Tuesday's hearing was the last chance for some City Council members to weigh in before the MTA board votes on what's being called its "doomsday budget."

The only item on this committee's agenda were the recommendations of the Ravitch Commission, the panel Governor Paterson appointed to come up with ways to bail out the MTA.

"Though everything we recommended involves a lot of pain, we concluded that it was not as painful as not addressing the problems that were faced," said Transit Commission Chairman Richard Ravitch.

Faced with the challenge of how to plug the MTA's $1.2 billion dollar deficit without double-digit fare increases and service cuts, the Ravitch Commission recommended, among other things, a tax on corporate payrolls.

Ravitch said that could help raise the billions of dollars the MTA needs for construction projects and help limit a fare hike to around eight percent.

"The Ravitch Commission succeeded in my opinion in coming up with a way to spread the pain, although painfully, spread the pain across everybody in our region, and save transit riders and our bus and subway system from immense disrepair," said Queens city council member John Liu.

While the commission's suggestions were, for the most part, well received by council members, almost everyone there took issue with proposed new tolls on the East River and Harlem River bridges.

"Let's not hang ourselves over East River bridge tolls, that's not going to happen, dead on arrival, same bad idea, it's congestion pricing light," said Brooklyn city council member Lew Fidler.

"It's been talked about for nearly the last 100 years and it's always gone over like a lead balloon, it sinks straight to the bottom of the East River," said Liu.

Ravitch said revenue from bridge tolls could be used to enhance inadequate bus service, offering drivers an incentive to actually get out of their cars.

"Since 1911, the four East River bridges -- the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro bridges -- have been free of tolls and that is the way, in my opinion, it should remain," said Queens city council member David Weprin.

Regardless of what happened Tuesday, the MTA board is not likely to veer from its finance committee's proposals.

The full board is expected to vote today.