Streetsblog New York City

Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, talks to Streetsblog about the future of transit funding without congestion pricing. Direct quotes are in quotation marks.

Streetsblog: Without pricing, how will the MTA get funded?
Russianoff: They currently have a proposed $29.5B capital plan. The vast majority is for stuff that absolutely has to be done -- rehabbing 44 stations, buying buses, signal and track work, and so on. There is a $9B projected deficit plus $4.5B that will not be coming from pricing bonds, plus $4B that won't be coming in additional city and state money that was promised if pricing passed.

"Traditionally the MTA has raised funds from broad-based taxes -- corporate income tax, mortgage recording tax, real estate transaction tax, sales tax, gas tax -- and through fares and tolls. With tolls, excess from upkeep of bridges and tunnels is given to the MTA, and a large chunk of that is used for capital projects. Now [without pricing], we can do what [former MTA chief Peter] Kalikow said five years ago and increase all of them a little bit."

But these are all subject to fluctuation, as we're seeing now with the dip in real estate tax revenues, which had previously allowed the MTA to run surpluses.

"So one solution is the traditional one, which is to raise one or more of those taxes." Richard Brodsky has said relying on a broad-based tax is what he prefers.

View an enlarged version of this map

Together at last: Pre-congestion pricing short-term transit enhancements and MTA capital projects in one map! The graphic comes courtesy of the Regional Plan Association, which made the map for an insert touting pricing [PDF] placed in the Legislative Gazette this Monday by Environmental Defense, TWU Local 100, and the Straphangers Campaign. This is what's at stake in Monday's City Council vote.

The Staten Island Advance reports on Monday's press conference outlining the qualities that leading City Council members would like to see in the next DOT Commissioner. The Bloomberg Administration responded to the Council with the following statement:

The Mayor will appoint a commissioner who will carry out policies to meet the sustainability challenges he outlined in his '2030' speech and will continue [outgoing DOT] Commissioner Weinshall's work reducing pedestrian fatalities and increasing safety for all New Yorkers through the implementation of innovative programs like Thru Streets.

The Advance also notes: 

Bloomberg, who with Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden pushed through the unprecedented bans on smoking and trans fats, should take that same intrepid approach with the next transportation commissioner, said Gene Russianoff, attorney with the Straphangers Campaign.

Meanwhile, a source inside DOT Commissioner Weinshall's office says that Deputy Commissioner for Traffic Operations Michael Primeggia, who is often credited by Weinshall as the architect of DOT's Thru Streets program, is "being considered" for the commissioner's job.

Chairman of the City Council Transportation Committee, John C. Liu, praised outgoing DOT commissioner Iris Weinshall and called for an innovative thinker as her successor.

You've already weighed in on what you'd like to see in the next DOT commissioner. Now members of the City Council and Transportation Alternatives have weighed in too, with a press conference yesterday highlighting qualities they would like to see in the city's next Transportation Commissioner. Here is Council Member Yassky's press release.

Council Member David Yassky (D-Brooklyn) and transportation advocates today urged the Bloomberg Administration to appoint a new Department of Transportation commissioner with the credentials and experience to tackle the traffic congestion and pollution problems that are plaguing New Yorkers.

"This City has been fortunate to have such a hard-working DOT commissioner in Iris Weinshall for the past five years," Council Member Yassky said. "But now that she is moving on, we must look toward the next five years and beyond and choose a commissioner who will tackle our quickly increasing environmental and transportation challenges. Our next transportation commissioner will be making decisions that will effect the health, business and general quality of life of all New Yorkers, make sure she or he makes the right ones."

Council Members and advocates called on the Mayor to meet his 2030 PLANYC sustainability goals by appointing a DOT commissioner with a mandate to reduce automobile traffic while improving surface transit, walking and bicycling options.

"There is so much a transportation commissioner could do to improve the quality of life of New Yorkers by reducing traffic and encouraging transit use," said Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign. "We need a dynamic leader - like Commissioner Thomas Frieden has been in the area of health - to improve air quality and neighborhood life by taming city traffic."

"Commissioner Weinshall has steered the Department for many years and her shoes will be hard to fill," said Council Member John C. Liu, Chairperson of the Transportation Committee. "New Yorkers need a Transportation Commissioner who can get up to speed quickly and also change the internal inertia that sometimes dampens innovation, especially if we are to truly create a system for the free flow of people and goods in the City."

"It is crucial the Administration selects a new Department of Transportation commissioner who will make pollution, traffic congestion and parking issues a priority," said Council Member Bill de Blasio. "The next commissioner will play a vital role in making sure the City reaches its future goals of increasing and improving our transportation alternatives."

It includes some leading members of the congestion charging brainstrust and some big MTA reformers. Via Chuck Bennett at AMNY:

Co-chairs

• Elliot Sander, director of NYU Rudin Center for Transportation, VP at MTA contractor DMJM Harris and former city Dept. of Transporation commisioner. (Rumored to an MTA chairman candidate)
• Mary Ann Crotty, former transportation advisor for Mario Cuomo.

Members

• Janette Sadik-Kahn, VP at Parsons Brinckerhoff (Big MTA contractor leading the Partnership for NYC's congestion pricing study)
• Gene Russianoff, Straphangers Campaign (the MTA's best critic)
• Jon Orcutt, president of the Tri State Transportation Campaign (another tough MTA critic and big thinker on regional transport issues)
• Ernest Tollerson, VP at Partnership for NYC (Working on the Partnership's congestion pricing study)
• Mitch Palley, MTA board member from Suffolk (often the lone dissenting voice with votig power on the board and big supporter of the third rail project for the LIRR)
• Susan Kupferman, president MTA Bridges and Tunnels (Rumored candidate for MTA executive director)
• Robert Yaro, president of Regional Plan Association

Streetsblog has learned that Gene Russianoff, executive director of the Straphangers Campaign, will be named as a member of Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer's transition team transportation committee. The announcement is likely to be made tomorrow. Russianoff says, "No comment." Unlike yesterday's inaccurate tip about the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability this item seems to be solid.

Russianoff generated one of the nicer soundbites to come out of yesterday's Citywide Coalition for Traffic Relief rally in this interview with Stan Brooks of 1010 WINS. You can listen to it online but here's the gist of it:

Traffic is really an urban health issue. It's about our lungs, our ears, our sensibilities walking down the street and this is a mayor who has really done a lot to make the city healthier. There's a long way to go and a key way [to make the city healthier] is to tame traffic. This is a walking city, a beautiful city and a city that gives far too much priority to cars driven by individuals and not enough to people on bikes, in buses or pedestrians.

Brooks summarizes: "He says the Mayor has tackled cigarettes and transfats and cigarettes, why not go after traffic?"

The MTA's response to the annual Pokey Awards ceremony is always worth looking out for. Rather than using the publicity generated by the event to build political capital for some bus service improvement or another, the Transit Authority's response falls somewhere between defensive and infuriated. This year's statement is a doozy and reminiscent of Mayor Bloomberg's famous remark, "We like traffic, it means economic activity, it means people coming here." Here's what the MTA had to say:

The bus routes cited by the Straphangers' report as the slowest in the city, along with many others, operate in conditions of severe traffic congestion. Slow and unreliable bus service is very much a product of the city's vibrancy. Some routes must negotiate narrow streets while others serve heavily-traveled shopping areas. Some major routes even run past bridge and tunnel approaches, which are prone to traffic back-ups.

So, here's a question: Which urban environment looks more vibrant to you? This typical Columbus Circle rush hour scene...

Or this picture of a Friday afternoon rush hour that I snapped a couple of weeks ago on Copenhagen's inner city pedestrian street, The Stroget...

Columbus Circle photo by Hidden City on Flickr

Paul White of TransAlt and Gene Russianoff of Straphangers' Campaign deliver the Golden Snail.

The 14th Street crosstown bus wins this year's Pokey Award for being New York City's slowest bus line. This morning Straphangers' Campaign and Transportation Alternatives handed the Golden Snail to the M14A for making its 12 noon trek across town at an average speed of 3.9 miles per hour.

Manhattan's M1 bus, running along Fifth and Madison Avenues from Harlem to the East Village, came away with the golden question mark for being the city's "Most Unreliable" bus line. More than a quarter of M1 buses bunch up and arrive at bus stops far off schedule.