As legislators work to negotiate between three separate visions for New York’s 2012-13 budget—Governor Cuomo’s, the Senate’s, and the Assembly’s—transit funding has assumed its usual place as a political football. Meanwhile, across the state, riders, transit agencies, manufacturers, and construction workers nervously look on.

The One-House Budget Bills

The Senate’s one-house budget bill—a largely symbolic response to the Governor’s proposed executive budget for 2012-2013—slashes MTA Capital Program funding by $770 million and denies a crucial $7 billion increase in the agency’s bond cap. This blatant failure to support the region’s transit system is just another in a string of Albany’s attacks on the MTA’s funding.

While the Assembly’s one-house budget bill notably avoids gutting transit support, it fails to change the way that the corporate and utilities tax is distributed, a move that would help support upstate transit systems. Currently, the tax is collected throughout New York but goes to support downstate systems. Governor Cuomo’s proposed budget would more fairly distribute the tax to systems statewide, but if his redistribution plan is not adopted, upstate transit systems will lose $21.45 million in much-needed operating assistance and Long Island could lose approximately $5.5 million.

Officials Take Issue

Albany legislators responded to the budget developments at Wednesday’s Joint Budget Conference Subcommittee meeting on transportation, which kicked off budget negotiations between the two chambers and the executive. Senator Dilan (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblyman Brennan (D-Brooklyn) pointed out the devastating effects that MTA funding cuts would bring to New York, both city and state. Assemblyman Brennan discussed the soon-to-be signed MTA construction contracts that would be jeopardized if the Capital Plan were not fully supported, and Senator Dilan submitted a list of at-risk projects into the record, including a total of $2.6 billion in expansion and core agency work.

MTA Chairman Joe Lhota also registered his concerns about the Senate’s budget bill in a letter to Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre). Lhota declared that MTA funding cuts would harm New York’s economy and undermine the agency’s bid for a $3 billion federal loan to complete East Side Access in addition to putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk.

He was not exaggerating: The MTA’s 2005-2009 capital plan “generated 80,000 jobs upstate and 50,000 on Long Island,” Crain’s reports.

Concerns About the NY Works Fund, Transit on the Tappan Zee

At the same meeting, Senator Dilan also noted that there is no list of projects for the proposed NY Works Fund. He added that, according to New York State Department of Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald, the $1.16 billion in the fund would fund only highway and bridge projects, leaving transit out of the equation.

Senator Dilan added a call to include transit on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Any bonding authority or budget item related to the bridge, he said, should come with a requirement that bus rapid transit be included.