by Brian Tumulty
WASHINGTON -- New York would receive $3.165 billion for highways and mass transit in fiscal 2013 under a transportation bill the Senate approved Wednesday.
That represents an increase of $193 million -- or 6.5 percent -- over what the state received in fiscal 2011, the most recent fiscal year for which a comparison is possible.
Mass transit funding would increase $162 million to $1.39 billion. Funding for highways, interstate maintenance, bridge repairs, congestion mitigation and recreational trails would increase by only $31 million to $1.77 billion.
The $109 billion transportation bill, which would provide federal funding for transportation projects for two years, passed 74-22.
New York's two Democratic senators highlighted the legislation's safety provisions for buses, trucks and teenage drivers.
The measure includes a provision authored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand that would set national standards for states to issue graduated driver's licenses to teenagers that initially restrict night-time driving and how many non-family passengers are allowed in a vehicle.
Gillibrand and Sen. Charles Schumer also took credit for a provision encouraging states to establish safe overnight truck stops for long-haul truckers. That provision was prompted by the March 2009 death of Schoharie County trucker Jason Rivenburg, who was shot during a robbery attempt after parking at an abandoned gas station in South Carolina.
Under the Senate bill, commuters who receive an employer-provided subsidy for transit expenses could deduct up to $240 a month tax-free, an amount equal to the allowance given to drivers, according to Schumer. The transit deduction was $230 a month last year, but dropped to $125 a month this year.
Much of the state's mass transit funding increase would go to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for a capital program designed to return aging equipment to a "state of good repair." The MTA has a $24 billion backlog of capital repairs for the Metro-North Railroad, Long Island Rail Road and New York City subways and buses.
The transit repair program also would benefit agencies across the state, according to Ronald Epstein, chief financial officer for the New York State Department of Transportation.
"Buffalo has a light rail system that would benefit, and there are bus provisions for 'state of good repair' that would help the other systems," Epstein said.
About 40 percent of the mass transit money New York would get under the Senate bill would go for the state-of-good-repair program.
Epstein expressed confidence earlier this week, before the Senate released its funding figures, that New York also would receive enough money to begin addressing its backlog of bridge repairs.
"What this will allow us to do is the preservation activities that are required to keep them safe and viable for commerce," he said.
The state's biggest bridge project is the proposed replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge across the Hudson River. The Senate legislation would significantly increase funding for a federal loan program that New York wants to tap into for $2 billion to help finance the project.
The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program currently provides 35-year loans, loan guarantees and lines of credit at a 3.31 percent interest rate for regionally significant projects.
Wednesday's bipartisan vote puts pressure on the House to consider taking up the Senate bill before the end of the month. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has acknowledged that's an option.
The House had been considering a five-year, $260 billion transportation bill, but the original version faced strong opposition and is being reworked.
New York House lawmakers, including four of the state's Republican freshmen, are cosponsoring an amendment that would reverse a proposal to remove guaranteed funding for mass transit from the Highway Trust Fund. Mass transit current receives 2.86 cents of the 18.4-cents-a-gallon federal fuel tax that finances the trust fund.
The trust fund is facing insolvency next year. The Senate bill would boost its funding with revenue from the federal gas-guzzler tax and with some of the money collected for the cleanup of leaking underground storage tanks.
Critics of the Senate bill, including Taxpayers for Common Sense, say it relies on budget gimmickry by counting 10 years of revenue from some sources to pay for two years of transportation programs.
Federal transportation programs have been running on temporary authorizations since late 2009, when a five-year program expired.
The latest temporary authorization expires at the end of the month.
California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said another short-term extension isn't an option because the Highway Trust Fund is running out of money.
"The gas tax will no longer be collected for the Highway Trust Fund it they don't act," Boxer said of House lawmakers. "And we are looking at 1.8 million unemployed if they don't act. So I say the easiest thing is to put faith in the bipartisan process we had over here and take up our bill and just pass it."
U.S. Senate highway bill would boost money for New York (Elmira Star Gazette)
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