Silver On MTA Plan: “This Is The Best We Could Do”
-
- February
- 26
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, defended his proposal today to put a $2 toll on the East and Harlem rivers bridges as part of a plan to increase payroll taxes to bail out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
He said his plan is less than the $4.50 toll proposed by the Ravitch Commission.
“I think we put together a plan that mitigates what was asked for in terms of a $4.50 tolling of the bridges, which what was asked for, gives us the opportunity to eliminate the substantial fare increase, eliminate the service cuts,” Silver said. “Ultimately the MTA is the lifeblood of the city and the suburban region.”
While Silver said he has enough support for the plan in the Assembly, some Democratic senators said they would not support any toll increases on the bridges.
“It’s a huge money grab,” said Sen. Carl Kruger, D-Brooklyn. “And the Assembly and this Legislature last year did not support congestion pricing. This is another mechanism to implement congestion pricing.”
Asked about the opposition, Silver said he’d like to see their alternatives.
The Legislature and Gov. David Paterson are expected to reach an agreement next week.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 2:00 pm by Joseph Spector.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
