The Latest in Piecemeal Transit Funding

State legislators are about to head home for the Easter and Passover holiday, leaving transit riders to twist in the wind a while longer without an MTA funding plan in place. Martin Malave Dilan, chair of the State Senate's transportation committee, gave Politicker's Jimmy Vielkind one last debriefing before the legislative break:

If the modest registration fee and tiny gas tax hike are really what's on the table instead of bridge tolls, then we're in trouble. A one-cent raise in the gas tax would generate an estimated $24 million per year. Bill Thompson projected that his weight-based vehicle fee proposal would raise $1 billion, but that's with a $100 charge for the smallest cars and $400-plus for behemoths like the Lincoln Navigator. A $25 average hike pales in comparison.

The ideas Dilan bats around don't add up to any more than $200 million per year, even if you put a rosy spin on the numbers. Shelly Silver's toll plan would likely raise more than twice that amount for the MTA (plus a hefty sum for bridge maintenance). Who knows what the transportation committee is doing behind closed doors, but they don't seem to be hard at work crafting a solid financial foundation for our transit system.