In the midst of the on-going debate in Albany over transit and highway capital programs, the NY Senate and Assembly majorities announced and then passed 2000-2001 state budget proposals this week. Legislative watchers had suggested the two houses might put aside barbed five-year transportation funding issues in the name of timely budget resolution (MTR #260). Instead, both proposals contain enough long-term provisions to ensure a protracted conference committee period.

The Senate's $77 billion dollar budget makes good on earlier talk of a $2.5 billion bond issue proposal to support future highway and bridge construction and maintenance. Championed by Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Republican members of the Senate Transportation Committee, the bond issue is explicitly intended to boost the Governor's proposed $14.3 billion allotment for NY DOT's five-year capital budget up to a level of "parity" with the $16.5 billion set aside for the MTA.
 

Senate 2000-2004 Highway and Bridge Capital Budget Proposal  ($ billion) NYS DOT 14. 3  NYS Thruway 1.0 MTA Bridges and Tunnels 1.0  Hway Bond Issue 2. 4 Total 18.7

A more precise accounting shows that a highway dedicated bond issue would itself skew the Albany tradition of equivalence between highway and transit funding. To promote true parity, the Senate leadership should also support the Empire State Transportation Alliance (ESTA) MTA capital program proposal which sets forth an $18.2 billion transit budget (MTR # 236). Bruno told the AP that a full list of the projects to be funded by the bond would be made public before the vote is cast in November. Environmentalists and transportation reformers will scrutinize this list and advocate that the money be used for necessary maintenance work, rather than highway expansion. NY DOT's budget in the last six years was 75% less per year than the budget the Senate now proposes and still maintenance projects were overlooked in favor of unpopular road widenings such as Rt. 347, 25, and 112 in Brookhaven.

In his presentation of the Assembly's $78.2 billion budget proposal, Speaker Sheldon Silver assured reporters and Lower-East Side constituents no state budget would be approved that did not include a commitment by the Governor and the MTA to a full-length 2nd Ave. Subway. But whether that commitment must be monetary is less clear.

The Assembly proposal reportedly includes $300 million more than the Governor's for the MTA five-year budget as well as $10 million over the 2000-2001 fiscal year earmarked for an environmental impact study for a 2nd Ave. full-build. But this amount falls far short of the $2 billion thought necessary by the Regional Planning Association for work over the next five years on a full-length line.

The Speaker has also asked that the final budget provide for an accelerated 2nd Ave. project so that some portion of is completed by the projected 2011 opening of the LIRR East Side Access tunnel. As it stands, the vast majority of investment in the 72nd-125th St. 2nd Ave. "stubway" proposal is scheduled for the final year of the capital program (see article).