AMNY Subway Tracker

(via Hardcore Shutterbug on Flickr)

The Observer reports that the governor is going to release the request for proposals to develop the MTA's West Side Rail Yards. The area was once going to be a football stadium but now will hold office and residential buildngs. The fate of the High Line is still up in the air.

According to YouTube, that's Spitzer in the subway.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer was on the hot seat on WNBC Gabe Pressman’s show yesterday. Complete transcript is here.

He promised no fare hike this year and put the blame for the budget woes on former Gov. George Pataki.

PRESSMAN: Metropolitan Transportation Authority has set the subway fare, the bus fare, at $2. Are you going to hold that fare down?

Gov. SPITZER: What I've said is that we will certainly hold it this year and the budget is difficult. We were bequeathed by my predecessor an enormous gaping hole in the MTA budget. We are predicting a deficit next year approaching a billion dollars. It may come in lower, there's still revenues that are increasing, thankfully, because the economy's doing quite nicely in the New York City region. But if we have a deficit of that magnitude, then we have to step back and say how do we close that deficit and simultaneously make the investments that we need, ongoing investments, extending the subway system. We want to build the...

PRESSMAN: Right.

Gov. SPITZER: ...Second Avenue subway, the East side access, the number seven line. These are all critical investments.

PRESSMAN: But the law requires a self-sustaining fare. Do you feel that it's going to become inevitable to raise the fare?

Gov. SPITZER: Well, I don't want to say anything is inevitable, Gabe. We are going to work awfully hard to control spending, to invest, see what we can do to bring efficiencies into the system. But the public expects a system that runs, that is maintained. That requires money. So we will look at this, certainly, as we approach the next fiscal year and see what we can do.

-- Chuck Bennett

Spitzer named his new head of the state Dept. of Transportation, Astrid Glynn.

Glynn, who will be paid $136,000 a year, has got more than 20 years of transportation related experience, including oversight of Amtrak, commuter rails, and freight rails, highways and ferries in Massachusetts.

Most recently she was director of Capital Planning for the Massachusetts School Building Authority.

But, back in 1983 she served as general counsel and spokeswoman for the Boston Shipping Association.

After the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007 in Sept. 1983, the local Boston longshoreman refused to unload any Russian ships – including one full of Russian vodka.

According to an AP account of September 28, 1983 it was Glynn’s job to help encourage them to go back to work:

Astrid Glynn, a lawyer for the shipping association, said the work stoppage would cause irreparable harm to both shippers and the New England economy as a whole.

"This vessel is scheduled to come to Boston once a month," Ms. Glynn said. "If it isn't unloaded, it won't come back. Turning away a vessel a month is not something the Port of Boston can afford."
the New England economy as a whole.

-- Chuck Bennett

Gov. Spitzer named Brooklyn Justice Theodore Jones to the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court today.

Jones, of course, presided over all the court room drama between the MTA, the state, and the transit union before and after the strike. He is the man who ordered Roger Toussaint to jail.

“Justice Jones will bring his experience and unquestioned integrity to the Court of Appeals,” said Governor Spitzer. “He has earned the trust and respect of all those who have worked with him throughout his years of service. I know he will bring his deep respect for the law as well as his sense of duty to the public to this new role.”

The NY Law Journal has a comprehensive write-up here.

No statement from Toussaint, yet. And we are doubting there will be one.

-- Chuck Bennett

Streetsblog has an interesting list of issues Gov. Eliot Spitzer might want to examine to improve city transportation and livibility. Check it out.

-- Rolando Pujol

So Eliot Spitzer's big annoucement wasn't his new MTA chairman. Instead, he outlined his campaign finance reform policy. But, he still couldn't answer amNewYork's questions over accepting $25,000 grand from MTA's landlord Tamir Sapir.

-- Chuck Bennett

For the Record, here’s a list of Spitzer’s entire transition advisory team for transportation and transit issues. They got their work cut out for them and it will take a superhero effort to tackle it all.

Co-chair
Elliot Sander, director of NYU Rudin Center for Transportation, VP at MTA contractor DMJM Harris and former city Dept. of Transporation commisioner. (Rumored to an MTA chairman candidate)

Co-Chair
Mary Ann Crotty, former transportation advisor for Mario Cuomo.

Members
Susan Kupferman, president MTA Bridges and Tunnels (Rumored candidate for MTA executive director)
Mitch Palley, MTA board member from Suffolk (often the lone dissenting voice with votig power on the board and big supporter of the third rail project for the LIRR)
Gene Russianoff, Straphangers Campaign (the MTA’s best critic)
Jon Orcutt, president of the Tri State Transportation Campaign (another tough MTA critic)

More after the jump

The next governor will inherit a host of transportation headaches from Gov. George Pataki. With no shortage of major projects competing for funds, and a looming MTA budget deficit, the next four years will not be easy ones. Newsday's Herbert Lowe breaks it down.

And here's a quick look at the priorities the two candidates have identified:

John Faso
Would use revenue from state sales tax on gasoline and diesel for "pay as you go" financing for roads, bridges and transit plans statewide.

Complete Second Avenue subway project, LIRR-Grand Central link.

Has called for negotiations with MTA's unions to focus in part on better productivity.

Eliot Spitzer

Give priority to projects such as Second Avenue subway and LIRR link to Grand Central Terminal, which he calls essential to providing transit capacity to handle job growth in Manhattan and commuting growth from Long Island.

Reform transportation agencies.

Complete major regional projects around the state, including construction of Interstate 86, aimed at expanding economic activity from the Pennsylvania border to the New York State Thruway in Orange County.

And from the Tracker archives, here's amNY transportation columnist Joe Rappaport's take on the next governor's challenges.

-- Rolando Pujol

Photos: AP

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who is currently dominating the polls, will unveil his “transportation agenda” this Friday at the Regional Plan Association Regional Assembly. Spitzer is the keynote speaker.

The focus of the assembly is big -- like Katrina big --disaster planning.

But hopefully Spitzer will give some hints about how he’d manage the MTA if elected governor. It will particularly be interesting to see what big projects Spitzer backs or doesn’t bother to mention -- especially, the proposed Lower Manhattan to Kennedy Airport Rail Link -- a project least liked by area transportation experts.

Tom Suozzi, the Democratic insurgent hopeful, will be a panelist at the event.

-- Chuck Bennett

Reacting to news that AG Eliot Spitzer won't seek jail time for Roger Toussaint, Mayor Bloomberg said today, "I don’t have any personal views. That’s up to the prosecutors... I want to make sure that there’s good, safe, efficient, affordable mass transit for the people of this city and then anybody that breaks the law, there’s a whole process of district attorneys and judges to take care of that, and they’ll do their job."

That’s interesting because Dec. 20, the day of the transit strike, Bloomberg said, “Roger Toussaint and the TWU have shamefully decided they don't care about the people they work for and that they have no respect for the law. The leadership of the TWU has thuggishly turned their backs on New York City, and disgraced the noble concept of public service.”

On the 21st, the mayor said, “You break the law, you’re not going to get away with it. Period. End of story.”

Sounds like Bloomberg had a personal view then.

But, Bloomberg never outright called for Toussaint’s arrest during the strike.

“From a practical point of view, a fine against the union would probably be a more productive kind of deterrent than putting somebody in jail where you then can’t negotiate with them,” he said.

-- Chuck Bennett