A new report from New York’s outgoing lieutenant governor Richard Ravitch — previous architect of transportation rescue plans — offers a blueprint for the state to avoid a future with a diminished transportation network.

The report’s magic number is $1.3 billion a year in dedicated revenue: $700 million/year to pay for the unfunded part of MTA’s 5-year capital program, which would bring the system closer to a state of good repair and continue the LIRR’s East Side Access and phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway. Another $600 million/year is needed to fund the capital plan NYSDOT says it needs (that plan is generally good, though not perfect; at current levels of NYSDOT spending the state’s road and bridge conditions will go backwards).

Ravitch lists a number of ways to cut costs and increase revenues, saying the state should:

• Begin studying a “regional tolling strategy that would rationalize the downstate tolling regime. … [A strategy] that includes all key bridges and statewide roads, especially the parkway system, could provide funds for projects like the Tappan Zee Bridge.”
• Explore the creation of “special taxing districts” for those mega-projects which would increase economic activity and property values in an area.  This could mean more use of tax-increment financing, as NYC is using for the No.7 subway extension.  Or it could mean something like a business improvement district where an additional local tax is used to pay for transportation investments.
• Streamline the environmental review process for transit and intercity rail, “projects with a demonstrably positive environmental impact.”
• Pass legislation allowing state agencies to use design-build procurement, contracting with one firm to design and build a project instead of executing separate contracts for design and construction. This could lead to cost savings on some projects (though it is not suitable in all situations). Both NYCDOT and NYSDOT have argued for this reform.
• Drive regional efforts on rail. Ravitch cites “the current fragmentation of the Northeast Corridor states” as a disadvantage in the competition for federal high-speed rail dollars. Indeed, one factor behind the success of Connecticut’s New Haven-Springfield rail line in winning federal money is that it is part of a broader New England “rail vision.”

The report spends much of its time recapping the dire straits the state’s transportation infrastructure is in, and detailing the Albany practices which led to them:

• The state’s Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund was created to fund capital projects, but nearly all the revenue which goes in is now used to pay off old debt and day-to-day operating costs like snow removal and DMV salaries. The state has been paying for capital projects out of general taxes instead.
• New York now routinely borrows money to pay for regular maintenance like lane striping, sign repairs, and simple repaving.
• Both the MTA and NYSDOT capital programs are under great debt pressure. Adding to this pressure were restructurings of MTA debt in 2000 and Highway and Bridge Fund debt in 2005, which led to short-term savings but much higher debt payments today and in the coming decades.

Can the state change its poor practices and pass the reforms needed to keep the state moving?  The report suggests that state leaders may “have to do less with less,” making tough choices between needed projects. But on the transit side, at least, it’s hard to identify much that could be cut. Canceling East Side Access and the Second Avenue Subway, the report points out, would require New York to repay over $1.5 billion to the federal government. Any cuts would probably come out of the state-of-good-repair budget instead, sending the region backwards to the transit network of prior decades.

The state must “prevent a self-destructive backsliding on investment,” Ravitch concludes, or it will “surrender any plausible chance for a prosperous future.”  That reality, and the cost-cutting and revenue-raising recommendations outlined in the report, are a good starting point for the Cuomo administration as it prepares to grapple with New York’s needs.