but one that is circumscribed by Albany. Previous attempts to expand automated enforcement measures -- including cameras to monitor red lights, speeding, and bus lane violations -- have been blocked by Rochester Assemblyman David Gantt, who chairs the transportation committee. That won't necessarily be the case this time around. "Putting it in the budget says the governor is firmly behind it," said Russ Haven, legislative counsel with NYPIRG. "That may mean it's more likely to happen."

It's still unclear how much New York's program would expand, but if the proposal survives the budget negotiating process, the final version will almost certainly extend the current red light camera "demonstration," which is due to sunset in December 2009. Advocates also hope that new red light cam programs proposed for Buffalo, Syracuse, Long Island, and yes, Rochester, will build more of a constituency for automated enforcement measures throughout the state.

Big questions remain about whether the expansion proposal will emerge intact from the Albany sausage grinder. As the state legislature works on passing a budget, members of the Assembly and Senate could try to sabotage the cams by substituting other measures. "If the governor's proposal is going to raise revenue then legislators need to come back and find other ways to replace that revenue if they don't like the idea," said Haven. The negotiation process is famously opaque, taking place largely behind closed doors.

Gantt, who ran for re-election unopposed this year, could still play the role of obstructionist. "He’s a formidable guy, he’s been around for decades," said Haven. "Unless he has a change of heart or unless he starts to see things in a different way, the governor and speaker may be the only figures who can move him."

Here is the budget language in question, in all its glory.

• Provide New Local Revenue and Financing Flexibility for New York City. Along with substantial mandate relief savings, the budget will authorize an expanded red light camera program and a range of local fee increases such as fees for birth certificates and marriage licenses worth $109 million in total. To enable New York City to better manage its finances during the current credit crisis, the City will be allowed to fund more of its capital program through the Transitional Finance Authority instead of general obligation debt, and Bond Anticipation Note (BAN) financing terms will be lengthened consistent with those allowed for the state.
• Provide Additional Targeted Revenue Flexibility for Municipalities Outside New York City. The cities of Buffalo, Yonkers, Rochester and Syracuse, as well as Nassau and Suffolk counties, will be authorized to establish red light camera programs to enhance public safety, while generating an estimated $48 million in local revenue. Cities outside New York City, as well as villages, will also be permitted to levy a gross receipts tax on cellular phone services similar to that currently charged by New York City, thereby raising up to $12.5 million in new revenue.

If drivers don't acknowledge the risk of speeding, street designs and enforcement practices have to do it for them.

When it comes to speeding, many American motorists don't worry about safety. They just worry about getting caught.

Those are the findings by researchers from Purdue University who surveyed nearly 1,000 motorists about speed limits and driving habits. They found that many drivers are cynical about the safety benefits of driving within speed limits, and many think they can drive safely while speeding as long as they won't get caught, according to the report in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour.

"So the faster you think you can go before getting a ticket, the more likely you are to think safety's not compromised at higher speeds," said Fred Mannering, a professor of civil engineering at Purdue, in a press release. "For whatever reason, respect for speed limits seems to have deteriorated."

The case for traffic-calming and automated enforcement is already strong. This makes it even more airtight. Drivers are basically ignoring posted limits on roads designed to accommodate speeding. (Traffic author Tom Vanderbilt wrote a great post last month about the multi-pronged wrongheadedness of this approach to street design.) Since drivers respond more to the threat of tickets than the inherent dangers of speeding, automated devices like red-light cams and speeding cams are essential to thoroughly deter this behavior.

In New York, the design part of the equation is improving while the enforcement component lags, thanks in large part to a police department that seems more concerned with moving traffic than reining in reckless driving.

Effective traffic enforcement would be more manageable for NYPD if it weren't for Albany. David Gantt, the Rochester Assemblyman who killed bus-lane enforcement cams this June, has stifled red-light cameras for New York and other cities for years. Evidence like the Purdue study has yet to sway him.

The fact that this story was picked up by health reporters is an encouraging sidenote. Livable streets advocates will have powerful allies if public health authorities recognize unchecked speeding as the catastrophe that it is.

Just four years ago, the Rochester authority was in financial straits and facing large deficits. Since then, it has lobbied successfully for increases in state aid, receiving $32.8 million this year, up from $16 million four years ago. It helps that a local assemblyman, David F. Gantt, is chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee.

With more than half of its budget covered by the state, the RTS now runs surpluses consistently and, seemingly alone among local transit agencies, just cut its base fare. Meanwhile, David Gantt won't even let New York City put enforcement cameras on buses.

How does state aid to the MTA measure up to what the RTS receives? Comparing Rochester's transit budget to the MTA's is not exactly apples to apples, but this graphic from a recent Independent Budget Office report [PDF] gives a sense of Albany's direct contribution:

With New York City's mostly uncontested primary elections less than a week away, attention turns to the 64th State Assembly district in Lower Manhattan, where New York Times-endorsed insurgent Paul Newell is running a long-shot campaign against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Facing his first Democratic challenge since the coining of the word "cyberspace," the decidedly analog Speaker has joined us here in the Information Age with a fancy new campaign web site, ShellySilver.org. It features an eye-catching Google map illustrating "What Shelly's Doing Near You" with some of the $3 to $7 million in member items he distributes annually.

Apparently, Silver hasn't caught on to the whole web 2.0 user-generated content thing because there's no way to drop your own pins on his Google map. If, for example, you wanted to stick a pin on Canal Street to make note of Silver's complicity in maintaining that street's never-ending traffic jam and Chinatown's third world-level childhood asthma rates, you'd be unable to do that. If you wanted to point out that Lower Manhattan enjoys some of the city's slowest buses and most dangerous streets, thanks, in part, to Silver allowing Rochester Assemblyman David Gantt to deny New York City the use of red light and bus lane enforcement cameras, you wouldn't be able to do that either. And given that the Speaker is known more for the projects and policies that he's stalled and killed (the commuter tax, New York City's Olympic bid, congestion pricing...) than the projects he's made happen, it seems like there ought to be a map showing all the things that don't exist in New York City thanks to Sheldon Silver's handiwork.

So, here it is. To help create a more complete picture of Shelly Silver's citywide footprint, Streetsblog went ahead and built a more interactive "What Shelly's Doing Near You" map. If you've got a contribution, go ahead and add it to the comments section here on Streetsblog. Pin it on Shelly.

Streetsblog's Brad Aaron -- on vacation in exotic, uh, Midtown -- sends this pic of a newly-striped 34th Street bus lane, looking east from Eighth Avenue. Red lanes on each side of 34th are part of the first phase of improvements to what is intended to become the city's first "transitway." Another witness says the bus lane on the north side of the street hasn't been striped yet.

Seeing bus-only territory marked off like this is bittersweet. If it weren't for the intransigence of Rochester Assemblyman David Gantt, there's a good chance these red lanes would not only be highly visible, but adequately enforced with bus-mounted cameras too.

Mr. Gantt is a Democratic assemblyman from Rochester. That's the Rochester that is 333 miles from Times Square. He has long controlled the State Assembly's Transportation Committee with an iron fist, micromanaging New York City’s traffic from afar and for bewildering reasons. At one point this year, when journalists asked him why he was blocking a particular city traffic bill, he said: “That's for me to know and you to find out.” So much for transparency in Albany.

It makes no sense for one upstate legislator to strangle progress -- and safety -- in New York City. This should be a matter decided by New York's mayor and City Council. Since it is not, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his Democratic majority should replace committee chairmen like Mr. Gantt who have clearly been there too long. If he won't, the voters should.

That raises a good question. Letting Gantt ride roughshod over New York City's interests probably isn't winning over Silver's constituents in the 64th District, or anyone else in the five boroughs. Why is the Speaker allowing the safety of his city's streets and the efficiency of its buses to be compromised by a Rochester legislator any longer?

If that's a question that puzzles you too, here's a group you may want to join.

Recall that the bill, critical to the success of the city's Bus Rapid Transit plans, was scheduled by Gantt for a motion to hold, meaning that a "Yes" vote would table the bill. In the official roll call, six co-sponsors of the bill were recorded as having voted "Yes," essentially killing legislation they had earlier endorsed. This drew the attention of the Times, which questioned whether Gantt had influenced the votes of committee members.

While Gantt told the Times he doesn't go around "breaking people's arms," multiple sources familiar with the vote told Streetsblog that some co-sponsors sided against bus cameras in order to preserve their relationship with the chair.

The rest of the story indicates why a committee member would want to stay in good standing with Gantt.

The vote that decided the fate of bus cameras was not held during a regularly scheduled transportation committee meeting. Instead, the meeting was announced on the Assembly floor and took place immediately, in a room called the Assembly parlor. (The usual spot is the Speaker's conference room.) The suddenness of the meeting and the unexpected location may explain why some committee members arrived late, missing the initial, binding show of hands, which sources referred to as the public vote. As we reported last week, while the official tally read 14-11, several members were absent during the public vote, meaning their votes were automatically counted as "Yes."

One Assembly member asserted that "not everyone can be everywhere at the same time" during the blitz of activity at the end of each legislative session. Another source disagreed, saying that members should always be able to make committee votes. It is possible, given the slim margin of the vote, that the outcome could have swung in the other direction had the public vote been held while the full committee was present.

Multiple sources told Streetsblog that two committee members not present for the public vote -- Sam Hoyt of Buffalo and Marc Alessi of Suffolk -- supported the bus camera legislation, but had their votes tallied against it. In Hoyt's telling, he was attending another meeting when the transportation committee meeting was called. By the time he arrived at the Assembly parlor, the public vote had already happened. Hoyt says he was unaware that the bus camera vote was on the agenda.

"I voted with the chair, and with the confusion, that meant that it was counter to my wishes of supporting the cameras," said Hoyt, who has had his own bill for Buffalo red-light cameras blocked by Gantt. "I was a sponsor of the bill. Had I known in advance that it was going to be on the agenda, and had I known the time of the meeting... chances are I would have voted against the chair." Alessi did not return requests for comment.

Hoyt sponsored a bill this session dealing with industrial development agencies, and, according to a source who observed the meeting, after the public vote, Gantt told him, "I voted for your shitty IDA bill, you're voting for this." Hoyt said he did not recall the exchange. Gantt has not returned calls to his legislative office or district office for comment on this story.

Sources who were at the capitol last week also report that the names on the official roll call differed from the show-of-hands public vote because Gantt allowed two committee members to save face. Two members who voted against tabling the bill during the public vote were scolded by Gantt, and are recorded in the roll call as having voted for the hold. This enabled two other members, who at first voted in favor of tabling the bill, to then be recorded as having voted against it, and appear in the roll call as supporters of bus lane enforcement. The initial 14-11 public tally remained the same.

That Gantt was able to engineer a swap of votes between committee members may indicate that the outcome was not in doubt after all, at least from the chair's point of view.

Advocates who pulled Gantt aside before the vote told Streetsblog that he expressed little interest in hearing their case. Instead, they said he reiterated his objection to bus cameras due to the supposed invasion of privacy. The New York Civil Liberties Union helped craft the bill's language and signed off on the revised version.

Gantt's handling of the bus camera vote has been singled out as particularly undemocratic, even by Albany's low-ranking standards. "This vote is not indicative of the way that chairs run things in this institution," said one source familiar with the workings of the Assembly. "What's going on here is not the norm. The vast majority of chairs would be willing to hold a vote on a bill that they disagree with and let it pass."

Correction: This piece originally ran with an incorrectly transcribed quote from Assemblyman Sam Hoyt. The quote has been amended to accurately read "...chances are I would have voted against the chair."

YES: (14)
Gantt, Lafayette, Weisenberg, Hoyt, Perry, DelMonte, Latimer, Lupardo, Alessi, Gabryszak, Hyer-Spencer, Titone, Schimel, Spano.

NO: (11)
Cusick, Millman, R. Diaz, Maisel, McDonough, Thiele, Bacalles, Errigo, Reilich, Giglio, Tobacco.

Among the "Yes" column, Lafayette, Perry, Hyer-Spencer, and Titone represent districts in the five boroughs.

Multiple sources told Streetsblog that the vote was held soon after committee chair David Gantt called the meeting, at around two in the afternoon. They described a rushed scene in which advocates and legislators were scrambling to make it to the room where the meeting was held. The location of committee meetings is not known, even to legislators, until the chair announces it.

Not everyone on the committee made it in time for the vote. According to parliamentary rules, the votes of absent members are automatically counted as "Yes" votes. There is some time between the committee vote -- in this case, a show of hands -- and the official recording of the roll call. During this gap, one source told us, legislators can change how their vote is recorded, but the tally of the committee vote cannot be altered.

That clears things up, right?

Readers emailing their Assembly reps to voice displeasure with Albany's opacity might consider copying their messages to Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Photo: julieleone/Flickr

"It's really outrageous that after a year of pretty unanimous agreement about New York's congestion problem, that all we're left with is don't block the box," said Wiley Norvell of Transportation Alternatives. "It's pretty sad when that's the best Albany can do."

Without bus-mounted enforcement cameras, which have proven successful in London, getting transit up to speed on DOT's five planned BRT routes faces significant hurdles. "It's going to make it a lot harder to move buses faster through the city, without camera enforcement of the lanes," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign. "It's going to hurt this experiment with Select Bus Service."

Transit and environmental advocates arrived at the state capitol yesterday optimistic that the bill, introduced by Manhattan Democrat Jonathan Bing, would get through committee. "We had the votes, we had the support, especially from Assemblyman Bing, who put in a lot of effort," said Josh Nachowitz of the New York League of Conservation Voters. "Unfortunately, the chairman was completely opposed to it, and used the legislative process to send it to defeat."

Bills authorizing automated enforcement have met resistance from Gantt in the past, but there were signs his stance had changed recently. Last month the assemblyman introduced a bill that would expand the use of red-light cameras in counties outside New York City. However, as several news outlets noted, that bill appeared crafted to benefit a specific vendor that employs one of Gantt's former aides as a lobbyist. The bus camera bill contains no such language.

Gantt's office has not returned Streetsblog's requests for comment. According to advocates, when pressed to explain his opposition to the bill, Gantt cited concerns about privacy and implied that bus-mounted cameras were intended mainly to generate revenue. As the Daily News pointed out this morning, that reasoning appears increasingly flimsy.

City officials and supporters of the bill had worked closely with the New York Civil Liberties Union to address privacy issues. The bill the committee voted on included restrictions on the direction cameras can face, and the length of time images can be stored. Those steps garnered the blessing of the NYCLU.

To cite privacy concerns at this point indicates that a double standard is at work. "There are millions of transit riders in the subway system who are watched by cameras on a daily basis," said Nachowitz. "Why should drivers get a free pass while transit riders are under scrutiny every day?"

As for the notion that bus cameras are a "money grab," he added, the revenue they generate would be "diminutive compared to the overall [city] budget."

In addition to Bing, Assemblywoman Joan Millman of Brooklyn voted in favor of the bill. The full roll call is still unclear, however, due in part to the way Gantt held the vote. "There was no debate or discussion," reported Russianoff. "It was a quick show of hands."

Nachowitz expects the measure to come up again in the legislature, citing the close vote as evidence that lawmakers are more aware of the need for automated traffic enforcement.

The message transit riders will take away for the time being, however, is sobering. "Everyone says they care about bus riders, but the proof is in the pudding," said Norvell. "This is a real slap in the face to New York City bus riders, and not the first they've taken from Albany this year."

Photo: Democrat and Chronicle

For years, State Assembly Member David Gantt, a Rochester Democrat, has used his position as chair of the transportation committee to block the expansion of red-light cameras in New York and other cities. When pressed by advocates, Gantt could be relied upon to dismiss automated traffic enforcement by saying that privacy concerns trumped safety benefits. Not any longer.

In a recent about-face, Gantt has introduced legislation that would allow counties outside New York City to install red-light cameras at up to 25 percent of their intersections. New York, currently the only city in the state permitted to use the life-saving devices, first installed them in 1994 but is not allowed to set up more than 100. While the Gantt bill would not raise that limit, it may signal greater willingness on the part of Albany to approve automated enforcement measures down the road.

"From the perspective of New York City, it's neither a good bill nor a bad bill," said Chad Marlow of the Public Advocacy Group, a public relations firm whose clients include Transportation Alternatives. "But it shows that Gantt is more open to red-light cameras than he was earlier."

Gantt's motives, however, have attracted scrutiny. The bill would steer contracts to a specific vendor, who is lobbying for the legislation with the help of a former Gantt aide. The Buffalo News has the story:

...the bill appears crafted to benefit CMA Consulting Services, an Albany County firm that distributes for Sensys Traffic, a Swedish firm...

Lobbying, with an $80,000 contract, on the issue for CMA is Robert Scott Gaddy, a former counsel of Gantt’s Transportation Committee.

Gaddy said the Sensys system distributed by CMA is not proprietary and that any other company could use it. He said it is a higher-priced system because it includes a number of advances over other systems.

Gantt's bill is not expected to receive serious consideration until the next legislative session. Whether it survives the whiff of patronage or not, there will be an earlier test to see if the Assembly Member has truly changed his views on automated enforcement. The bus camera legislation transit advocates are now pressing for cannot receive a full vote in the Assembly without his say-so.