Transit wonks are hoping Governor Andrew Cuomo might still be their secret savior, and it’s starting to look like he might be. Not only has the governor selected a crack team to replace outgoing M.T.A. chief Jay Walder, but he is even said to be considering the impossible—congestion pricing. Read More
The M.T.A. decided to take on nearly $7 billion in debt today in order to balance its capital budget, which is short $9 billion for the next three years. Former Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch has a novel idea to solve the problem: bring back congestion pricing. Read More
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. Read More
For months now, Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch has been shuttling around the state to business and labor leaders and elected officials in an effort to impress upon them the severity of the fiscal situation. Past borrowing and one-shot asset sales have pushed the state to the edge of a cliff, Ravitch likes to say, one Read More
Governor Paterson is unhappy with the way the details of Lt. Governor Richard Ravitch’s five year fiscal plan have leaked out. That is to say he’s sick of questions about borrowing. (The report’s now scheduled to be unveiled to the public at noon today).
He was asked about the report, which is set to to call Read More
On the morning of Monday, March 8, Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch placed a call to Kathryn Wylde, president of the civic-minded business group Partnership for New York City, with a request.
Mr. Ravitch, who was working on a plan to reform the state’s dismal system of budgeting, needed support—and fast. He wanted Ms. Wylde, a Read More
The good-government group Common Cause is now calling for Governor David Paterson to resign.
“Given the fiscal and governmental crisis enveloping our state, we at Common Cause/New York have come to the reluctant conclusion that it would be in the best interest of the people of the State of New York for Governor Paterson to Read More
When Eliot Spitzer took the oath of office on the first day of January 2007, he promised a new day in New York politics. ”This election was not about electing one person as governor,” Mr. Spitzer said.
How right he was!
When Client Number Nine resigned in March of 2008, he ceded the state to Read More
City Comptroller John Liu is calling for Governor Paterson to resign, one of the first such calls by an elected official.
From a statement sent out by Liu’s office just minutes after Paterson finished up the press conference at which he announced he would no longer seek reelection:
“We have a $4.1 billion budget deficit Read More
