Streetsblog New York City

Dear Editor:

Your article, "Traffic Plan In Trouble", misstates my position. I have consistently stated that I would support congestion pricing if the Bloomberg Administration enhances or modifies the commission's plan in four critical areas, on which the plan remains silent or deficient: the Holland Tunnel/ Canal Street corridor; bus management, including clean engine standards for all the buses the plan will bring into lower Manhattan ; non-pricing traffic management, which carries over into non-pricing hours; and equity among city residents. I have proposed detailed recommendations, based on community and expert input. Implementing the commission's plan without those enhancements or changes will worsen congestion and pollution on many streets, including the canal street corridor. Meetings are scheduled to discuss these proposals. I remain optimistic that the City Council and the Administration will reach agreement on the best possible traffic plan for all New Yorkers.

At our request, Gerson's office also sent over the council member's eight-page position paper on congestion pricing [PDF], in which he describes the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission report as "deeply disturbing."

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Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will hold a hearing Thursday on how congestion pricing revenues would figure into the MTA's five-year capital plan. He will be joined by anti-pricing Assembly Members Richard Brodsky and Denny Farrell.

The Sun reports:

The MTA's executive director, Elliot Sander, who will testify at the hearing, has said Mr. Bloomberg's plan to charge drivers $8 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street would generate $4.5 billion in revenue, which the MTA could borrow on in advance. Even with the use of congestion fee funds, the MTA budget has a $9 billion shortfall.

Mr. Silver said in a statement yesterday that he is concerned that the congestion plan would not be fully funded and that it is unclear whether the proceeds from the traffic tax would be devoted to capital projects alone or to routine maintenance and operations.

The congestion pricing plan would qualify for $354 million in federal aid if passed by Albany and the City Council by March 31. Mr. Silver has said he would not support it unless it includes rebates for low-income drivers.

According to the hearing announcement, the assembly members will "seek information on the specific details associated with the proposed projects contained in the plan as well as the funding of the plan. This hearing will also provide an opportunity for the Committees to examine the other components of the plan, such as how a congestion mitigation plan and its consequences are addressed."

The hearing will begin at 10:30 a.m. at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York Meeting Hall, 42 W. 44th St. (bet. Fifth & Sixth Aves., 2nd Floor, in Manhattan.

The Post had a short item today, which we've linked to a couple of times, reporting that members of the City Council have sent a letter to Mayor Bloomberg asking for changes in the congestion pricing proposal that would raise fees for New Jersey car commuters or have the Port Authority commit more funds to the MTA.

The Daily Politics got hold of the letter [PDF], which appears below in full, including the names of its 20 signatories -- some of whom, like David Yassky and Melissa Mark-Viverito, are pricing supporters.

Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

We are writing to urge you to correct an unfairness in the "congestion pricing" policy proposed by the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, prior to the upcoming votes in the City Council and the State Legislature.

We are concerned that the burden of paying for congestion pricing will fall too heavily on New York City residents - and in particular on residents of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island - while commuters from outside the City will remain unaffected.

Under the current proposal, bridge and tunnel toll payments would be credited against the $8 congestion charge. This means that commuters who currently pay tolls to use the Port Authority and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority river crossings will pay no additional congestion fee. The bulk of these drivers live outside of New York City. At the same time, drivers who enter Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge or the Williamsburg Bridge will pay the full $8 congestion charge. Most of these drivers do live within New York City.

This is blatantly unfair.

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We linked to it from Today's Headlines a few weeks ago, but this Metro op-ed from City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito is worth a repeat. Viverito, the first Puerto Rican council member to be elected in Manhattan's District 8, writes that, contrary to claims from "suburban elected officials from wealthy areas," congestion pricing "could provide immediate and measurable relief of traffic congestion while improving the air that all of my constituents breathe and the buses and subways that they ride daily."

Note that Viverito's column, reprinted here in full, was published just before the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission released its recommendation.

In the East Harlem and South Bronx communities that I represent, we are automatically skeptical when business interests and politicians from outside our communities claim to be watching out for us - because nine times out of 10, they're doing just the opposite.

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Following our post yesterday about a newspaper article in which Andrew Hevesi was quoted as calling congestion pricing "a money grab to pay for mass transit," Streetsblog got a call from the Queens assemblyman's office.

Aide Ashley Pillsbury wanted us to know that, while Hevesi is opposed to congestion pricing, he is a supporter of transit -- though she said the Times-Ledger story quoted the assemblyman correctly.

The point of Hevesi's remarks, Pillsbury said, was that transit revenues, rather than environmental benefits, are the driving force behind congestion pricing. Pillsbury also said that Hevesi believes congestion pricing should undergo a state environmental review before implementation. She was unaware of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission recommendation that the pricing pilot program be monitored for its environmental impacts, with adjustments made as warranted, but said such impacts should be known beforehand.

When a scheduled phone interview with Hevesi didn't pan out, Pillsbury sent over an op-ed written by the assemblyman and previously published "in several Queens newspapers." Here it is in full.

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Television news legend Gabe Pressman hosted a debate on congestion pricing between Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and Partnership for New York City President Kathy Wylde on Friday. The transcript is online at WNBC and it's worth a read if you want to see Wylde catch Brodsky in a couple of small but significant mistruths and get a sense of the arguments that free motoring advocates are using to try to kill the Traffic Commission's anti-gridlock plan.

The first such argument is a condensed version of the dramatic, impassioned plea-to-justice that Brodsky delivered at the final Congestion Mitigation Hearing a couple of weeks ago:

"For the first time in American history, someone is seriously proposing to charge the public for access to a public space."

It makes one wonder: When was the last time Brodsky paid a subway fare, bridge toll or train ticket out of his own pocket? Could it be that his windshield perspective on the city is so deeply ingrained that he doesn't realize that of the hundreds of thousands of people walking around Manhattan's traffic-choked public spaces every day -- 85 percent of them -- paid for "access" via mass transit?

Wylde countered:

Well, I said I live in Brooklyn and I have a choice. I can drive my car into Manhattan to work, in which case I pay nothing, or I can take the express bus, in which case I pay $9.00 a day. So right now we don't have a fair system. The people who take the bus are paying more and stuck in traffic. The people who are taking the subways, we don't have the resources we need to improve conditions. This program will raise almost a billion dollars between the federal grant that is promised if we pass this by March 31st and half a--half a billion dollars a year in revenues to support the system.

Towards the end of the interview, Brodsky got caught telling two apparent lies. First he claimed that local environmental organizations are not in favor of congestion pricing. Yet, he can't name one. Then he said the Traffic Commission is calling for a repeal New York State's environmental review laws. Not true. Wylde was having none of it:
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The recommendation of a modified congestion pricing plan put forth last week by the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission has elicited another editorial from Bronx Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz. Tellingly, the piece, from this week's Riverdale Press, starts off with talking points that fellow Assembly Member Richard Brodsky and "Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free" spokesman Walter McCaffrey have repeated again and again since the TCMC released its recommendation report:

The Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, whose job it was to evaluate Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, has succeeded in only making a bad plan worse.

... it seems this new version has raised more questions than it has answered.

But rather than raising more questions, Dinowitz, for the most part, simply restates the same asked-and-answered arguments we've come to know by heart. Still, at the risk of repeating ourselves, we thought we'd answer them again, one by one, for old time's sake.

Who could support a plan that creates a regressive tax on middle-class and working people from the Bronx and the outer boroughs while giving an exemption to drivers from New Jersey who are more likely to be able to afford such a tax?

According to census data, less than five percent of New Yorkers drive into Manhattan's central business district for work. An analysis by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and the Pratt Center for Community Development shows that in all but one state Assembly district in the city, households with a vehicle are 50 percent wealthier than those without. In nearly half of the districts -- including Dinowitz's -- average income is twice as high. So actual figures suggest that the popular "regressive tax" cry is so much faux-populist bluster. Further, nearly all of the "middle-class and working people" Dinowitz and other pricing opponents claim to be speaking up for are now relying on a transit system that will benefit from congestion pricing.

As for the toll credit "exemption," New Jersey drivers would pay $8 to enter the CBD, same as everyone else, even if the money doesn't go into the same pot. Are New Jerseyans really "more likely to be able to afford" a fee than New Yorkers? If so, Dinowitz offers no data to back the claim. Even if he did, the argument itself is a red herring intended to put New Yorkers on defense against "the other" -- just as Dinowitz and his fellow pricing opponents have tried to cast the "Manhattan elite" as the beneficiaries of a plan designed mainly to improve access to Manhattan from outside the borough.

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There is a nice surprise for City Council, neighborhood groups and transportation reformers in the congestion pricing plan approved by the Traffic Mitigation Commission yesterday. On page 8 of the plan, in a section called "Securing of parking revenues," the commission proposes dedicating all revenue raised within the congestion pricing zone from additional parking meter fees, a taxi surcharge and parking garage taxes to a new, New York City DOT fund for street and transit improvements.

While congestion pricing revenue will go to the MTA "lock box," this much smaller fund would be used by DOT for bike, pedestrian, traffic calming, parking and BRT improvements that would be approved each year by City Council. This DOT fund is potentially a big deal. It's a major change, and would be the first time the city created a dedicated funding stream for bicycle, pedestrian, and parking improvements, and other transportation projects. Call it the "Livable Streets Lock Box:"

Securing of parking revenues: All funds from increased on-street parking rates and the elimination of the resident parking tax exemption within the zone should be dedicated by the City of New York to additional transit, pedestrian, bicycle, and parking management improvements, including, but not limited to, expanded ferry service, bus signalization, BRT investments, bicycle facilities, and pedestrian enhancements. NYCDOT should submit an annual plan to the City Council for approval on the use of these funds and shall report on the actual expenditures of such a plan.

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Hours after the Congestion Mitigation Commission revealed that residential parking programs would be attached to its congestion pricing plan, about 70 Brooklynites gathered at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope last night to talk about RPP. The event was the third DOT/EDC neighborhood parking workshop held this week, following others in Long Island City and Forest Hills. This round of workshops focused tightly on RPP compared to the first round, in November, which examined parking in general.

DOT Deputy Commissioner Bruce Schaller, on hand for the evening, told me that RPP was still in the early planning stages, and that it comprised one part of DOT's broader parking management program. While development of RPP will proceed regardless of congestion pricing's ultimate fate, Schaller noted that "the commission's report gave more definition to what the timeline would be." In addition to permit fees and eligibility requirements, the big issues that need to be hammered out, he said, include defining the boundaries of permit zones, drawing up a process for establishing new zones, and determining how to administer the details of issuing permits and enforcing the rules.

Workshop participants sat at tables in groups of eight while DOT staffers led the exercises. First the DOT reps presented data gathered from observations of the study area, which included the northern blocks of Park Slope and most of Prospect Heights. A few numbers that jumped out:

• The vacancy rate of residential (non-metered) parking spots never exceeded five percent
• Among parked vehicles observed at 2:00 p.m., 41 percent were registered outside Brooklyn and 29 percent were registered outside New York City
• Among vehicles that parked overnight, 35 percent were registered outside Brooklyn and 27 percent were registered outside New York City (the numbers may be a little exaggerated, since they don't measure newcomers accurately)

In the main exercise, participants were presented with four RPP program options. Each option applied different rules to four categories of parkers:

1. Local residents
2. Non-residents who work in the neighborhood -- "local employees"
3. All-day parkers -- park-and-ride commuters, relatives in town for the holidays
   
4. Short-term visitors -- shoppers, people going to the dentist
   

The options were intentionally left somewhat open by DOT, since the details are still flexible. Here's the rundown:

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After five months of work and something like 14 public hearings, the Congestion Mitigation Commission has finally made its recommendation. Here's how the voting went down at this afternoon's meeting:

13 yes votes.
2 no votes: Richard Brodsky and Denny Farrell
1 abstention: Richard Bivone
1 absent: Vivan Cook

Next stop on the timeline, March 28:

The City Council must vote to approve the "Implementation Plan," send a home rule message to the state legislature. A home rule message is a request from a city or town council to the state legislature asking them to vote on legislation affecting only that town or city.

Now that the policy making is done, let the politics begin.