Oops you said water and sewer "charge." If you civic folks want to game the language and call by-usage fees and charges collected by the government "taxes," you might want to do it consistently. (Of course then every time you said "water tax" you would have to explain what you're talking about.) Being neither a public official nor apparently whatever a civic folk is, I call them like I see them, too, and I happen to see a use fee as a use fee, and congestion pricing as pricing for the massive and exclusive use of city street space. If only I could avoid real taxes as easily as I avoid driving!

-"You speak of the congestion tax scheme as discouraging auto use. This impact falls squarely on the less well to do folks from the borough (and upper Manhattan) who drive."

Stop playing grammar games. When you say "the less well to do folks from the borough (and upper Manhattan) WHO DRIVE" (my emphasis), you are limiting your analysis to those who drive--only a percentage and in most parts of the city a minority of residents--and observing, among this subset, that those who are "less well to do" feel the $8 fee more than those who are more well to do. This "insight" is specious. From my perspective, the relevant comparison is between the folks those who take transit, walk or bike--the majority in most if not all New York City neighborhoods and certainly the majority of all New Yorkers--and those who drive. Comparing THOSE groups, it is apparent that the burden of the current system of free roads and bridges reserved primarily for motorists disproportionately benefits the minority and falls disproportionately on the majority.

-"The toll offsets mean no wealthy suburbanite pays."

Your "wealthy suburbanite" is a straw man. A motorist from Westchester that takes the Henry Hudson pays most of congestion charge. One who takes the Triborough pays about half of the charge. Those from New Jersey still pay part of the charge. Eastern Queens residents, wealthy or not, would get a discount if they used the Midtown tunnel, and pay half the charge, Manhattanites in the zone would pay $4 to make an intra-zone trip to drop their kids off at school. If Manhattanites are willing to pay for the privilege of motoring on their own local streets because they finally have recognized all the negative indirect costs of free driving, then they have every right to ask that everyone, rich or poor, New York city residents or not, pay a charge as well.

-"Those who do not use E-ZPASS will migrate to the Queensborough and other free bridge crossing because paying a toll by cash gets no offset."

You assume that East River commuters will not buy an E-Z pass once they have a financial incentive to do so. That makes no sense. Don't tell me a story about hand-to-mouth motorists who have enough money to pay for a car, insurance, gas, repairs, tickets, parking etc. but can't scrape together enough money to buy an EZ pass.

-"The vitriol is just uncalled for." Sorry Corey, but you started it with the broadside attack that I and other CP supporters were "drinking kool-aid," paying attention to "only one or two issues," and playing patsy to developer interests. You reap what you sow.

-"I have been early and a consistent advocate on the issue of clear air vehicles." I have spent some time studying your self-promotional materials on your website and I told you that I agree with many of your positions. I am not sure exactly what role you played in actually getting anything accomplished, but I take you at your word that you had a significant role. Good for you. My question remains, however: are you receiving anything of value in return for suddenly championing parking reform (something you admit to have no "claim to focus" on) as an alternative to CP?

-"The City plan to remove cars by targeting the poor – or if some prefer “less-well-to-do schnook” -- creates space for the new residents of luxury developments on the FWS."

You know as well as I do that the poor overwhelmingly use mass transit and walk; they don't drive. How on earth does congestion pricing, which transfers money from motorists to mass transit, "create space for new residents of luxury developments"? This is not logical argument but charlatanry.

-"I believe the VMT numbers in that report are much lower than they analysis dictates and should be higher. I believe those approaches will minimally achieve double the City plan's VMT reduction."

Whether you are correct or not on this is beside the point because you are not aiming to reform parking, you are aiming to derail congestion pricing by appearing to champion parking reform.

-"A lot of the group just bought into the whole PlaNYC. The Queens Civic community by and large has not."

Another straw man, or "straw group." I have no idea what "group" you are talking about. You are not talking about me. You are not talking about the Streetsblog readership, who studied and commented on the problematic aspects of PlaNYC, in depth, on these pages, months ago. Did you read those posts? They are in the archives under "Congestion Pricing."

-"At Monday night's Queens Civic Congress and on many other occasions I likened PlaNYC to a mango . . . . It is was the first time I spoke on the issue in that forum because I had to outline an agenda on various issues for the new administration; my predecessor and our transportation chair spoke for QCC on the issue because on my involvements there (which is well known in the civic community). . . . . Bottom line, the proponents never expected such a good document and were blind-sided."

From these comments and my review of Bearak.com, it seems clear that you have two objectives: defeat congestion pricing and promote yourself (not necessarily in that order). I hope you are being well-paid for your efforts. All this posturing does not convince me that you actually speak for anyone other than yourself or your clients.

This impact falls squarely on the less well to do folks from the borough (and upper Manhattan) who drive. [...] Those who do not use E-ZPASS will migrate to the Queensborough and other free bridge crossing because paying a toll by cash gets no offset.

Please stop talking about "less well to do folks." The "less well-to-do" people who drive to Manhattan are still upper-middle-class. Everyone else is on subways and buses.

As for the toll shopping, this is an issue close to my heart, because I have to deal every day with traffic bound for the "free" Queensborough Bridge. Everyone expects that traffic to shift away from the Bridge to the tunnel and the Triborough; in fact, that's the basis of one of the silly allegations of "discrimination" raised by Silver. Even if you assume that none of the cash users will switch to EZ-Pass, and all of them will shift to the Queensborough Bridge, I think that's more than made up for by the users that will shift away from the Bridge. If you disagree, show me some data.

I mentioned to Fred Kress at the QCC meeting your post mentioning ARROW and West Queens Greens as the “ones that make noise” and he indicated both are among the more than 400 member organizations of Queens Coalition on Parks and Green Spaces.

Sure. Did they vote on the Coalition position against congestion pricing?

The motorists you should be targeting do not get hit by the city plan.

Who are you to tell me who I should be targeting? I'm targeting the people who insist on driving through my neighborhood, giving my son asthma attacks and running over my neighbors. They're not Manhattanites, and they're not driving to the tunnel or the Triborough, or they'd be on the LIE or the Grand Central. They're mostly from Eastern and Central Queens, and compared to the people who take the subway, they're most definitely elite. They certainly act elitist as they speed, gun their engines and fail to yield to pedestrians.

I also resent the racist and other allusions. My work and life is as much an open book as anyone – particularly since I do not believe I qualify as a public figure.

The accusation of racism is not directed at you, but at the elites from Queens who are leading the opposition to congestion pricing. I'm not saying all of them are racist, but there are enough racists in there to give Queens politics an unpleasant taint. And yes, I know that there are plenty of racial minorities in Queens politics. White people don't have a monopoly on racism: one of the most racist people I know is a Guyanese immigrant of Indian descent, and he saves the worst of his tirades for other Indians.

In any case, the Queens politicians and the Queens Civic Congress are spending a lot of time and energy fighting for the right of the richest 10% of Queens residents to drive into Manhattan without paying $8. They're fighting a plan that would improve air quality, speed bus travel times and make streets safer in our borough. That's elitist and it's a waste of time, money and energy. If you really care about all the people of Queens, I don't see how you can spend so much time and energy fighting for the elite.

Transportation Alternatives, by the way, is a fabulously neutral name. And I thought they did a pretty bang up job in this rapid fire response, typos and all. (Do the nit pickers think they could do better, in a one-hour turnaround?) I'm not sure how anyone could read into their words, genuinely, that they are against parking reform, etc. They're just calling bullshit on CTKNYCCTF's (OMGWTFBBQ) sudden advocacy of them. And the towering falsehood that free driving is a concern of majority middle and lower class New Yorkers. Thanks T.A., this is what we pay you for! (Not for those fliers you keep sending--those are a waste.)

I thought of that also. It could be a step if the additional CBTC capacity is used up someday. Still cheaper than extending multiple subway lines across the borough, which Queens NIMBYs killed in the 1970s in any event. Due to costs and suburban priorities, we'll be luckly to get the SAS from 125th to 63rd.

Operating costs, and required subsidy. I see an express busway as part of a reorganization of local Queens bus routes with a local fare, not as a premium priced express bus service. For that to be affordable, buses would have to get in and out very quickly so they could make multiple trips in one peak period, something multiple drop off points in slow-moving Manhattan traffic would frustrate.

I see what you're saying, but it doesn't have to be that way. The multiple express-bus dropoffs are an interesting feature, but they are inefficient - unless the DOT creates separated bus lanes for them. The Lincoln Tunnel "XBL" doesn't do this - it feeds right into the Port Authority, where people change for the subway. You could create an East Side bus station (I know, property values!) where bus riders from the Midtown Tunnel can get on the Second Avenue Subway.

With the 63rd Street tunnel but no new subway lines connecting with it, Queens has more tunnel capacity than route capacity. The busway would take the place of new subway lines in the borough.

Not quite. The only way you could take advantage of the surplus tunnel capacity would be to dig a tunnel to a new transfer point, say in the Sunnyside Yards, with a bus terminal over it.

CBTC would allow more subways to pass through, which would also increase route capacity. There is also excess track capacity in the form of the express tracks east of Forest Hills. If the V were extended to 179th Street it would take some pressure off the F, making the buses that terminate at the 165th Street Terminal more attractive. (Of course, if you spruced up the terminal it would also improve things.)

If you want to address the unfair burden of either one of these tools, you can program the tolling and parking to do so (e.g., residential parking permits, preferential tolling rates as is done for Staten Islanders now, etc.)

The rational way to arrive at the best policy option is to answer these questions in this order:
1. What is the number of vehicles that we want to accommodate, in the CBD, and elsewhere in the city (in terms of congestion, emissions, real estate occupied)? This will presumably be a declining number over time.
2. Assign a public "value" to each kind of traffic (e.g., getting an emergency vehicle to a destination, a school bus, a student, a public employee, a small delivery vehicle, a tractor trailer en route to Long Island, etc. etc.)
3. Figure out the optimum combination.
4. Assign the costs to each that will achieve this.
5. Then figure out the combination of mechanisms (both subsidies and fees) and infrastructure that achieves this most efficiently.

The problem with this debate is that it avoids squarely addressing the first 4 steps. This makes it like guess and check.

Operating costs, and required subsidy. I see an express busway as part of a reorganization of local Queens bus routes with a local fare, not as a premium priced express bus service. For that to be affordable, buses would have to get in and out very quickly so they could make multiple trips in one peak period, something multiple drop off points in slow-moving Manhattan traffic would frustrate.

To make it work, the buses would have to have a separate, grade-separated ROW right up to Queens Plaza, where riders would transfer to for a quick ride into Manhattan. Eight miles in ten minutes in, a brief drop off/pick up, eight miles in ten minutes out, and back to pick up/drop off more passengers.

CBTC, when implemented, would allow a significant increase in the number of trains passing through there over and above that already attained thanks to the V. With the 63rd Street tunnel but no new subway lines connecting with it, Queens has more tunnel capacity than route capacity. The busway would take the place of new subway lines in the borough.

.

CP starts at $8, charge can be adjusted once technology is in place to achieve desired traffic reductions, livable streets advocates will make sure significant reductions are achieved.

CP is a fundamnetal blow v. car culture b/c it defines auto travel as a disfavored transpo mode. You pay to ride in your car while I travel for less on mass transit or for free by foot or bike.

Every place else I've heard of, the argument against congestion pricing was that it discriminated against the poor- that the rich could easily afford the tolls.

Why would CP discourage car culture? If traffic will be decreased by about 6% (or anything like that) only a percent or two of current commuters would be priced out of their cars. Driving would be better for those who could afford it.

For the same reason there would be not much need to improve transit to handle such a small increase in customers. (There may be other reasons to go for bus rapid transit. The largest component of the federal subsidy offered for Bloomberg's plan is for BRT.)

The alternative plan that would rely on higher bridge and tunnel tolls while eliminating some of the free street parking seems like the better idea to me. -Better yet, congestion price *all* the free street parking and congestion toll all the bridges including the East River ones and you'd have the best plan.

I believe this would deal with all the problems mentioned in previous messages. E.g., if a vehicle crosses the island without stopping it would have to cover two tolls- one at each bridge or tunnel. If someone drives from one spot in Manhattan to another they'd get hit with congestion-priced parking. There wouldn't be an incentive to skip a tolled bridge to get to any of the currently untolled ones.

This plan would too improve transit! Decreased congestion would allow buses to go quicker and more reliably.

The study for the alternative plan says it would save taxpayers an amount in 9 digits (by comparison with the Bloomberg plan). I resent that federal tax money goes to subsidies for a huge transit system that ought to be self supporting,

Any time you consider HOV lanes think of HOT lanes instead. Any excess capacity on the bus/carpool lane could be taken up by anyone willing to pay a toll.

But I don't like the idea of constructing additional lane capacity. I think the Queens Civic Congress is right to oppose it. They should just convert one lane of the LIE to a bus lane, like the Union City/Lincoln Tunnel XBL. That would be the progressive, green solution.

Some specifics--the LIE has more lanes in Western Queens and Nassau/Suffolk than in Eastern Queens. Given that the main truck route to Nassau/Suffolk requires the use of this road, those counties would definately like more lanes in Eastern Queens. An extension of the HOV lanes in both directions would also be helpful to those traversing the borough.

An extra LIE lane in each direction could also be used as a busway, as I have suggested elsewhere. If buses could pick up passengers, get on the busway and travel quickly to Long Island City, quickly drop passengers off at the subway there (rather than going into Manhattan), and rapidly get back out for another run, that could be affordable local service -- the same bus and driver could make more than one run per rush hour. Without the 10 minute trip each way on the highway or going all the way to Manhattan, an express bus charge would be required even with deep subsidy.

Specific state laws limit the use of trackage in Queens to transport gargage off the island.

And then there is the successful local objection to reusing the former LIRR tracks between Howard Beach and Whitepot Junction.

But not more feasible. All parking garage in the CBD and Long Island City (not sure in if the Downtown Brooklyn special district extended the policy there) require a special permit, which means an EIS and extensive reviews. This is the city's sole current means of discouraging overuse of the streets in the CBD.

But it does nothing to reduce double parking and through traffic, and traffic has been increasing even as the number of off street spaces decreases (due to development).

Moreover, the approaches used to be the cheif bottleneck to driving into the city, but EZ Pass allowed more people to get through, shifting the over-crowding to the city's streets. That's from NJ. In NY, of course, the bottleneck is everyone trying to squeeze through Downtown Brooklyn and LIC to avoid the tolls.

There's no reason to think that a parks coalition would be any more qualified to judge a transportation plan than any other group. Just because they like green things doesn't mean that they understand how much good taking hundreds of cars off our streets would do for the environment.

Also, what Steve said about strange bedfellows. We are not doing anyone's bidding in this matter. We want motorists to pay their fair share of the maintenance of the streets and bridges, and we want to discourage them from driving through our neighborhoods.

You're right that this is a fight for the future of our city: how long will we continue to let a small, well-off, car-driving elite dominate our politics, hog our transportation dollars and barrel down our streets belching carbon monoxide, all the while claiming to represent the poor and the working class?

The McMansion-living, SUV-driving community leaders of Eastern Queens are at least as selfish, racist, classist and out of touch as the real estate bogeymen you invoke. They've been busily trying to turn this borough into Levittown for the past fifty years. I'll ally with them when they propose something good, and I'll ally with Bloomberg and his cronies when they propose something good. But I sure as hell don't want either of them to have free reign to remake the borough.

Many, perhaps most proponents of congestion pricing (CP) do not share my broad public health agenda or fundamental critique of car culture. Some may be motivated exclusively by the economic drag of traffic congestion on business, or even by the self-interested pro-development motives Bearak attributes to them. But a coalition between such transportation conservatives and those with a more fundamental approach has formed in support of CP, because in a single stroke it directly discourages travel by private auto and facilitates and encourages alternative modes, laying the ground work for dramatic progress in that direction. No matter how imperfect the proposed trial version of CP turns out to be, this is an historic opportunity to reorient public policy away from organizing our culture in service to car travel. Parking reform is in a whole different league, has nowhere near the potential to do so. (I speak as someone who has spent many, many volunteer hours working on parking reform, some of which is recorded here: http://nyc.uncivilservants.org/profile/index/109.)

My gut-level response to Corey Bearak is that he's full of shit. Now that CP has become possible, Corey Bearak and his purported constituency suddenly surfaces to champion parking reform. According to his online resume, he's been in city or state government since the 1980s. What has he done all these years to reform parking? None of his many articles in the local Queens papers about the "Public Ought to Know" (many of which I agree with, as far as they go) deals with parking reform. If any one is a "Johnny-come-lately," it CoryBearak.com and his new parking agenda. And I wonder, did he use a parking placard when he had an office gig as a city council staffer, or in the Bronx Beep's office? What payments or other things of value he is getting from anti-CP interests?

Bearak has zero credibility as a parking reform advocate. Yet here he is class-baiting and otherwise attacking CP proponents ostensibly from a parking reform platform, calling us stooges of wealthy developers, drinkers of Bloomberg "kool-aid," deriding us as politically unsophisticated for only "following one or two issues." I hardly need Bearak to tell me whom I'm in bed with on CP. Bearak surely knows that nothing important or difficult gets done in NYC except through coalitions, often comprising strange bedfellows. So I hold my nose, put on my green T-shirt, and turn out for the CP rally. I do it because CP is crucial step in reforming transportation, environmental, public lands, and numerous other policy areas in which catering to private auto use has been the dominant consideration for far too long. If that's a millionaire developer in a green T-shirt next to me, so be it. I won't be rallying mindlessly along with him in support of the West 30's development, I assure you. And I don't see how congestion pricing would do anything to further that or any other development, either.

T.A. (or its consultant) may have gone a bit over top with the rhetoric about "wealthy Deadbeat Drivers." We won't win the war of public opinion by attacking the people who benefit from the current system, who may oppose congestion pricing because they don't know or don't care about the unfairness. But I wholeheartedly agree with T.A.'s candid discussion of Bearak's motives and agenda. You can't pussy-foot around when your adversaries stoop so low as to hire a shill to steal your own agenda and start attacking you from the left with it in order to split your constituency. T.A., S'bloggers, and most New Yorkers will know better than to fall for that.

Here's the essence between the pro- and anti-congestion pricing proposals. Both claim to seek a traffic reduction. Under congestion pricing, revenue from traffic reduction techniques flows toward mass transit. Under the anti-congestion pricing proposal, money will flow instead into parking garage owners. This will make building parking garages relatively more attractive than it is now, encouraging their construction, at the expense of housing, offices and other places for people.

Over the long run, more parking garages would mean it's easier to park, hence more traffic. That is why the anti-pricing plan would fail to reduce traffic over the long term.