Yesterday the coalition sent this letter [PDF] to every member of the state legislature. Notably, three of the state's biggest unions -- the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International, and United Federation of Teachers -- have signed on. These labor groups were not part of the coalition that fought for congestion pricing last year, but on this issue, they are firmly on board. On this issue, they're united with the same business leaders whom they're fighting against when it comes to the proposed millionaire's tax. Unlike the State Senate, these leaders grasp the implications of sharply hiking fares while drastically cutting service. They don't want to risk the region's future by letting the transit system fall apart. They do want a plan that provides a long-term answer, and that includes bridge tolls. Here's their full letter:

Dear Legislator:

We represent the citizens of New York who depend upon a safe, clean and reliable public transportation system. We represent the working class New Yorkers -- many of whom do not own automobiles -- who depend upon an affordable public transportation system to get to their jobs, to their schools and to their health care providers. We represent the employers of the region that recognize that a well functioning subway, bus and commuter rail network is the prerequisite for continued economic growth and is what sets New York apart from the rest of the country. We represent the hard-working building trades and construction workers responsible for New York’s skyline that are dependent upon public sector projects to put food on the table during these hard times. And we represent those that care about reducing the asthma rates of children in disproportionately impacted communities throughout the city and about making this city a whole lot greener, more equitable and a little bit more livable.

We represent your constituents, and we are calling on you to act and adopt a comprehensive, long term funding plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It must be a plan that provides for affordable fares, expanded service and long term capital investment. And it must be adopted now -- before the Authority is forced to raise fares and tolls by as much as 30 percent, while at the same time drastically reducing service across the system.

The New York Legislature has had long enough to act. This issue is no surprise to those that have been paying attention. Almost a year ago, Governor Paterson called on Richard Ravitch to head a Commission to review options for comprehensively addressing the MTA’s operating and capital funding needs. This Commission represented business, labor, environmental advocates and everyday straphangers. And the proposal that the Commission put forward has the broad-based support of all of these constituencies -- your constituencies. It is a proposal that is fair, balanced and comprehensive. It relies on transit riders, motorists and the employers that benefit from the system to all participate in the solution for saving the system.

Once again, we are calling for bipartisan action to respond to the needs of New Yorkers and prevent a backsliding into the kind of neglect and disinvestment in our transportation system that marked earlier decades and nearly crippled New York. With funding for the MTA in place, we can move on to confront the other innumerable challenges that our state faces in this time.

We stand united in our commitment to working with you and your colleagues towards a solution to this crisis. We respectfully request a meeting with you in the coming days.

Sincerely,

Denis Hughes
President
New York State AFL-CIO

Gary LaBarbera
President
Building & Construction Trades Council

Mike Fishman
President
32BJ, Service Employees International Union

Randi Weingarten
President
United Federation of Teachers

Kathryn Wylde
President & CEO
Partnership for New York City

Richard T. Anderson
President
New York Building Congress

William C. Rudin
Chairman
Association for a Better New York

Dick Dadey
Executive Director
Citizens Union

Nancy Ploeger
President
Manhattan Chamber of Commerce

Gene Russianoff
Senior Attorney
Straphangers Campaign

Kevin Corbett
Co-Chair
Empire State Transportation Alliance

Kate Slevin
Executive Director
Tri-State Transportation Campaign

David Jones
President & CEO
Community Service Society of New York

Pratt Center for Community
Development

Fifth Avenue Committee

The POINT CDC

Erasmus Neighborhood Federation

Morningside Heights/West Harlem Sanitation Coalition

Taking the stump for pricing were Kathryn Wylde of the Partnership for NYC and Michael O'Loughlin of the Campaign for New York's Future. Arguing against were Congressman Anthony Weiner of Queens and Walter McCaffrey of the Coalition to Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free. The standing-room-only crowd of more than 120 people -- most of whom came from the Upper East Side and East Harlem, judging by the post-debate Q & A -- appeared to favor Weiner and McCaffrey by a noticeable, though not overwhelming, margin. Wylde and O'Loughlin scored their share of applause, but Weiner was the only speaker to draw vocal cheers.

Claiming that "we are buying a pig in a poke," Weiner made several arguments familiar to Streetsblog readers, adding a few rhetorical flourishes worth noting. Among his main points:

• The current plan is "not fair" because suburban drivers from LI and NJ won't pay any fee in addition to the existing tolls on the Hudson River crossings and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.
• Commercial truck traffic in Midtown is increasing faster than car traffic, so a priority should be placed on mitigating truck congestion.
• The number of people who switch to mass transit because of congestion pricing will impose costs on the transit system that significantly outweigh the revenue pricing will generate.
• Republicans support congestion pricing because it "bolsters the idea that municipalities should pay for their own transportation enhancements," as opposed to the idea that transit improvements should be paid for from a federal pot of gas tax revenue.

Weiner built up this last point quite dramatically, painting congestion pricing as a wedge issue that has played into the hands of "Texas conservatives" by dividing people who share a concern for the environment. "There's a reason that George Bush likes this plan," he said, insisting that "there are smarter and more progressive ways to do this."

Weiner then outlined his own three-point plan in broad strokes, saying he would 1) charge trucks to enter Midtown during peak hours, 2) offer businesses tax incentives to remain open for late-night truck deliveries, and 3) charge private motorists, but only those from outside the five boroughs.

Wylde attacked Weiner's emphasis on trucks, pointing out that only eight percent of the vehicles in the zone below 60th Street are trucks, while 40 percent are private, single-occupancy cars. She also argued that the mayor's plan would not pit people who live in the congestion zone against people from the outer boroughs, because "Manhattan is the magnet that creates excess traffic throughout the region, and reducing traffic below 60th Street will reduce traffic throughout the region." Her repeated references to 60th Street as the northern boundary of the congestion zone may signal that the TCMC will ultimately propose shifting the boundary south from 86th Street.

Also, in response to an East Harlem resident who expressed concern that her asthma-stricken neighborhood would become even more overwhelmed by vertical parking lots, Wylde hinted that the TCMC proposals would pay "very serious attention" to the issue of parking in peripheral districts.

O'Loughlin, in his rebuttal to Weiner, argued that New York can't rely on Congress -- especially representatives from Texas -- to raise the gas tax and set aside sufficient cash to fund the city's transit system. "Just because the Bush administration is willing to give us $354 million doesn't make this a bad idea," he said. He cited support from the Drum Major Institute and the Central Labor Council as evidence of pricing's progressive bona fides, pointing out that it will be "especially good for low-income New Yorkers, who are more likely to rely on transit."

First of all, like many on the government payroll, he's got his own ideas about parking policy:

Already late for a meeting, he guided his deputy chief of staff, who was at the wheel, into a parking lot. "Just take the handicapped spot," he suggested, but she thought better of it and found a legitimate spot of her own.

Brodsky learned politics at the feet of Ed Muskie and Bella Abzug. He viscerally rejects the market-based, technology-driven environmental policy of congestion pricing. In his fight to maintain the free, unfettered motoring that his generation grew up with, he claims to be defending the interests of New York City's poor and working class. And though he talks, sounds and acts like the quintessential, baby-boomer, New York liberal politician, that's not how he defines himself:

A self-described progressive known for having a point of view on pretty much everything, he is also emerging as a key player in the battle over congestion pricing, Mayor Bloomberg's plan to charge $8 to drive in core Manhattan on weekdays. Mr. Brodsky does not like it.

Everyone Schuerman talks to -- even his opposition -- seems to like Brodsky and think he's a genuinely smart guy:

"Richard is an extremely intelligent guy who I believe could bring consensus to this issue if he really has an open mind," said Kathryn Wylde, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, and a member of the commission. "For him to become an advocate of congestion pricing is unlikely, but convincing him that the process of getting there is fair and the plan is comprehensive enough are going to be very important to making the commission work."

However, some suggest that Brodsky may be confused about what sort of transportation policy would actually benefit the vast majority of poor and middle class New Yorkers:

"A lot of it is lazy thinking-using the language of the middle class to put fear into a large segment of the population for the benefit of a small segment," said another commission member, Andrea Batista Schlesinger, executive director of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy. "He confuses driving with a public good without recognizing that it is the streets that are the public good."

Photo: James Hamilton for the Observer

Hint: "The answer might depend on who you think is the giant."

Which coalition has been winning so far in the congestion pricing wars? So far, at least, the pro-congestion pricing forces have been on the defensive, even though they appear to be much better organized and financed and have the support of three bedrock organizations of municipal influence: the Partnership for New York City, the Regional Plan Association and the Citizens Budget Commission.

But it is not clear that supporters of congestion pricing have won enough public support, despite having achieved broad support among organized interests. Meanwhile, opponents of congestion pricing, like the Queens Civic Congress, have had a lower test to meet; their goal is to defeat the traffic fees by raising just enough doubt and skepticism -- with a public that is already doubtful and skeptical.

No matter that the overwhelming majority of commuters to Manhattan do not need to drive, or that the money raised from traffic fees would be used to improve mass transit across the city. The point is that the opponents of congestion pricing, like the Queens Civic Congress, have so far managed to create enough doubt around the idea -- a doubt that has swayed many Assembly members.

Of course it's easy to raise doubt and skepticism about a complex issue when one's arguments are largely unburdened by facts. Take this passage on Council Member David Weprin from today's Metro, in which the paper itself -- as does the City Room passage above -- refutes a rote, yet mostly baseless, objection to congestion pricing.

"I represent a district in eastern Queens that for most people is four or five miles from the nearest subway,” he said. "It is also not accessible to buses. You can’t tell me that they’re going to start building subways and changing bus lines in time if they’re going to adopt this congestion tax now."

Yet that is the stated intention of the Bloomberg administration, which hopes to first increase bus service to areas that lack subway access before implementing congestion pricing. More than half of the projected $500 million federal grant would supposedly go for transportation improvements. For example, one neighborhood in Weprin’s district -- Bayside -- is already slated to get new and expanded bus service under the mayor’s long-term sustainability plan, dubbed PlaNYC.

Weprin, though, remains unconvinced.

"The mayor is asking Albany to act now on the congestion tax and to worry about the public transportation improvements later," he said. "That’s backwards."

So Weprin wants to kill the plan to finance the improvements he says are needed before the plan he wants to kill can be implemented.

David and Goliath? Sure, if this version has a looking glass...

Fearing that London's ever-worsening traffic congestion would drive industry to other European cities, business leaders first broached the topic of congestion charging for the British capital, according to plan architect Mayor Ken Livingstone.

At a C40 Climate Summit panel entitled "Beating Congestion & Surviving Your Next Election," Livingstone said Tuesday that the business group London First had estimated the economic cost of congestion to the city at two billion pounds (almost four billion dollars) per year. Contending with bottle-necked auto traffic and "unpredictable" public transportation, Livingstone said, business people could not estimate inner-city travel times to within 40 minutes. It was just a matter of time before industry began packing up for Paris or other urban centers, London employers believed.

Four years after the congestion charge went into effect, automobile traffic is down by 20 percent while commercial traffic has increased, and London's economy is growing at three times the national average. Meanwhile, a proposal to charge the heaviest polluting private vehicles the equivalent of $50 per day is pulling a 78 percent approval rating.

Livingstone referred to London First as a "parallel organization" to the Partnership for New York City, a business group which supports congestion pricing. The Partnership has released a report concluding that gridlock costs New York $13 billion annually.

"The business community does not come forward and recommend a charge on itself unless it recognizes there is a real problem," Livingstone said. He acknowledged that London First was "concerned" about the widening of the charging zone earlier this year, but downplayed the fervor of the opposition. After all, he noted, "Driving in a city like London or New York isn't a life-enhancing experience."

As for the political impact, Livingstone "coasted easily" to a second term. In fact, he said, the congestion charge was more of a problem for his opponent, as many who weren't entirely happy with the plan were even less excited with the prospect of bringing congestion back. If elected to succeed Prime Minister Tony Blair, Livingstone suspects Gordon Brown will move forward with a national road pricing scheme for Britain.

Speaking later at a press conference in Central Park, Mayor Livingstone offered advice for New York as it debates a system modeled on his own.

"There may be one or two people who predict gloom and doom," he said. "Ignore them."

Three specific proposals to reduce New York City's ever-increasing traffic congestion emerged from a highly anticipated Manhattan Institute forum this morning. One seeks variable prices on cars driving in to central Manhattan, with express toll lanes and higher parking fees to keep things moving. Another seeks to get rid of tolls on less-congested bridges in car-friendly parts of town and replace them with congestion charging technology in gridlocked, transit-friendly sections of the city. A third plan relies entirely on enforcement of existing parking laws.

The forum, organized by the Manhattan Institute's Center for Rethinking Development, opened with Partnership for New York City president Kathryn Wylde setting a collegial but urgent tone two days after releasing a report that put a $13 billion price tag on New York City's traffic congestion. The Partnership's analysis, she said, found that 48 percent of all motor vehicle traffic delay is "excess traffic congestion, beyond what we ought to put up with."

"Why do you think construction prices are going up one percent a month?" Wylde asked. It takes crews too long to get to job sites, and once they get there they spend valuable work time waiting for deliveries. "Manufacturing, an industry we have been hemorrhaging" is leaving New York City, in part, because of the difficulty in moving people, supplies and products, Wylde said. "A person who might go to a restaurant" in Manhattan will skip the trip if she's staring at brake lights.

The problem Wylde says, is "How do you attack traffic without making commercial deliveries or taxis suffer?" London achieved a 15 percent "mode shift" moving approxmately 60,000 commuters from cars to other forms of transportation with its congestion charge. How can New York achieve similar results?

Bruce Schaller, who released a major new study on New York City traffic congestion this morning, presented the first and most detailed answer to that question. He proposed a combined system of congestion charges, highway express lanes and parking reform, emphasizing that the plan can't just be about getting rid of cars or punishing motorists. It has to be about "making New York the kind of city that New Yorkers want."

Schaller pointed to the results of a Tri-State Transportation Campaign survey showing that 44 percent of New Yorkers feel that congestion pricing is "a good idea" versus 45 percent against. It is worth noting that congestion charging starts with much higher approval ratings in New York City than it had in either London or Stockholm.

Schaller ran focus groups to test three ideas: London-style congestion charging, highway express lanes with tolls, and increased parking fees. He found that New Yorkers, in fact, are quite sophisticated in their thinking about the city's traffic congestion problem and possible solutions.

Schaller found that there are six factors that drive public reaction to congestion pricing and other solution ideas:

1. Will reduce traffic congestion
2. Will solve my transportation problems
3. Enhances my transportation choices
4. Fair and equitable
5. Works as intended
6. Is supported and complemented by non-pricing policies

In other words, New York City's auto dealership-supported tabloid media may not be accurately reflecting New Yorkers' apparently intelligent and nuanced thinking on local transportation issues when it blares "Traffic Tax!" headlines and reports knee-jerk opposition to congestion charging and other traffic relief measures.

Schaller's plan combines three elements: Selective road pricing, new highway express lanes, and more tightly managed and higher priced curbside parking.

Schaller's traffic relief charges would apply to anyone crossing the Hudson River, East River or 60th Street boundary into Lower Manhattan. On weekday mornings he would charge $4 to any vehicle entering the zone between 6:30 and 10:00 am. During mid-day, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, all vehicles traveling in or out of the zone would pay $4. Then from 4 pm to 6:30 pm vehicles traveling out of the zone would pay the $4.

Schaller's highway express lanes would be open to buses, vehicles carrying three or more passengers and any motorist willing to pay a fee. Times and fees would vary depending on congestion and also the State Department of Transportation's identification of "feasible corridors."

Schaller's parking plan would apply to commercial districts and selected parking spaces. To show skeptics that usage fees can influence drivers' behavior, he suggests setting up a pilot project to increase curbside parking rates with, perhaps, rates rising incrementally each hour a car occupies a spot.

To make these ideas politically palatable, Schaller added, all revenues generated by these new plans would need to be plowed back into public transport - especially in underserved areas like Staten Island, Eastern Queens and the Upper East Side.

Next up was transportation guru "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz, a former city transportation commissioner. Gridlock Sam immediately went to the root: "Our road pricing stinks." He lamented a regime in which "we toll people going from Queens to Queens or from Staten Island to anywhere" but let drivers "drive across the Queensboro Bridge" without paying tolls (and without funding upkeep on that bridge). His solution: Eliminate all tolls on bridges outside the central business district and impose charges "only where there is congestion and good public transit." This approach could work politically, he said, if it is demonstrably "revenue neutral."

Schwartz also argued that Brooklyn and Queens drivers would benefit from this approach. "People from Brooklyn and Queens would have five river crossings with no tolls. If you go over the Brooklyn Bridge, up the FDR and across the Willis Avenue Bridge, you didn't set rubber in midtown Manhattan" and so you should pay no tolls, he reckoned. To make any traffic reform effective, Schwartz counseled, "we have to give Brooklyn and Queens a lot." And short of extending subway lines to Maspeth or Gerritsen Beach, the idea of a tight area for fees presumably leaves residents of those areas some latitude.

Councilmember David Weprin, who represents eastern Queens disagreed with Schaller and Schwartz. Since most people who live east of Kew Gardens or north of Forest Hills have to drive at least a mile to get to the subway, he noted, more frequent express bus service would have to complement any changes that made driving into Manhattan more expensive. He warned the audience to consider people who count on driving for their business and cited a statistic: "In London, 62 percent of businesses reported a drop in customers" after congestion charging. What Weprin didn't say, however, is that the start of congestion charging in London coincided with a nationwide economic recession and a massive Tube construction project that shut down subway service in Central London.

The political gap between Weprin and Schaller seemed large, especially when a former Queens City Council member named Walter McCaffrey, now a lobbyist heading up a newly formed group called the Coalition to Keep New York City Congestion Tax Free, rose from the audience to declare: "A tax is a tax is a tax." But there may be more room for compromise than such rhetoric might suggest. Council member John Liu, who represents Flushing and chairs the Transportation Committee, told me that he would like to see more express bus service in his district. "Nobody wants to pay new charges for anything," he said. "But if, in return, they get something like more express buses." He left the forum at about 9:50 to conduct a hearing at City Hall on express bus service.

So wheels are in motion. Mayor Bloomberg will deliver a major speech within a week outlining his sustainability plan for the city, and advisers say traffic congestion issues will be front and center. Stephen Hammer of Columbia University challenged the panel to push the New York City metro region into a broader conversation about encouraging walking, bicycling and living near mass transit. Road pricing, clearly, is just one cog in the machinery New Yorkers will have to build to make the city livable.

Looking at just a limited set of costs and industry sectors and using very conservative assumptions, economists assisting the Partnership in the preparation of this report were able to identify more than $13 billion in annual costs to businesses and consumers, billions in lost economic output and tens of thousands of lost jobs that result from severely overcrowded conditions on the region's streets and highways. Every year, these losses will grow if something is not done to reduce the number of vehicles moving through the region during the peak periods.

Download the report here (PDF).

While Mayor Bloomberg publicly maintains that the city is not interested in charging drivers a fee to enter Midtown Manhattan's business district during its busiest hours, four independent groups are quietly conducting studies to determine how imposing such a charge could reduce city traffic and benefit the economy. The studies, set to be released within the next few months, could renew pressure on the mayor to consider instating the fees known as congestion pricing.

The Partnership for New York City, a group of 200 CEOs from New York's leading investment firms, will release a study in two weeks on the impact of traffic on the city's economy. "Congestion is a serious problem and other cities are finding solutions," the president and CEO of the partnership, Kathryn Wylde, said. "There's been a lot of analysis of air pollution, health effects, and fuel costs of congestion, but there really hasn't been anything on what impact traffic congestion has on the cost of doing business in the city." Congestion pricing, along with greater enforcement of parking regulations and improving mass transit options, is one option the group is studying.

Additional studies are being conducted by Bruce Schaller for the Manhattan Institute, which is hosting a panel discussion on the issue on December 7, the Regional Plan Association, and Transportation Alternatives. The fact that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was, essentially, given her job by the powerful Queens Democrat machine will be a factor in the conversation about congestion pricing:

City Council Member David Weprin, who represents eastern Queens, has emerged as the leading critic of congestion pricing. "There are people in Eastern Queens and Staten Island and other parts of the city who are not near public transportation. I don't want to discriminate against those individuals," Mr. Weprin said.

Related:

• Gov. Spitzer Transition Team Transpo Committee Named
• Mayor Livingstone: $50 to Drive an SUV into Central London
• A Prize for Anyone Who Has a Better Name for it Than "Congestion Pricing"
• London Calling. Are New York's Leaders Really Listening?
• Bob Kiley Returns to NYC

Kiley is generally credited as being the architect of the system that reduced traffic congestion by 25 percent, eliminated 70 road casualties per year, cut carbon emissions by 16 percent, sped up buses by 46 percent, increased bicycling by 43 percent, and is raising over $200 million dollars per year for mass transit, pedestrian and cyclist improvements in London, England.

Welcome back to New York City, Bob! 

The movement for congestion pricing needs to start here, would inevitably start here and has started here. Here is a simple submission: People should pay for the privilege of bringing their air-polluting, noise polluting, lethal, two-ton pieces of private property onto the streets of such a dense place. But the reason for the payment shouldn't be for any of those unsavory attributes of the automobile.

Drivers everywhere should be required to pay for the cleanup that will be needed for their pollution, not just here. Many industries with more concentrated negative externalities, to use the economic term, are required to pay into funds that ameliorate the consequences of their pollution. G.E. had to pay to clean up the Hudson River after it contaminated the river with PCBs; motorists should have to pay to clean up their pollution too.

Noise pollution (namely, honking) isn't a problem unless there are people around to have to hear it. Here in New York, heavy fines are threatened on anyone who honks unnecessarily. We are also working toward a ban of audible car alarms.

As for the car's deadliness, its worst attribute, well, the engineers are working on it.

No, the best reason for congestion pricing is that cars get in the way of business.

As Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City says, "The gridlock on New York City's streets has become a brake on the city's economy." She warns, "It is going to be increasingly difficult for New York to market itself as a place where you can get the most done in the least period of time with the best workforce if we're not able to solve the congestion problem."

Traffic congestion slows you down when you're trying to get somewhere. It slows down the delivery of essentially goods throughout the city and slows the movement of people -- the city's most valuable economic input -- by clogging the roads that could be moving them along much more quickly with free flowing buses, cabs and bicycles. Traffic congestion gets in the way of emergency vehicles, no doubt contributing to the finding that heart attacks are more likely to be fatal in New York City than anywhere else in the nation. The fact that congestion pricing would lead to less air and noise pollution while improving the public realm is just a happy coincidence. But it is one that should make every New Yorker support congestion pricing, whether you're in favor of making New York into an efficient platform for commerce or you are concerned about a rise in sea levels or you simply want to live in a more pleasant, breathable city.

Congestion pricing is working in the world city most similar to New York and it would work here. In fact congestion pricing should be applied not just to New York, but to every city in the United States with more than 8 million people living at a density of greater than 25,000 people per square mile.