It seems like we’re pawns in a game of political chicken that is about to be decided. The loaded gun that is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s doomsday plan has apparently gotten the attention of Albany, Gov. David Paterson in particular.

Flanked by Assembly and Senate leaders in Albany on Friday, Paterson didn’t mince words.

“We are now on the verge of service cuts and fare hikes that are life-threatening and with a situation like that everything is on the table,” Paterson said.

That means they are back to considering everything from new tolls on previously toll-free East River and Harlem River bridges as well as a state-wide income tax surcharge.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver prefers the new tolls to help defray MTA costs, but members of the upper house, like Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx are adamantly opposed to such tolls and claim they are closing on a deal to secure the surcharge as an MTA bailout.

Leading a small group of protesters at the Macomb’s Dam Bridge near Yankee Stadium, Espada told CBS 2 HD that he and is colleagues will be in negotiations through weekend and are offering upstate lawmakers a larger slice of federal stimulus money for projects that include a high-speed rail connection between Albany and Niagara Falls.

Espada said it’s a design to encourage “an economy that’s readily available to the folks in upstate New York.” With high speed rail, he said, “jobs that are eight hours away would be two hours away.”

Appearing on this Sunday’s edition of “Eye on New York,” MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger said he has no preference as to which of the plans get approved.

“We don’t have any religious belief in a particular plan,” he said. “We just need the money.”

Angry critics of the MTA, though, insist it’s the giant agency’s own ambitious borrowing binge that has put the state and transit users in this tough position.

Whoever is to blame, someone has to pay the cost. We should find out the precise manner in which the bill will arrive by Tuesday.

(Source: WCBSTV)