Late Friday Links 1/10

Sorry for being late with this week's Late Friday Links, but here are links to a couple news stories surrounding the LIRR this week:

• MTA payroll tax is here to stay, says NY Sen. John Bonacic
• The Daily Freeman News reports that the NY State Legislature is unlikely to abolish the MTA Payroll Tax that is levied on workers in the counties served by the MTA.  The tax, which can be as high as a whopping 0.0034%, generates up to $1.3 billion in revenue each year for the MTA (and considering the MTA's annual budget is around $13 billion, $1.3 billion, or about 10% of their total budget coming from this tax, the payroll tax is not insignificant).
• Cuomo backs Metro-North line to Penn Station
• In Andrew Cuomo's State of the State address earlier in the week, the Governor pledged his support for Penn Station Access, a plan that keeps rearing its ugly head in the news.  I'm not directly opposed to the project itself, merely the political cloud around it, and this doesn't help, but I guess the project just can't go away.
• Howard Permut, Metro-North President, Is Stepping Down
• Several news agencies are reporting that Metro-North's president, Howard Permut, is retiring, and MTA Chairman Thomas Prendergast made the announcement today.  It was a rough year for Metro-North, and I won't bore you recounting the unfortunate incidents.  Don't believe everything you hear in the media, Permut was original to Metro-North, and now that the railroad has turned 30, many of its original members have become eligible for retirement, so it seems like the plan was for him to retire sometime in early 2014 anyways, but it's just the poor timing and sensationalism of today's news media that make it look different than it is.

It's a little too cold for any major trackwork, so there aren't any major disruptions going on this weekend.  The shoppers specials are all done for the year, so there's no more of them until next November.  Have a good weekend!