Eric: My dad owns a flower shop in Queens. My dad used to deliver in a truck to Manhattan--it's no longer profitable thanks to the "time tax"-- it takes too long, the gas is too expensive. There are business owners in the outer ring who are making the decision every day about getting into Manhattan, and the congestion fee is just putting a number on that.

I can't imagine a business owner that wouldn't pay $8 per day (for a van) or $21 per day (for a truck) so that their vehicles aren't stuck in traffic for hours. The gas plus the driver's wages (or the cost of opportunities lost sitting in traffic) are easily more than that. Even more so for refrigerated trucks. Businesses will save money, and consumers will probably come out ahead.

http://www.wnyc.org/flashpop.html?playlist=%2Fstream%2Fatc%2F10312007.xspf

One clarification: I think Arun confused me with some of the witnesses who were complaining about the prospect of paying to drive to Manhattan for medical treatment. Fortunately, we only have to take my son to the doctor every few months. We've been taking him to doctors in Queens, but we actually just found out that his pulmonologist will be moving his practice to New York Hospital (where I was born, incidentally) in Manhattan. That will actually be easier for us and not cost any more, since we take subways and buses.

There was another witness who had an asthmatic son, and like us, he's taken the Water Taxi to NYU Medical Center, which is cheaper than driving all the way there and a much nicer trip. That's if the schedules fit your appointment, though, and they've been cut back over the years. The ferry advocates pointed out that the ferries aren't subsidized, and I agree that that's a mistake. It's clearly not profitable for them to run adequate service at this time, and if it doesn't cost too much, I think the city should pick up some of the tab.

Why?

Because if street space isn't going to be rationed by price, it is going to rationed by queue, which means congestion will always be at the point where very few people can stand it, and those are the people who will be given the streets.

In that case, if level F intersections are inevitable by rule of the state, then why not take street space away from motor vehicles? Put cycle tracks/emergency access lanes on every avenue, and enforce them ruthelessly, and neither bicycle riders not those in need of emergency assistance need be troubled by gridlock.

Want to block the box? Go ahead! But if you block a bus lane, or a cycle track/emergency access lane, $400 -- with a camera at every intersection and on every bus to ensure universal enforcement not reliant on those inclined to give drivers a break.

If the free bridges are free, the city doesn't lose any revenues by reducing the number of lanes. I suggest using an inbound lane of the Brooklyn Bridge as a two-way bike path and turning the promanade over the pedestrians. Bus lanes could be added to the Manhattan Bridge. And to keep traffic from backing up in Downtown Brooklyn, parking could be allowed on Flatbush, Atlantic and Ocean Avenues in the peak direction. The next lane over could be a bus lane.

Interesting article in the NYT tonight on the PANYNJ planning to jack the Hudson River crossings to $8 at rush hour . . . which would rob the proposed fund of those extra dollars.

They're going to have to consider this sort of gaming of the system by other entities; perhaps cutting the credit given for tolls in half.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/nyregion/31cnd-tolls.html

Supporters of the plan may be in the minority in Queens, but that's only because of the misinformation repeated ad nauseum by Weprin, McCaffrey and friends. Just tonight I had to correct a neighbor who thought that people would have to pay every time they entered the zone, as opposed to just once a day.

If people didn't think that Long Island commuters would drive all the way to LIC and park instead of driving to a nearby LIRR station; if they didn't think that this was a "tax on the poor" instead of compensation for the luxury of wearing out our roads and bridges and fouling our air; if they didn't think that cutting traffic to the CBD would have no effect on air quality near the routes to the CBD - then the plan would have a lot more supporters in Queens.

The lies are working for now. Let's see how long people can continue to be fooled.

Another supporter of the pricing plan was Joseph Hartigan, a Rockaway resident who posed a question to the audience.

"Why is it that Staten Island gets to commute for free?" he said, referring to the Staten Island ferry, which does not charge a fee. "No one in this room except from Staten Island gets to commute for free."

When he said that, one of the commission members (I think it was either Shaw or Brodsky) said, "Come say that in Staten Island next week."

Here's my testimony:
http://www.grieve-smith.com/neighborhood/cp071030b.pdf