NY State Transportation Commissioner Joseph Boardman told state senators last week he would convene and chair a new state commission to examine ways of paying for the state’s roadway and mass transit infrastructure, according to the Times Union.

The commissioner said "transportation revenues are not growing to keep pace with the need," indicating that major capital investments would be needed to keep bridges, pavement and mass transit systems from deteriorating over the next decade.

The action and the commissioner’s remarks may be a sign that the Pataki administration recognizes that new revenue will be needed to keep the MTA and other state transportation capital programs going. New taxes were enacted to underpin the reconstruction of downstate mass transit systems after their terrible decline in the 1960s and 1970s, and to shore up the highway system. However, no major transportation revenue sources have been enacted since the early 1990s, leading transportation systems to rely on fare increases and borrowing.

Recent experience with transportation advisory commissions in Connecticut and New Jersey suggests how New York should not proceed. The transportation strategy board created by Governor John Rowland in 2000 to meet an outcry over lousy transportation proven to be a monumental head-fake. It absorbed the attentions of would-be transportation reformers — from environmentalists to business leaders — for several years, but has not yielded any significant movement in transportation policy or investment levels. Overall, it increased cynicism about Rowland’s regard for the importance of the issue. This has recently become magnified several-fold by the release of a state budget calling for further transit fare increases and weak levels of capital investment in the face of this winter’s partial collapse of the New Haven commuter rail line.

Governor James McGreevey established a blue ribbon commission on transportation finance during 2003. It recommended raising more transportation revenue, greater levels of capital investment and less reliance on borrowing. Since the release of the commission’s report, the governor has proceeded to do exactly the opposite. He fumbled a gas tax proposal, set his agency leaders to work on a transportation austerity budget and is now proceeding to borrow nearly $1 billion of transportation capital funds, earning condemnation from opinion makers in the process. A recent Star-Ledger editorial proclaimed that "the new borrowing does not solve anything. It merely buys McGreevey a year ― at the expense of adding another $100 million each year to the state's transportation bill. For those of you who visit the pumps, that’s about 2 cents worth of gas tax hike right there."

Commissioner Boardman said the New York State panel would be formed this spring, and would solicit input at hearings this summer.

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