Protecting Transit Funds Tops NYLCV’s Transpo Agenda
Environmental advocates’ agenda for the Cuomo Administration continues to take shape, with the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund yesterday releasing its Albany agenda for 2011 [PDF].
Topping the transportation agenda is a call to protect dedicated transit funds. Raiding dedicated transit funds and cutting the MTA payroll tax should be off the table, NYLCV says. More ambitiously, NYLCV urges the state to find new revenue sources to pay for the MTA’s largely unfunded capital plan, which pays for repairs and expansions of the system.
The agenda also calls for the state to pass a complete streets law, to craft an economic development plan which would reduce the emissions from freight transport, to quickly implement the state’s new smart growth law, and to support a Cuomo-style plan for competitive smart growth grants.