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November 9, 2005
Ballot Questions
Voters Approve Transit Bonds for $2.9 Billion
By SEWELL CHAN
By a fair margin, a $2.9 billion bond act that will finance transportation projects statewide, including part of the Second Avenue subway and a link between the Long Island Rail Road and Grand Central Terminal, was approved by New York State voters yesterday.
Supporters said the new borrowing, which will be repaid over decades from the state's general revenues, was essential to acquire, build or repair subways, trains, buses, highways and bridges. Opponents said it would push the state's already high debt burden to dangerous levels and saddle future generations with the bill.
The stakes were particularly high for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which will get half the money. It has committed to completing the first segment of the Second Avenue subway, from East 96th to East 63rd Streets, jump-starting a project that was abandoned during the city's fiscal crisis of the mid-1970's.
The authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, had warned that the bond measure would "make or break" the Second Avenue subway and the project to link the Long Island Rail Road and Grand Central. Each of the two projects will receive $450 million under the bond measure.
The measure, Proposition 2, was winning by 55 percent to 45 percent, with 97 percent of the state's 16,274 polling precincts reporting, according to unofficial returns reported by The Associated Press.
"The voters want the best transit system in the world, and they are willing to do whatever needs to be done to make it happen," Mr. Kalikow said last night. "Now it's up to us complete the job."
The other half of the $2.9 billion will go to the State Department of Transportation, whose acting commissioner, Thomas J. Madison Jr., campaigned across the state. In New York City, major arteries to be repaired or upgraded under the bond act include the Van Wyck Expressway in Queens, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan and the West Shore Expressway in Staten Island.
The state's last transportation bond act, a $3.9 billion measure, was narrowly defeated, 52 percent to 48 percent, in 2000. That measure was approved in New York City, 73 percent to 27 percent, but was resoundingly rejected upstate, 60 percent to 40 percent.
Proponents of this year's bond act hoped that a strong turnout for the New York City mayoral race would overcome opposition elsewhere, although several upstate communities also had mayoral elections yesterday, including Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester and Albany.
This year's measure was endorsed by Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his Democratic opponent, Fernando Ferrer. The state and city comptrollers, the leaders of both chambers of the Legislature, and dozens of lawmakers also supported it.
Vote Yes for Transportation, a coalition of business, labor, environmental and transportation groups, raised more than $1.8 million for advertisements, flyers and mailings.
"We had, for a shoestring budget, an incredibly robust field operation," the campaign's top field organizer, Edward Draves, said by telephone last night from Buffalo. "We distributed literature, manned polling sites and were on the palm cards of both Ferrer and Bloomberg."
Mr. Kalikow said he was given a campaign card endorsing the bond act on his way to vote at Public School 6 on the East Side, the same polling precinct where Mayor Bloomberg voted.
There was little organized opposition. Groups that opposed the bond act - including the Automobile Club of New York, the Conservative Party of New York State and the Citizens Budget Commission, a fiscal watchdog - relied on press releases and messages to their members.
In addition to the bond act, and a state constitutional amendment that would shift budget-making powers from the governor to the Legislature, two other questions were on the New York City ballot.
Neither question attracted significant opposition, and both were approved by 3-to-1 margins.
Question 3 will change the City Charter to establish a code of professional conduct for administrative law judges and hearing officers.
Question 4 will extend fiscal mandates that were enacted during the 1975 fiscal crisis. It will require a balanced budget and a four-year financial plan to be prepared each year, and impose conditions relating to short-term debt limits and auditing standards.
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