All aboard? (wikispaces.com)

Transportation wonks have a habit of talking about Jay Walder, the outgoing head of the M.T.A., in messianic terms, as though he were the only man capable of fixing the agency’s myriad problems—an aging system, run by intransigent unions, with almost no political support. While many of them have greeted his resignation with shock and concern, there is a growing sense that this could actually be the best thing to happen to the M.T.A. since Mr. Walder’s arrival two years ago.

“I guess I’m partly responsible for inflating the importance of Jay,” said Gene Russianoff, head of the Straphangers Campaign and dean of transit advocate.

Indeed, there have been others—Richard Ravitch, the team of Kiley-Gunn, even Mr. Walder’s predecessor, Lee Sander—who have done a lot to resurrect mass transit from the death throes of the 1970s. Mr. Walder, though, was different. He had moved from McKinsey to run London’s transit system, introducing successful innovations, including the vaunted oyster card, which speeds up bus and Tube boardings, as well as implementing that dread scourge, congestion pricing. He was supposed to bring the same innovation and ingenuity to New York.

“You have to hope it’s a wake-up call to the people in Albany,” blogger and M.T.A. kremlinologist Benjamin Kabak said.

That hope is directed at one man in particular: Andrew Cuomo.

The governor grew up riding the same subways from Queens as the Rockaways native he must now replace, though he is not the likeliest booster. On the campaign trail, Mr. Cuomo expressed indifference that bordered on antipathy when reporters questioned him about mass transit. This included an uncharacteristically testy press conference outside City Hall, when he unveiled his Urban Agenda. Of its 230 pages, 25 covered affordable housing, 32 on criminal justice, 20 on health care but only two on transportation. He has done nothing of note on the subject during his first seven months in office besides reappointing Mr. Walder. Despite that, they have a cool relationship with limited communication.

Still, transit advocates and straphanging pols are hitching their train to the governor, either out of desperation or legitimate belief that he could transform the M.T.A. in ways that have been talked about but rarely acted upon. “It puts the governor on the hook,” Mr. Russianoff said. “It will be his pick running the agency, and he will be accountable for what happens to the M.T.A.”

There are few greater political liabilities than the M.T.A., which is why the Cuomo administration has held it at arm’s length for so long. Even with Mr. Walder in place, he could keep this up for only so long, but now, unable to point to a Paterson appointee calling the shots, the responsibility will be his all the more. “When the big issues come, from fare policy to safety and the reliability of the system, in the end this is America, and the elected officials are held responsible,” said former Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who used to oversee the agency in the Assembly.

Should the governor embrace the M.T.A, advocates believe he has a singular ability to fix its problems, many of which stem from a Legislature that shortchanges the M.T.A. on a regular basis, thwarting projects like congestion pricing and other forms of transportation funding and even raiding the agency’s budget on occasion, as happened twice last year. “A big part of this is getting the support of the Legislature,” Mr. Brodsky said.

With his string of victories this year—the rent regs/property tax cap deal, gay marriage and an on-time, balanced budget—Governor Cuomo has shown an ability to bend Albany to his will.

“I think a lot of people feel our public transportation system is being held together by chicken wire,” said Assemblyman Micah Kellner, who represents the Upper East Side. “There’s a lot of speculation Jay left because why oversee a crumbling system when you can oversee the best in Hong Kong. That’s a wake up call to New York that we need to do something transformative. So whether that’s the governor taking more control of the M.T.A. or possibly breaking up the three systems, they don’t work so well anymore.”

Mr. Kellner put forth Mr. Brodsky’s name as a possible change agent. "Nobody's smarter or worked with it more deeply than him," Mr. Kellner said. Many of the other names that have been batted about come from within the M.T.A., chief among them hard-charging Thomas Prendergast, head of New York City Transit, and Helena Williams, the L.I.R.R. president who has served as interim chair in the past. Mr. Kabak points out that a dark horse is always possible. "Jay was pretty firmly ensconced in London when they picked him, so you never know," he said.

Meanwhile, State Senator Lee Zeldin of Long Island laid out a 10-point to-do list in The Post on Monday, which included capping agency managers’ compensation, selling real estate and pursuing public-private partnerships. Other reform agendas have begun to emerge, as well. The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor once charged with rescuing the M.T.A. in the 1980s, told The Observer that the idea that the authority needs to be torn down and rebuilt was “dumb as shit.” Instead, it’s a matter of approach. “It all depends on what you define as broken,” Mr. Ravitch said. “The M.T.A. isn’t broken. It’s just facing a lot of challenges, and it will always face a lot of challenges. In a way, that’s how it was set up.”

So how can the governor tackle those challenges, many of which are fiscal? The M.T.A. faces a $9 billion hole in its five-year capital budget that must be addressed by the start of next year. Between now and then, the agency must negotiate a new contract with the union representing most of its workers. Both will be expensive propositions, and while the Cuomo administration has shown an ability to broker compromise in the Legislature, taxes or any other revenue increases have been antithetical to that platform—that balanced budget allowed the millionaire’s tax to expire at the same time it cut $100 million from the M.T.A. Gay marriage is free, mass transit is not.

"The message from Andrew has been that revenues are hard to come by," Mr. Brodsky said.

The first indication of the governor's position, barring an unexpected address on a mass transit revolution, will come from who he appoints to run the agency. "Some governors want to be hands on and in control and take credit and blame for whatever happens at the M.T.A," Mr. Ravitch said. "Other people are delighted to have someone who is a reputable, well-regarded professional and independent."

Still, the governor is on a political roll. “It has wetted his appetite for more victories,” said one Democratic operative, who said that in addition to Medicaid and the Port Authority, the administration is looking very closely at the M.T.A. for an overhaul. “It would be quite the feather in his cap.”

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

The Paterson administration did exactly that not once but twice, swiping $143 million in 2009 and another $16 million earlier this year. The M.T.A. boosters contend that it was that first raid that led to the ghastly service cuts and fare hikes that still have straphangers grumbling. To do so again would be to create yet another disaster. M.T.A. chair Jay Walder has achieved the Herculean task of balancing the M.T.A. operating budget for the year, though he has a miniscule amount of money on hand to address any unforseen shortfalls. Another seven- or eight-figure grab could cause immense problems for him, as well as for everyone who uses the M.T.A. every day, as the letter makes clear:

These taxes were enacted for a specific reason: to help pay for subway, bus and commuter operations and transit capital projects.  As a matter of principle and practice, the dedicated funds should continue to serve those purposes. This is especially true: we want a vibrant transit system; one that is reliable, safe, fast, clean and can serve as a foundation for strengthening the State's economy. This same logic would apply to not diverting funds for New York's road, bridge and tunnel program.

You campaigned on a pledge of restoring honest and ethical government. What could be more basic to good governance than keeping the promise to taxpayers and transit riders that dedicated transit funds be spent for the sole purpose for which they were enacted? One quarter of the state's workforce relies on mass transit to get to work.

The letter goes on to ask for the restoration of the $160 million, which seems all but impossible at this point.

Yet, reading between the lines, the real purpose of the letter seems to be to encourage the Cuomo administration to consider broader transit reform. After all, much of the letter is spent outlining how the dedicated M.T.A. taxes, both new taxes and old, have failed to provide the M.T.A. sufficient funding for some time. Perhaps something new is in order, or even something old, like congestion pricing?

Gene Russianoff, head of the Straphangers Campaign and one of the lead signatories, told The Observer that was not what this letter was after. "The starting point for me is, 'Do no harm,'" Russianoff said.

After all, the M.T.A. is also facing a $10 billion gap in its five-year capital plan that must be addressed next year. Asking for new revenue streams or a complete overhaul of mass transit could be a considerable challenge, especially at a time of economic and political unrest.

Then, again, is there a better time to tear up the rulebook and take a fresh look? If only anyone knew what Andrew Cuomo actually thought about all this.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

"It is an affront to our burgeoning partnership, often discussed in previous months, to exclude us from this critical information," Dilan wrote in a letter (below) to M.T.A. CEO Jay Walder. "It appears, even under new leadership, that business will continue as usual with Gary Dellaverson assuming the addition role of press secretary for the MTA. Instead of a cooperative exchange of thoughts and information, we may be left with an adversarial relationship played out in the press. While this may be good for newspaper revenues, it will not be good for the State of New York."

The transportation authority's finance committee is expected to unveil a plan Monday that the full board could act on Wednesday.

Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers' Campaign, a rider advocacy group, said he hopes the authority will use stimulus funding to bridge the gap and not cut service.

"If they make cuts, one of the victims is the M.T.A. itself because they're going to shred their credibility," he said.

Russianoff was part of a coalition that worked with the M.T.A. to enact a balanced rescue package over the spring. Given the political posturing of some in Albany, we may be heading for a reprise of that fight.

Dilan Letter

There was an announcement of an M.T.A. bailout deal last night, but no legislators have seen an actual bill at this point. Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, leaving a leaders meeting a few moments ago, lamented this fact.

Outside the legislative chambers, I found Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign and Neysa Pranger of the Regional Plan Association--who have advocated for a full plan and are generally pleased with this one--waiting, saying they haven't seen the bill.

Russianoff said he heard there was a dispute over whether David Paterson would submit a fresh program bill, or whether the bill introduced by State Senate Democrats will be amended.

A vote is still expected today.

Now, what we're seeing is what happens if a handful of other men—ones you've never heard of, with parochial agendas and an unfamiliarity with the consequential exercise of power—get into the room, too.

It has been enough to make some of the capital's most unimpeachable good-government advocates seem downright unappreciative of Albany's freshly untrammeled democracy.

"Things have gotten unhinged," said Gene Russianoff, the staff lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign, a transit rider advocacy group. "It has been really frustrating for advocates and public-policy people to think that two or three senators can hold up the whole thing."

Mr. Russianoff was talking in particular about the result of the protracted M.T.A.-bailout negotiation, the latest achievement of Albany's lawmaking apparatus that, thanks to last year's Democratic takeover of the State Senate, is running in a more democratic and less partisan fashion than anytime in recent memory.

The governor and leaders of the Democratic-controlled Legislature announced a deal on the evening of May 5, more than five weeks after a drop-dead deadline. What they had produced was a stopgap bailout of New York's public transportation system that is supposed to raise more than $2 billion dollars through a combination of a regional payroll tax, a taxi surcharge and fare hikes.

It is a significant deal: The measures will allow the M.T.A. to avoid its "doomsday" scenario of massive fare increases and service cuts. But the package comes up well short of the amount necessary to fund capital projects completely—the legislators say there is enough money there to fund capital needs for two years—and virtually guarantees another day of reckoning in the near future as an ever-more-crowded system begins to fall into disrepair.

And the final package, in terms of its revenue sources, is a Frankenstein's monster—the result of concessions to outer-borough senators who opposed East River bridge tolls, and then further modifications to pacify two senators from Long Island who were unwilling to go along with a payroll-tax hike that would have affected suburban school districts.

The Senate's majority leader, Malcolm Smith, to his credit, did not attempt to put a pretty face on things.

"It's not about merits," he told reporters late last month after a closed-door meeting with the governor and the Assembly speaker. "It's just about what gets us there with the votes that we need to get it passed."

This sort of thinking has become typical.

The M.T.A. follows the passage of a bad-news budget that pleased only unions that rely on public spending, and a deficit-reduction bill riddled with one-shot gimmicks. And it comes as other promised legislative items on the Democratic agenda—same-sex marriage, gun control and housing reform—remain held up by objections from various holdouts within the conference.

Even some of the ostensibly emancipated legislators can't help but marvel at the level of disorder.

"There is the feeling that there is no downside to bucking the leadership," said one Democratic state senator.

So who's to blame for the current state of things?

There's the governor, whose 19 percent approval rating from New York voters means that even when he tries to do the right thing at this point, the perception of his weakness—reinforced at every turn by a press corps that has ceased to take him seriously—leaves him unable to compel action on important issues by recalcitrant legislators.

There's Mr. Smith, the nominal conference head who is at all times at the mercy of the least cooperative of his 32 members. (The Senate is a 62-seat body.) The best thing to say for him is that it's unclear that any other Democrat in the Senate would be able to get much more done, especially given the power vacuum in the governor's mansion.

There are the 30 Senate Republicans, who, to their possible political advantage but to the certain detriment of New York State, have stuck together in opposing everything the Democrats do, as a matter of course.

There's the Assembly leader, Sheldon Silver, the last of the archetypal Men in the Room, a quintessential insider who is popular among his members but whose monotone delivery and low public profile limits his effectiveness when it comes to moving popular opinion in a way that might impact a bill's chances of passage elsewhere.

And then there's the Gang of Three, which notched another victory with the passage of the downsized M.T.A. package.

"The Three Amigos really prevented us from dealing with this M.T.A. issue in a timely fashion," said another Democratic senator, speaking on background.

The senator said that without their resistance, there would have been a deal on the tolls on the East River bridges, which would have meant a smaller payroll tax, which would have kept the Long Island senators from protesting and demanding, successfully, $60 million for Long Island schools.

"It didn't have to be this way," the senator said.

Meet Carl Kruger, leader of the aforementioned Three Amigos, and, if you live in New York City, someone who has quite a lot of control over your future.

Mr. Kruger, a short, well-fed 59-year-old, represents South Brooklyn, in a white-ethnic district in which he is politically unassailable. He's always had strong ties to the Republicans, and under former majority leader Joe Bruno—the last of the Senate strongmen, now retired and facing a federal indictment for abusing his office—he ran the Social Services Committee.

He bankrolled and masterminded a renegade band of Democratic senators known as the Gang of Three—or the Three Amigos.

In December, Mr. Kruger and the two other gang members, Pedro Espada Jr. and Ruben Díaz Sr., withheld their support of Malcolm Smith's majority leader bid in an attempt to land key leadership posts. It worked. Mr. Espada, the onetime target of a public-corruption indictment brought by the district attorney's office, won the title "majority leader," Mr. Díaz became the head of a newly created Latino caucus and Mr. Kruger became the head of the powerful Finance Committee, which has given him veto power over any bill that costs money. (Everything, in other words.)

In February, they posed with sombreros and Three Amigos shirts and talked about starting a Three Amigos political action committee.

In March, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the governor backing a plan designed by transportation guru Richard Ravitch, which called for tolls over the East River bridges to raise money for the M.T.A. and its future capital projects, the Gang released a joint statement saying it was time to go "back to the drawing board" and calling tolls a "non-starter." And that was that. The need to look elsewhere for revenues, in payroll taxes, created a new faction, Long Island senators Craig Johnson and Brian Foley.

In a conference meeting with senators before the agreement was officially announced on May 5, Mr. Kruger and Mr. Espada smiled broadly as Mr. Smith told his members the details of the plan, according to a source in the room. When Mr. Smith listed the people supporting the plan, he included Mr. Ravitch, at which point Mr. Kruger joked, "Ravitch is supporting the plan that he opposed two months ago."  According to the source, no one laughed.

How did it come to this?

Eliot Spitzer, the former governor, swept to power with an electoral mandate that allowed him to try and pry the Senate from Republicans and end the gridlock that has marred Albany for decades. The Democrats eventually did take the Senate back, but not before Mr. Spitzer ingloriously resigned from office in a prostitution scandal and left the public stage empty of a credible voice for reform.

After him, chaos: Mr. Paterson has never gotten the sort of grip on his own office that would allow him to play a constructive role in legislative affairs, and Mr. Smith doesn't even seem to be able at any given time to count votes within his own conference.

No one is making the trains run on time.

"The hammer has to fall," said Gerald Benjamin, a professor of political science and dean of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and a veteran Albany watcher, who noted that in the past, governors threatened rebellious members with primary contests. "Now we have united partisan control, but we don't have discipline."

One of the most frustrated—and ineffectual—of the New Albany's constituents is Michael Bloomberg, whose friendships among the Senate Republicans he helped bankroll have apparently come to naught, now that they're out of power, when it comes to his ability to nudge any of them toward cooperation with the majority on things like the M.T.A. bill.

And his seeming reluctance to upset Democratic lawmakers who have the power to strip his control of the city schools has apparently kept him from lobbying all that hard even as their inaction threatens the health of the city's transportation system—and the welfare of the city itself.  

Mario Cuomo, the three-term governor who, after his time in office, lobbied for a constitutional convention to overhaul state government—and whose son may well be running the state by the end of next year—said that the state needed strong leaders who were capable of peeling away Republican votes.

"There's no other way to do it," said Mr. Cuomo. "As a practical matter, you have to get the votes from both sides. When Hugh Carey saved the city of New York, he couldn't do it with just Democratic votes. He had very few Republican votes, but he did have Warren Anderson, and that's how they saved New York City, by going to the other side."

Seymour Lachman, a former Democratic state senator who languished for years in the minority and, after he retired, wrote a critical book about Albany called Three Men in a Room, suggested that, at least temporarily, the dysfunction has gotten even more severe.

"Legislatively, Bruno was able to push things through," he said, somewhat ruefully.

Mr. Lachman said that the problem was that two of the three players in the room, Mr. Paterson and Mr. Smith, were "less experienced," and as a result, the state had to wait "another year, year and a half" for them to find their voices.

Naturally, Senate Republicans—who, with admirable chutzpah after decades of absolute control, complain about a lack of transparency on the part of the Democrats—mince no words about the descent into chaos.

"Now, we have no men in the room," said State Senator Kemp Hannon, a Republican from Nassau, as he sipped a cup of coffee by the Senate pantry. "We have no negotiations. I don't know who's talking to who."

For now, most Senate Democrats defend the more open version of the body.

"I think we behave more like a real Senate now," said Senator Tom Duane, a LGBT advocate who has been frustrated by his own conference's delay in supporting the governor's gay-marriage proposal.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Kruger agrees enthusiastically.

"Something running smoothly doesn't mean it runs well," Mr. Kruger said. "It's that, in the totality of things, running smoothly only buttresses the argument of three men in a room. And if one wants to take the position that there are still three men in a room, there are three men in a room with a very strong chorus in the background defining the direction that the Senate takes, and I think that's a great thing."

He added, "I take positions that are well thought out, I am very vocal on the positions that I take. I'm willing to argue them. To the death."

"This agreement will allow the M.T.A. to continue its critical infrastructure repair programs and will ensure also that they will be able to do that through 2011 unimpeded," Paterson said. The plan is the product of months of negotiations and back-and-forth, but is based largely on a framework put forward by the State Senate last month. The bill will contain:

-- $1.5 billion from a payroll tax of 34 cents per $100 of payroll at every employer in the 12-county M.T.A. service area. To satisfy two holdout suburban legislators, a provision will mandate that the state reimburse school districts for what they contribute to that plan

-- $500 million from a 10 percent fare increase. The base fare for a single ride in the transit system will rise from $2 to $2.25, but exactly how prices for monthly and weekly passes change must still be sorted out by the authority's board. This hike is less than the one laid out in a doomsday scenario enacted by the M.T.A. Paterson also said that there will be additional fare hikes in 2011 and 2013 of 7.5 percent

-- $85 million from a fifty-cent surcharge on taxi rides in the 12-county service area

-- $130 million from a $25 fee on motor vehicle registration in the 12-county service area

-- $10.5 million from an increase in the fee on driver's licenses in the 12-county service area

-- $35 million from an increase in the tax on rental cars

Of the overall amount raised, $400 million will be diverted to fund $6.5 billion of capital projects over the next two years. No money in this package is being set aside for upstate roads and bridges; Paterson and legislative leaders pledged this will be dealt with this fall.

The overall amount is higher than the $1.9 billion reported earlier; that figure reflects the rough amount of money that will flow to the authority this calendar year.

An actual bill is still in the works. Paterson said he will grant a message of necessity so lawmakers can vote on the bailout tomorrow.

"This is one time that the term message of necessity couldn't be more accurate," Paterson said.

Gene Russianoff, a lawyer for NYPIRG's straphangers campaign, put it this way: "This has been like a long ride on the IRT, and we wound up at Grand Central."

Paterson, who was thanked profusely by both Silver and Smith, can now play the role of M.T.A. savior. It was he who first convened a commission led by Dick Ravitch to concoct a bailout for the authority, and Paterson maintained that the framework of shared sacrifice in the plan--among straphangers, businesses and motorists--was maintained.

Paterson also came in this weekend with an inducement to the last holdouts in the State Senate.

At the same time, Smith can claim credit for moving the first bill on the issue, and many of the revenues he proposed (the taxi fee, the car registration fee) replaced tolls in the overall package. Granted, his hand was forced by members of the gang of three, but they can claim credit for slaying tolls.

(It's unclear if any Republicans will vote for the plan. There are 32 Democratic votes for the measure in the State Senate, which had been questionable in the past. Smith thanked them for providing "friction" on the issue.)

And Silver can claim credit for pushing for capital funding. In fact, he has. Paterson praised him for his "institutional knowledge of how these things have worked in the past," and Silver conspicuously answered all questions involving specific numbers during the presentation of the plan.

"During the 1970s fiscal crisis, we stopped investing in the M.T.A. and it was a horrible mistake," Silver said. "I have insisted throughout this debate, right up until this evening, that we just cannot afford to make this mistake again."

He added: "We have rescued this system from the brink of abyss."