Leaders divided on MTA bailout

3/17/09
transit
By Heather Haddon

Leaders divided on MTA bailout

By Heather Haddon

Stymied by a handful of state Senate Democrats, Gov. David Paterson is appealing to Republicans to reconsider their opposition to a plan to bail out the MTA.

Democrats opposed to the idea of tolls for East River bridges have so far squashed the funding plan and the Senate’s 30 Republicans are uniformly against a proposed .33 percent payroll tax. Support of the plan would result in an 8 percent fare hike instead of a proposed 23 percent increase, transit officials have said.

“We need the Legislature in Albany, particularly the Senate, and I’m willing to work with both (Majority and Minority) Leaders of the Senate to find a plan we can pass,” Paterson said.

Meanwhile, observers expect Paterson, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith — all Democrats — to quickly try to cobble together a compromise between widely divergent proposals. The MTA board votes next week on the fare hike, slated to take affect in June.

“It will be negotiated over the next couple of days,” said Richard Ravitch, the former MTA chairman who helped devise the proposal to fill the agency’s $1.2 billion deficit and pay for systemwide improvements.Yesterday, Senate Democrats broke with the Ravitch plan. They in turn proposed support for a .25 percent payroll tax, a 4 percent fare increase and no bridge tolls.

During a news conference, city leaders and advocates joined Paterson in calling Smith’s proposal short-sighted, saying it does nothing to fund the MTA’s capital plan or a regional bus authority.

MTA officials also said that fuzzy math would require them to raise fares by 17 percent this year, instead of the 4 percent the Senate calculated.

Senate Democrats agreed their proposal is a work in progress, but said they want to be more involved with writing the five-year capital plan before funding it. They also want the MTA to undergo an independent audit.

“We cannot keep putting money into an MTA that is a black hole,” Smith said.
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Leaders divided on MTA bailout

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