The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's capital program proposal came under renewed criticism this week over its approach to the future of transit in NYC.

On Wednesday, Straphangers Campaign activists trick-or-treated the MTA board meeting, seeking more bus and subway service, a full-length Second Avenue subway line and cleaner buses. The event punctuated several weeks of public debate anticipating negotiations in Albany to change aspects of the MTA proposal.

The Straphangers Campaign spotlighted the MTA capital proposal's likely impacts on city transit service. While NYC Transit has acknowledged that insufficient buses and subway cars are a major constraint on adding rush hour service, bus and subway car purchases indicated in the MTA 2000-2004 proposal will only provide for a 2% overall increase in city transit service. Booming ridership in recent years has already far outstripped modest service increases, worsening crowding and further impacting service regularity. A recent needs assessment by the Regional Plan Association recommended purchase of 500 cars and 1,000 buses more than the totals recommended by the MTA.

Possibilities and pitfalls of a Second Avenue subway line also continue to focus attention on the capital program proposal. Transit advocates charged Monday that the MTA Second Avenue "stubway" plan - running trains from a short 125th St.-63rd St. Second Ave. tunnel and then down the N and R express tracks - would head off long hoped-for plans to speed N/R express trains through downtown Brooklyn and across the East River. Work on the Manhattan Bridge has rerouted N/R service along a longer route and halted express service in Manhattan for years. The "stubway" plan could also affect Queens riders by congesting the 63rd Street tunnel, which is supposed to open to Queens Boulevard trains starting in 2001.

Business and construction industry groups last week told the New York Post they supported Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's position that the MTA capital program must contain more funding and a fleshed-out plan for a full-length Second Avenue subway. "We will be supporting the Speaker. This is about the economic future of New York City," Frank McArdle of the General Contractors Association told the paper.

Earlier this month, Manhattan Assemblymember Scott Stringer began to organize support among Assembly colleagues for a campaign to make converting NYC Transit's bus fleet to cleaner fuels a top MTA capital program priority. The organizing drive is in full swing and is gaining considerable support.

Stringer and his allies say they will urge the Speaker to also support a "no more diesels" policy in negotiations over the capital program's final contents. Such a policy would phase diesel powered buses out of the fleet by ending their purchase. The Assembly members' draft position notes that three out of every four buses slated for purchase in the MTA proposal are diesels, and states that "conversion of the MTA's bus fleet to clean-fuels is a policy that, if realized, would positively impact the health and well being of every single NYC resident for decades to come."

The Assembly will convene a public hearing on the capital program Wednesday, November 3rd with day-time and evening segments (see Calendar section).