Things are looking tough for the proposed bailout of the MTA. There are now five senators who have now come out against the plan and with the budget battle about to spin up in earnest, it could easily get lost in the state Senate shuffle.
There was talk over the weekend that a deal for a Metropolitan Transit Authority bailout was near. However, today a deal seems far away as ever as opposition to the plan in the Senate has solidified in the form of at least 5 Senators who stand against it.
Majority Leader Malcolm Smith played down concerns that a few members were holding up the plan. Smith insisted that the Senate does not have a full plan in place for members to decide on yet. "We're still going over the plan itself," Smith told reporters at a press conference this morning.
Smith and Paterson say that there is still time for a plan to be reached before the March 25 deadline. On that date the MTA says that it will have to make major cuts to service and increase fares if it has not received a bailout.
Critics say that the MTA bailout is the first real test of Smith's leadership. Smith faces dissension from the three Democratic Senators who stood against him in his bid to take over as the Democratic leader in the Senate.
...
The problem is that the majority has yet to hire all the staffers it needs to complete the task. Advocates worry that if there is not a deal on the MTA bailout before budget talks heat up the plan will be lost in the shuffle.
Rep. Anthony Weiner has proposed his own plan, one that may help bring some of those senators on board. Why? Weiner's plan would exempt New Yorkers from the proposed tolls over the East River bridges.
Representative Anthony D. Weiner on Monday released his version of a rescue plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in which tolls on the East River and Harlem River bridges that would be paid only by people who do not live in New York City.
Mr. Weiner, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Queens and Brooklyn, and who is is planning to run for mayor in November, has long been an opponent of putting tolls on bridges where they don't already exist.
But he said on Monday that making new tolls - which he would set at $4.15 - payable only by non-city residents would be a compromise that could gain traction in Albany and would be a bit like reviving the commuter tax, which was eliminated 10 years ago.
He predicted the tolls would raise $391 million a year.
"This is my contribution to trying to solve this problem," Mr. Weiner said in a telephone interview.
Could this be what breaks the logjam? I guess we'll know soon enough.
On the web: Streetsblog. |
