I just watched the Jan Gehl Interview. I really can’t argue with any of the points he makes, but he speaks in generalities, not specifics. Yes, if you make it easier for bicycles, you will get more of them. But what he doesn’t say is that New York City is much bigger than European cities where bicycles may work well. The distance needed to traverse for many of the trips that need to be made here are far too great to be conveniently made by bicycle unless you are very physically fit.

That doesn’t mean we should not make improvements for bicycle travel. But no matter what we do, it will not make a vast difference, and will not get cars off the road. No one is going to say, I’ll leave my car home and use my bike. They might say, I’ll bike rather than walk, or I’ll bike rather than use the bus.

I couldn’t help but notice the numbers of taxis and trucks in the videos shown. I didn’t see vast numbers of cars. Also, trucks and buses take up much more street space than cars, so on a street space basis cars even take up a smaller percentage of space than previously stated. Don’t interpret this statement that I am against buses. I realize that one bus can remove 40 cars from the street. I’m just wondering why everyone focuses all their efforts on removing cars, and so one ever says anything about the trucks. In my opinion, they pose a bigger traffic problem than the cars.

The question is where are those 80 or 90 percent in the Upper West Side coming from? Are they from areas where people can conveniently use mass transit?

Bruce Schaller has your answers.

Also, if those people did use mass transit, is there the capacity for the system to handle the additional passengers?

As the Ravitch report said, “Bus service would be extended before the bridge tolls take effect.”

The more affluent you are, the more you can afford to drive.

And the less likely you are to be a “little guy” who can’t afford to pay a toll.

The question is where are those 80 or 90 percent in the Upper West Side coming from? Are they from areas where people can conveniently use mass transit? What I mean by this is if those people did use mass transit, could they make the same trip in about the same time or a little more? Or are we talking about a trip they now can make in 30 minutes by car that would take them 2 hours by public transit? They may not be coming from up or down the avenue where the mass transit runs.

Also, if those people did use mass transit, is there the capacity for the system to handle the additional passengers? It’s very easy to say that people who drive should take mass transit. But as I previously said, it must be a reasonable alternative. You must ask yourself why has traffic tripled where you live since 1975. My guess is that it is is due to much of the low and middle income housing being replaced by luxury housing. The more affluent you are, the more you can afford to drive. The problem goes much deeper than policies toward mass transit vs. the private automobile.

Even in taxi-stuffed midtown, in my observation, at least 50 percent of all traffic is private cars.

In my neighborhood, West Nineties, it’s more like 80 or 90 percent. And this is a neighborhood loaded with both IRT and IND subway lines as well as buses. As I’ve said before, the private car traffic in my neighborhood has tripled since I moved here in 1975.

I did not change my position. I previously said that it would be okay to charge reasonable tolls on the East River bridges, providing the tolls on the existing crossings were cut in half and all the crossings charged the same amount.

I’m not sure what types of subsidies you are talking about. When I said “viable alternatives” I was referring to mass transit improvements. Sounds like the problem you have with surburban sprawl is poor city planning.

Marty Bartowitz:

There are a number of inaccuracies in your comments. The Manhattan avenues, which are five lanes wide, not six unless you remove all parking from both sides of the street, are not filled with private motor vehicle traffic. I would guess that no more than about 20% is private motor vehicle traffic. The rest are taxis, delivery trucks and buses as well as government and emergency vehicles.

Yes these avenues are wide enough for BRT and bicycles, if you restrict all non-bus traffic to two lanes with one of them filled with double parked trucks. Is that what you are proposing? BRT is much more than an exclusive busway, which I have never opposed. We already have those on at least Madison Avenue and it doesn’t help that much.

NYC will never have BRT because we do not have wide enough right-of-ways for BRT as other cities do.

BrooklynBus: With all due respect, what’s becoming increasingly clear here is that you really don’t actually know very much about bus rapid transit design, operations or best practices. I’m assuming that you’ve never been to a city where it actually works.

Every European planner and traffic engineer who comes to town these days seems to comment on how NYC, particularly Manhattan, is blessed with remarkably wide right-of-way on its avenues and many of its major streets. They laugh when we suggest that the city’s major thoroughfares are too narrow to accommodate buses and bikes. See the recent Jan Gehl interview on Streetfilms.

The only way you could make a statement like the one you made is if you’re working under the assumption that NYC’s streets *must* be filled with private motor vehicle traffic. Otherwise, I don’t see how you look at the six-lane highways running up and down the isle of Manhattan and think to yourself that there’s not enough space on those streets to run an exclusive busway.

Maybe the bridges shouldn’t be free, but it is just as wrong to charge $10 round trip that probably will become $15 in 2 years and $20 in four.

Thanks for reconsidering your stance, but can we please keep the discussion to the proposal at hand, not some fantasy straw man?

NYC will never have BRT because we do not have wide enough right-of-ways for BRT as other cities do.

What is “wide enough for BRT”?

It is not fair to penalize motorists without giving them any viable alternatives.

So everyone who was stupid or greedy enough to move to sprawlsville deserves a subsidy in perpetuity? How do we stop hemorrhaging money supporting unsustainable lifestyles?

I detailed my reasoning why these proposed tolls are wrong under Pols Skeptical… (Dec 4) article and won’t repeat them here.

NYC will never have BRT because we do not have wide enough right-of-ways for BRT as other cities do. The MTA already recognizes this and has changed the name of BRT to Select Bus Service, because it will not be rapid. It will just provide minor improvements on a few routes, hardly enough to make any significant difference overall.

It is not fair to penalize motorists without giving them any viable alternatives. The mass transit system does not even have the capacity to handle additional riders during rush hours. How about this? Eliminate all the seats in subway cars and in buses to increase capacity? It looks like the MTA has already started to think along those lines.

But the real problem is that we are encouraging more driving when the city is not desiged for it. A 14 year old girl died on Thur or Friday in an area near Queens Blvd in Elmhurst known for being congested. Congestion hurts the outer boros as well.

And if it hurts the outer boros, how do free bridge help encourage less driving?
President elect Obama wants to reduce our dependence on oil. How does a free bridge help that?
President Obama wants to reduce our CO2 Emissions and get the USA engaged in the Climate Change solutions. How does a free bridge help that?

The fact is Ravitch has this right. Put in better bus service (BRT) and then put the tolls in and reduce congestion, pollution, CO2, oil dependence and hopefully – improve the safety of the city so 14 yr olds don’t get killed.

Payroll taxes are fundamentally more regressive than any kind of income or use based tax. Everyone pays the payroll tax. At a time when wages are stagnant or declining, raising payroll taxes is a terible idea. Not to mention the fact that over the last 25 years payroll taxes have grown to take a huge bite out of even the poorest of taxpayers. Insane.

To be clear Lew, you won’t subsidize my environment-saving, congestion-reducing commute by transit with any kind of road pricing, but you want me to spend my money to support your automobile infrastructure AND the transit infrastructure I’ve already paid for once at the farebox? No thanks.

NJ commuters use much less MTA infrastructure than NYers do. We mainly use PANYNJ bridges and tunnels, buses owned by the state of NJ (and operated by NJ Transit and private bus companies) which go to PANYNJ owned terminals, NJ Transit owned trains using Amtrak owned tunnel and terminal and the PANYNJ owned PATH system.

The MTA infrastructure that we do uses is mainly the NYCS within Midtown and Lower Manhattan.

In any case, NJ is building a new rail tunnel ($8.7 billion) into Midtown which will allow MTA commuters on the west of Hudson Metro North lines a one seat ride into the city.

Shoulda been done 6 months ago…..

Lew from Brooklyn