Lawmakers, Feeling Testy, Prepare To Tackle MTA Budget

By: Josh Robin

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NY1's Josh Robin reports on the growing animosity between state lawmakers as they prepare to return to Albany this week to forge a plan that city residents hope will allow them to avoid a major bus and subway fare hike.

Brooklyn Democrat Carl Kruger rejects being called the "Villain of the Subways." But it may not have helped the state senator's cause that he had his driver wait with impunity in a no-standing zone downtown on Friday.

"Today I'm in Lower Manhattan meeting with hospital administrators to talk about their hospital runs and what it means for their impact," Kruger said when NY1 spoke with him in front of his parked car. "I'm not here, you know, looking to buy shoes."

Kruger, the chair of the state Senate's finance committee, rejects charges that he supports a $2.50 fare for city subway and bus riders.

But that's what the architect of the agency's bailout is suggesting.

Former MTA chair Richard Ravitch, honored Friday with a lifetime award from a noted planning group, says that to stave off a rail and road doomsday, the state desperately needs tolls on East River bridges and a tax on local payrolls.

With a May 1st deadline approaching, he's calling on New Yorkers to telephone Kruger and other unwilling senators – and for supporters like Governor David Paterson and those in the State Assembly to stand firm.

"I hope they do not back off and make Senator Kruger a hero out of this process," Ravitch said Friday. "That would be a tragedy."

Kruger denies he's behind the gridlock – and on Friday had some choice words for both Ravitch and the MTA.

"He wanted to make this the Ravitch Rescue Plan," Kruger said about Ravitch's proposal. "I think that in itself says something. I call it the MTA money grab. So consequentially, this is not a question of who's going to be a hero. There are only victims."

Those, in Kruger's book, include New Yorkers living outside Manhattan, who'd be left with no way to drive there without paying a toll.

Kruger has his own plan to avoid tolls, but it doesn't have backing from enough fellow Democrats.

Either way, without major reforms Kruger says the MTA can't be trusted.

In the meantime, the governor is getting increasingly testy at those criticizing the Ravitch plan.

"Maybe after this event they will step outside," Paterson said, tongue in cheek, to detractors of the Ravitch plan at Friday's event honoring Ravitch. After a pause, the legally-blind governor added: "I do have that visual problem, so that will make it a fair fight."

Paterson says there'll be no excuse if a deal isn't reached within a week.