On last night’s program, MTA Director & CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander says it’s possible the subway system could return to the state it was in the 1970s if it doesn’t get some fast financial relief. Watch the video above.

Tonight’s guests include: Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer; Our Friday Reporters Roundtable.

Willie Neuman writes: “Deep cuts in subway, bus and commuter rail service could come as early as spring, followed by a double-digit rise in fares and tolls in June, transportation officials said on Thursday as they revealed a gloom-and-doom budget that came with a “cry for help” to elected officials to bail the authority out of its financial crisis.”

Columnist Clyde Haberman notes: “So now we know what doomsday looks like for New York. It looks an awful lot like an ordinary weekend. For several years, New Yorkers who ride the subways on Saturday and Sunday have had a sneak preview of what hell (assuming it exists) has in store for them. It means traveling through eternity on trains that don’t go where they are supposed to, or that don’t go at all, or that skip stations, or that stop well short of their normal terminuses and force people to board unfamiliar shuttle buses.”

Jonathan Hicks reports: “Amid the leadership drama in Albany, where three dissident Democrats are threatening the party’s newfound majority in the Senate, the eyes of Democratic and Republican leaders are also fixed on a large, humid room with linoleum floors in Queens. There, the ballots are still being counted in a razor-thin race in which Senator Frank Padavan, a Republican, remains ahead of Councilman James F. Gennaro, a Democrat, by about 500 votes.”

New York Post

Fred Dicker wonders about Gov. Paterson and Sen. Chuck Schumer: “So they've cut a deal in case a replacement is needed for Hillary Rodham Clinton?”

Scott and Schilling follow up a Times Union story and write: “Gov. Paterson was called on the carpet yesterday for spending nearly $40,000 in taxpayer funds on a handful of regal rugs for the Executive Mansion in the midst of the state's budget crisis.”

The edit-heads note: “Gov. Paterson (who largely controls the MTA) and Mayor Bloomberg (who also has a say) need to ensure that New York transit remains a viable, practical, reliable way for people to get to and from work.”

And the edit-heads have some ideas of where the City Council could find some money to pay for those $400 tax-rebate checks.

In a guest op-ed column, the Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas writes: “Don’t buy the idea that the MTA is the victim of an unprecedented, unanticipated fiscal crisis that's nobody's fault: plummeting tax revenues due to the credit crisis, blah blah blah. Sorry: Where the MTA finds itself today is the natural, predicted and only possible result of craven decisions made by a decade's worth of politicians and their appointees.”

New York Daily News

Reporting from Albany, Ken Lovett writes: “Facing federal corruption charges, Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio has used $35,000 in campaign funds to help pay his legal fees, the Daily News has learned.”

The edit-heads note: “It's a fact: Without legislative action, millions of straphangers, commuter line riders and drivers will have to pay lots more for less transportation. But it is also a fact that Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith and Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco have not had the courage to propose a single meaningful idea for getting control of the state's finances.”
And the edit-heads want the City Council to find the money to pay for those $400 rebate checks.

Newsday

Dan Janison writes: “Nothing better illustrates Albany's new tensions than a pair of opposing statements, issued this week, on New York City's effort to reinstate its 0.45 percent income tax on nonresidents who commute to jobs in the five boroughs.”

And the edit-heads are worried about the future of the MTA.

And there will be no more worrying here – at least not until Monday. Have a great weekend.


Bob Hardt

To drop us a line, write to political_itch@ny1.com.