(Photo: T4A)

T4A's report illustrates the punishing effect of such cuts on transit riders, many of them low-income workers, with a set of well-trammeled statistics: demand hit a 50-year high in 2008; every dollar invested in transit produces an estimated $6 in economic growth; transit is far safer than car travel and provides greater public health benefits.

But when it comes to the political battle over remaking national transport priorities, T4A's transit cuts map -- viewable right here -- speaks loudest of all.

Transit fare increases and service reductions, T4A found, are concentrated in major cities and along the coasts. And as the current health care conflagration has shown, lawmakers rarely wield political power that's commensurate with the share of the population they represent.

As the Washington Post's Alec MacGillis catalogued in a commentary last week, Senate influence is particularly concentrated in the hands of small-state denizens such as Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D) of Montana, who fought to remove a provision helping transit agencies with punitive tax shelters from last year's auto bailout bill.

Per MacGillis:

And then there's the Senate's age-old distortion of distributive politics, in which goodies are doled out on anything but a per-capita basis. California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey are among the 10 states that get the least back per tax dollar sent to Washington; Alaska, the Dakotas and West Virginia are among those that get the most.

In that context, it's not surprising that federal support for metro-area priorities such as transit is so perilously thin. Even in the House, where urban representatives lead several key committees, transit backers have yet to convince the Ways and Means panel to move forward with a solution to the immense revenue gap that has stalled progress on new long-term transport legislation.

A letter sent last month urging Ways and Means chairman Charles Rangel (D) -- who represents a transit-heavy district in New York City -- to press on with a transportation bill this year was signed by 15 of the committee's 26 Democrats. Yet metro-area members such as Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), whose district is near Oakland, and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) of Atlanta were absent.

And the legislation that T4A's report singled out as a concrete boost for transit agencies, Rep. Russ Carnahan's (D-MO) proposal to provide federal help with operating costs, does not count Rangel as one of its 60 co-sponsors. The bill also lacks a Senate counterpart, despite the presence of two transportation-minded Democrats in leadership positions (Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Environment Committee chairman Barbara Boxer of California).

Of course, the political savvy of rural lawmakers does not automatically mean transportation reform must fall by the wayside; West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D), chairman of the Commerce Committee, has taken the lead on a plan to set national performance targets for reductions in emissions and vehicle miles traveled.

Still, T4A's picture of cutbacks brilliantly illustrates where transit's congressional constituency should be leaping to its aid -- the question is what it would take to make that happen.

Yesterday's rally in Union Square drew hundreds of transit riders calling on the State Senate and Albany leaders to enact a long-term solution for the MTA's enormous funding shortfall. Judging by the cheering sections in the audience, most of the crowd was mobilized by the Facebook group "1,000,000 People Against the NYC MTA Fare Hike" and Transportation Alternatives. The Working Families Party, the event sponsor with the most political muscle, sent one representative but no speaker or even a display table for gathering signatures.

With state leaders sending signals that they're ready to accept another stopgap transit plan, the rally was an occasion to remind Malcolm Smith and company that the merits of transportation policy matter. "Albany has been missing in action for almost a decade," Elena Conte of COMMUTE told the crowd, calling out the Senate Majority Leader for making a junket to Puerto Rico in the midst of the MTA crisis. "Show up and do your job so the people of this city can get to theirs."

As Conte and other speakers emphasized, the New Yorkers who have the most to lose from doomsday fare hikes and service cuts are those who can least afford it. "Where I live, we're not talking inconvenience, we're talking survival," said Carl Van Putten, 76, a resident of Hunts Point, where the Bx4 bus line is slated for elimination.

Repeating a theme sounded by Mayor Bloomberg, teachers union head Randi Weingarten, and Kathy Wylde of the Partnership for NYC in a joint letter sent to Albany the same day, TA director Paul Steely White said it's time for the State Senate to buck up. "There is no politically expedient way out of this crisis," he said. "It's time our leaders started making the hard decisions needed to keep 8.5 million straphangers moving."

WFP director Dan Cantor (center) at a "Halt the Hike" rally last week. Photo: Working Families Party.

If there was any doubt before, now it should be clear: The latest transit rescue package proposed by Malcolm Smith is too skimpy to get the job done. By refusing to ask car commuters to shoulder any of the burden, the plan Smith put forward would merely postpone the day of reckoning for straphangers.

Tomorrow the State Senate is expected to vote on that plan, or some variation on it. For months obstructionist senators have excused their own inaction by pointing fingers at the MTA for what they deem a lack of transparency. But now the Senate might pass a transit funding package without holding any public hearings whatsoever. How opaque is that? The utter lack of transparency or discussion about this latest plan should be enough to preclude any votes from senators looking to burnish their good government cred.

The new budget numbers also set the stage for tomorrow's big rally in Union Square, where the Working Families Party and transportation advocates will gather to protest the doomsday fare hike and service cuts. The Senate's proposal is a band-aid that won't deliver what this coalition demands: a long-term, sustainable revenue stream that will protect straphangers from paying more for a deteriorating transit system. A real remedy, like the Ravitch plan, needs a united front behind it in order to regain momentum. This rally must be a galvanizing moment, and the person best positioned to deliver is Dan Cantor, head of the labor-backed Working Families Party.

Here's a chance for the Working Families Party to make a strong push for a robust transit plan. A plan that will put the city's subway and bus systems on sound footing. A plan that will spare working New Yorkers from worse fare hikes and deteriorating service.

Car commuters are one constituency asked to sacrifice next to nothing in the Senate's latest proposal, even though the average income of the city's car owners more than doubles that of the transit-riding, car-free majority. The official position of the Working Families Party is that the MTA funding plan should be "based on the Ravitch principles." Coming out with a more forceful position at tomorrow's rally -- like a full-fledged endorsement of the Ravitch plan itself, including bridge tolls -- could change the terms of the debate.

Well, here we are again.

One year after State Assembly Democrats killed New York City’s attempt to fund mass transit and reduce traffic gridlock, sustainable transport advocates find themselves suffering yet another huge defeat in Albany.

Fixing Albany requires volunteers dragging themselves out to the Kings Highway Q train platform in the middle of Carl Kruger’s district and handing palm cards to commuters explaining that the impending fare hike is the direct result of their state senator’s fine work.

On Wednesday the MTA Board approved the “doomsday” scenario – massive fare hikes and sweeping service cuts for New York City’s eight million transit riders. The State Legislature easily could have avoided doomsday by approving Richard Ravitch’s financing plan or coming up with a viable alternative of its own. But a handful of New York City State Senators, Carl Kruger, Ruben Diaz Sr., Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate – call them the Fare Hike Four – couldn’t bear the thought of imposing new fees on New York City’s motorists. In working to protect the free driving privilege of New York City’s armada of horn-honking, exhaust-spewing, road-clogging single-passenger car commuters, the State Senate has brought the city’s transit system to the brink of financial ruin. If you ride a train or bus in New York City you're going to pay the price.

The irresponsibility, the destructiveness and sheer lack of seriousness displayed by the Fare Hike Four is without question and we could spend all day heaping scorn on them. But the Senate Democrats are hardly any worse than the minority Republicans who were perfectly happy to sit by and watch the train wreck. And we could just as well place the blame for our current mess on the State Assembly members who killed congestion pricing last year.

Rather than pointing fingers at our feckless state government, advocates for livable streets and mass transit need to take a good long look in the mirror. Despite assembling a broad and seemingly powerful coalition in support of our issues, our advocacy consistently goes nowhere in Albany. That needs to change. So, how?

First off, it’s obvious that we need a better policy-making process. Granted, New York’s state legislators tend to show a profound lack of seriousness when it comes to policy (see their performance on last year’s congestion mitigation commission) and they are renowned for their deeply ingrained windshield perspective. But they still need to be engaged in the process from the beginning. It didn't help that the Ravitch Plan was, in many ways, too small, too lacking in creativity and too flawed for anyone to get too excited about it. The fact that the Ravitch Plan originated outside the state legislature made it all the more easy for them to reject it.

But let’s also be clear that our losses in Albany have a lot more to do with politics than policy. Sustainable transport advocates need to build political clout. Period. At this point, almost nothing else matters. We need to join forces with mainstream environmentalists, labor groups and issue advocates working on education, housing and economic development, who are equally disgusted with the performance of New York’s state legislature. The Fare Hike Four and the Assembly Democrats who killed congestion pricing come up for reelection every two years. For the most part, they run unopposed. Until we can get some of these people unelected – or, at the very least, challenged – we are pretty much irrelevant.

Here at Streetsblog we are mostly issue advocates and wonks. We enjoy debating policy minutia in the comments section, geeking out at Rudin Center breakfasts and fleshing out the most rational possible pricing schemes for New York City’s transportation system. But fixing Albany demands less policy intellect and more political muscle. It requires volunteers dragging themselves out to the Kings Highway Q train platform in the middle of Carl Kruger’s district and handing out palm cards to morning rush hour commuters explaining that the impending fare hike is the direct result of their state senator’s fine work -- or total lack thereof. It’s about knocking on doors, spending evenings at community meetings and drumming up votes. Defeating Albany incumbents isn’t easy. Most of these guys leave office in handcuffs or a coffin. But state legislators aren’t invincible either. A lot of them have had their jobs for more than 20 years. Many of them are stale and feeble and don’t work particularly hard anymore. Daniel Squadron knocked off Sen. Martin Connor in last September’s Democratic primary by a margin of 8,034 to 6,179. It doesn’t take a lot of votes.

Still, it’s a daunting task for any individual community activist to run a campaign against a sitting state legislator. So, here’s my humble proposal: What New York needs right now is a well-organized, heavily-funded, Newt-Gingrich-Contract-With-America-style campaign to take back Albany. We need to create a broad-based reform platform and recruit a slate of viable candidates to run challenges against vulnerable Senators and Assembly members all across the city. We need to focus citywide attention on state legislature campaigns and stop letting these guys slip quietly back into office unchallenged year after year in neighborhood-level campaigns that no one even pays attention to. We’ve got to take Albany back from these people who are ruining our city.

Photo by Buck Ennis

Our plan rests on three powerful attributes: revenue generation, tolling equality, and sheer efficiency. We achieve these with an inclusive pricing model that asks drivers to pay a fee ranging from $2 to $10 upon entering the Central Business District with the price dependent on the time of day, and charges taxi passengers for their contribution to congestion as well.

The basics:

• Our toll plan generates $1.7 billion a year in revenue; that’s twice as much as the $800 million from Ravitch’s tolls, even though our top toll of $10 matches Ravitch’s $5 (we charge inbound only). As for Sheldon Silver’s $2 toll plan, it nets just $450 million.
• Our plan has no free riders; oops, make that free drivers. Jersey drivers pay the toll, drivers entering the CBD at 60th Street pay the toll, and Manhattanites pay the lion’s share of a 33 percent taxi fare surcharge that raises a quarter of our total revenue. Under the Ravitch and Silver plans, East River drivers who make only 36 percent of crossings into the CBD would be coughing up 60 percent of new toll revenues.
• Everyone wins something in our plan. Buses are free (paid for by $800 million of our $1.7 billion revenue pot). Straphangers get deep off-peak discounts (paid for by the rest -- though some of the reductions might need to be deferred to help stanch the MTA deficit) and a bit more elbow-room in rush hour due to peak-spreading. Drivers get a 20 percent traffic speed-up in the CBD (faster travel “upstream” too), while the variable toll offers a measure of choice.
• Free and faster-moving buses will achieve three goals. They’ll lure enough drivers and straphangers out of gridlocked streets and packed trains to ease crowding on both. By stopping drip-torture boarding that halts movement during Metrocard-swiping, they’ll traverse their routes fast enough to handle the influx. And they’ll provide a huge break to riders across the city, a disproportionate percentage of whom live in poorer, non-Manhattan neighborhoods.

Too good to be true? No, it’s real, the numbers have been checked and re-checked, the plan works.

Politically, who knows? It’s easy to shrug and say that if Albany can’t get it together to enact $2 tolls, there’s no chance for an ambitious plan like Kheel-Komanoff.

And yet … unlike the plans on the table, which impose tolls while giving little back (as did Mayor Bloomberg’s failed congestion pricing proposal), our plan is about gain, and freedom, and relief:

• Gain for the millions of transit riders who will enjoy better service and more spending money.
• Freedom from recurring fare hikes and service cuts.
• Significant relief from traffic congestion that frustrates drivers, dehumanizes our city and saps the economy.

Lately I’ve kept a low profile about our plan out of deference to Dick Ravitch and his well thought out plan that recognizes the gravity of the crisis. But Albany is so stuck, and the dialogue so stilted, that it seems time to air a bolder, more ambitious plan.

Since New Year’s, I’ve discussed the Kheel-Komanoff plan with dozens of electeds and advocates. The private response has been uniformly positive.

There may still be time to win a real hearing -- or at least infuse elements of our plan into Ravitch's. Let’s find each other now, before it’s too late.

Green-collar jobs are on the line in Barack Obama's adopted hometown. Photo of CTA bus driver: goatopolis/Flickr

Congress and purported urbanist Barack Obama are fiddling with a 1950s-era stimulus package while America's transit systems burn. You name the city, and its transit system is falling off a financial cliff.  In Denver, Minneapolis, New York, and dozens of other large and small cities, revenue is plunging from the sales and real estate taxes that transit depends on. So despite big increases in transit ridership, many transit providers are cutting service and even laying off drivers. Yet not one cent from the $825 billion stimulus package would protect America's bus and subway riders from massive service cuts and fare hikes.

To transit riders, environmentalists and anyone concerned with social justice, the stimulus package is political cognitive dissonance on an epic scale. The vast majority of the nation's transit riders are low-income bus passengers, many of them African Americans in center cities -- the constituents that Obama ministered to as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side. Yet the proposed stimulus plan not only shortchanges public transit overall, it provides zero aid for day-to-day operations.

The stimulus is supposed to create jobs quickly. It calls for funding "shovel ready" projects, a standard that tends to discriminate against transit projects, and is absurd on its face. Transit operating funds can be spent quickly and easily, but it will take years to spend the billions in capital projects proposed in the latest version of the stimulus package:

• $30 billion for highways
• $31 billion to modernize federal and other public infrastructure for energy efficiency
• $19 billion for clean water, flood control and environmental restoration
• $9 billion for transit

It will take time for the economy and local government to digest and contract out billions in infrastructure spending. In contrast, local transit agencies can spend billions in stimulus aid quickly just by keeping existing bus and subway service operating. If the true intent of the stimulus is to inject money into the economy as quickly and efficiently as possible, and do so in an environmentally friendly and socially just manner, then transit operating assistance is an obvious choice.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune summed it up nicely in a recent editorial that quotes local transportation official Peter Bell: "I'm not sure how much sense it makes hiring a construction worker at the same time you're laying off a bus driver."

It’s easy to dismiss City Councilmembers Lew Fidler and Peter Vallone, Jr. as transportation troglodytes. They’ve led the pushback against bridge tolls -- most recently at the City Council hearing this week on the Ravitch Commission recommendations -- yet neither has ever put forth a workable alternative for reducing job-killing, community-wrecking traffic congestion. Judging by their anti-toll rhetoric, you’d think that half their district drives to jobs in the Manhattan Central Business District, yet the actual percentages who do so are surprisingly meager: 5.3 percent for Fidler’s Brooklyn district and 4.4 percent for Vallone’s Queens district (plus another 1.7 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively, who carpool).

But in one respect, bridge-toll opponents may have a point: tolling equity. According to my calculations, 60 percent of the proposed Ravitch bridge tolls would be paid by Brooklyn and Queens residents. Yet these residents make only 36 percent of car trips into the CBD. The disparity would mean a hefty cross-subsidy -- worth a few hundred million dollars a year -- of the region's drivers by drivers from these two boroughs.

Whence the disparity? There are two sources. First, the Ravitch plan imposes no new tolls on auto trips into the Manhattan core that come from New Jersey and northern Manhattan; these constitute almost one-quarter of the total. Second, another 20% of trips into the CBD -- from Bronx, Westchester and other points north -- use one of the Harlem River bridges. Ravitch wants those drivers to pay less than half the standard MTA toll rate that would apply to the four East River crossings -- the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro Bridges.

Under the Bloomberg congestion pricing plan, Brooklyn and Queens actually bore a fairer share of the burden than in the Ravitch plan, in spite of Bloomberg's controversial “toll-net” provision that heavily discounted autos from New Jersey. Even so, under Bloomberg’s plan, auto trips from Brooklyn and Queens, 36 percent of the total into the CBD, would have accounted for 40 percent of toll revenues, making almost a 1-to-1 match-up. That may explain why Councilmember John Liu, from Queens, voted for the mayor’s plan but is blasting the bridge tolls provision in the Ravitch plan.

Was Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal the last word on geographical equity? Hardly. There’s no need for a cordon toll plan to include toll-nets. Nor should it give Manhattanites a free pass; an easy-to-administer surcharge on fares for medallion taxis, which are overwhelmingly used by Manhattan residents, could swell the toll-revenue pie and spread it over a broader population and income base.

Can’t someone fashion a plan along those lines? Hmm, maybe someone already has.

Elliot "Lee" Sander

"The budget presented today fulfills the MTA’s responsibility to put forward a balanced budget for the coming year,” said Elliot G. Sander, MTA Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer. "While we attempted to identify the least harmful cuts possible, they will be painful and no one at the MTA is eager to implement them. Even in a period of austerity, continued investment in the MTA’s critical operating and capital needs must be a top priority for elected officials in Albany, New York City and Washington. That is why Governor Paterson appointed the Ravitch Commission, and we will work hard to ensure that its recommendations are implemented to restore financial stability to the MTA. It powers our economy and we cannot allow the system to move backward at this critical moment."

"The proposed budget presents the MTA Board with extremely tough choices that we must grapple with over the next month," said Chairman H. Dale Hemmerdinger. "We have an obligation to pass a balanced budget, but we all hope that service cuts and extreme fare increases can be avoided. We will be closely watching the Ravitch Commission and will support its efforts in any way we can, both on the operating budget and also on the critical capital program, which cannot be forgotten."

Before any gap-closing measures are implemented or prior-year carryover is included, the MTA’s budget deficits are projected to reach $1.441 billion in 2009, $2.394 billion in 2010, $2.647 billion in 2011, and $2.972 billion in 2012.

Further details are to be worked out "in the coming months," but the plan calls for a 23 percent increase in toll and fare revenue, with regular alternate-year increases to begin in 2011.

Also on the table:

• Paratransit fares will increase to twice the regular base fare, "as allowable by law and consistent with other bus agencies"
• Express bus fares will increase from $5 to $7.50
• Long Island Bus fares will increase by 20 percent "over and above the general proposed fare increase in the absence of additional support from Nassau County"

At the same time, the MTA has proposed the following cuts in NYC Transit service.

• Route modifications – shorten G, operate N via Manhattan Bridge late nights, eliminate W and extend Q to Astoria, operate M to Broad rush hours, eliminate Z, add J local service.
• Increased headways and loading guidelines during non-rush hours – headways increase from 8 to 10 minutes on ADEFGJMNQR on Saturdays and the ADEFGNQR on Sundays; headways increase from 20 to 30 minutes from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.
• Reduced station booth and station customer assistant staffing; elimination of enhanced station area track cleaning program.

• Reduce or eliminate low ridership services, especially during weekends or late night, and services that largely duplicate subway service. (Specifics have appeared in the News and Post.)

Commuter rail lines would be affected as well, with reductions in staffing, cleaning and maintenance.

Today's announcement is posted on the MTA web site, where the full budget is "soon" to appear. A final decision on the proposed budget will be made on December 17, after the much-anticipated Ravitch Commission report, and the state executive budget, are released.

City Room has more from this morning's MTA board meeting.

File photo: Brad Aaron

In today's Times, Richard Brodsky weighs in on the pitfalls of shortchanging capital needs in the face of the immediate MTA budget crisis.

"The need for investment in the system is gargantuan," said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Democrat from Westchester County who is chairman of a committee that oversees the authority. "Twenty-five years from now what we do on the capital plan will resonate much more loudly than what the debate is going to be about fare increases."

"It would be a terrible mistake to take whatever resources may be available and use them all on the operating side," Mr. Brodsky said.

The key words here: "whatever resources may be available." As the MTA contemplates eliminating bus routes and subway lines in addition to raising fares, we have not yet heard a proposed solution from Brodsky, who promised Streetsblog in April that he and his colleagues, having killed congestion pricing, would "continue ... good faith efforts to deal with the real problems of congestion and mass transit funding."

We have a message in with Brodsky's office in hopes of getting his views on potential service cuts, fare hikes, and the possibility that the Ravitch Commission will recommend measures that he has opposed in the past, including congestion pricing.

The problems that the bill addresses are not confined to two states. News of service cuts and fare hikes keeps pouring in from places as far-flung as San Diego, Corpus Christi, Cleveland, and Burlington. All are getting squeezed by fuel costs while handling ridership surges as great as 35 percent or higher. 

Keeping service running smoothly while new riders switch to transit is not solely the concern of one party, either. Republican Senator George Voinovich of Ohio just directed a $1.5 million earmark to Dayton's transit agency, saying "it is critical that we continue to make our public transportation systems more efficient and accessible."

Securing funds through national legislation rather than piecemeal earmarks will send a stronger message: Better transportation choices can provide relief for people hit hard by high gas prices. Discussion of this bill, say transit advocates, will help set the tone as debate ramps up about next year's national transportation funding package.

The Senate Banking Committee, which is considering the bill, needs to hear from people who support it, says Hanley. "We need 60 Senators ready by Labor Day to return to the Senate and insist on transit stimulus."

Photo of a bus boarding in Allentown, PA: Allentown Morning Call

The July Financial Plan assumes an increase of $81 million in 2008 and $127 million in 2009 for fuel costs, and reduced real estate tax projections of $201 million in 2008 and $242 million in 2009.  These are the primary reasons that the $216 million budget deficit projected in February for 2009 has grown to over $900 million.

In the face of these numbers, why are Paterson and Bloomberg trying to blame a potential fare hike on the MTA alone? Maybe it's impolitic to remind people of the $500 million dollars congestion pricing would have funneled to transit every year. But even if the city and state want to hold out as long as possible before they pony up, right now there's legislation currently stalled in Congress that would deliver $237 million to New York City's transit system. Let's hope that yesterday's rally for transit at City Hall spurs more local electeds to pressure the feds -- this means you, Senators Schumer and Clinton -- to revive the Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act.

Waiting for the bus in Syracuse, NY.

Transit agencies all over the country are nearing a state of emergency. At the same time that rising gas prices are leading more Americans to opt for buses and trains, transit operators are being forced to cut service and raise fares due to budget shortfalls.

In Minneapolis, the local transit agency is pondering not one but two fare hikes. Seattle's Metro is considering bumping up fares for the second time this year to stave off service cuts. Gainesville, Florida is confronting a double whammy of higher fares and reduced bus service. In western Massachusetts, one county transit authority faces what its manager calls a "make or break" moment, as many locals try riding the bus for the first time and evaluate their options.

As the Wall Street Journal reported last month (preview only), much of this is due to the impact of higher fuel costs on transit budgets. The upshot? The capacity of many transit systems, particularly in smaller cities, is shrinking just when more service is needed most. People looking to save money and travel more energy-efficiently are being penalized in the process.

"This is an emergency," says Larry Hanley, an International Vice President at Amalgamated Transit Union who negotiates transit worker contracts in towns and cities throughout the Northeast. "Particularly in smaller cities where the transit systems don't have any cushion or margin for increased operating costs."

Nationwide, 48 percent of bus operators and 69 percent of rail operators have already raised fares due to increased fuel and electricity costs, according to a survey released in May by the American Public Transit Association. In terms of service cuts, the figures are 21 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

Working with Minnesota Congressman Jim Oberstar and environmental organizations, the ATU was instrumental in pushing the "Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act of 2008" through the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year (download the bill). The legislation provides emergency federal aid for transit systems and promotes the use of alternative fuels. No Senate version of the bill has emerged, but Hanley, a former Staten Island bus driver, remains optimistic. "This legislation moved quickly through the House because members of Congress recognize that this is a crisis." 

Hanley believes the benefits of federal support for mass transit are wide-ranging and more effective than alternatives currently being discussed. "Congress can cut a 'fiscal stimulus' check so Americans can go to Wal-Mart and buy products made in China or we can 'Drill, Drill, Drill,' for six months-worth of oil," Hanley said. But, if the federal government really wants "to stimulate local economies, help the environment and strengthen national defense by reducing oil dependence, it's hard to find a better public investment than mass transit." If the Senate fails to act on the Oberstar bill, a second opportunity to provide funds may come in the fall, if Congress decides to pursue another economic stimulus package.

Meanwhile, stories of transit systems in distress can be found all over the nation, from Utah to Wisconsin to South Carolina. Either each agency will scrimp and make do as best they can, making life more difficult for countless riders and keeping yet more Americans from switching to bus and rail, or Congress and the President will take a real step toward addressing the gas price crunch by shoring up the nation's transit systems. What's it gonna be?

Photo: danifink/Flickr

Brodsky says the taxi fare hike alone would reduce VMT by up to 1.9 percent, and along with its other measures the plan would lower VMT by between 4.4 and 5.6 percent. According to Brodsky, his plan clearly qualifies the city for $354 million in federal transit funds, while congestion pricing does not.

Brodsky estimates the taxi fare hike would raise $187 million for transit annually, and along with other "reforms" would bring in up to $372 million per year.

The other plans burden average citizens, especially those in the boroughs outside Manhattan, place an access fee on public streets for the first time in American history, let out-of-state and suburban commuters off the hook, and ignore the single biggest cause of Zone congestion. We shift the focus to the group that actually causes the problem, that is better able to afford the increase cost of travel, and avoid costly and bureaucratic systems of cameras and payment that weigh down the other plans. We do not change the environmental reviewlaws, do not raise taxes on Zone residents, do not place a fee on travel on the FDR and Westside Drives. Our plan is simpler, easier, fairer, and more effective.

The plan outline (pdf) also contains vague language about limiting taxis to north-south corridors below 86th Street and encouraging telecommuting.

Brodsky claims to have support from 30 lawmakers, including members of the state Assembly and the City Council (among them: Fidler, Weprin, Dinowitz, Hevesi and Lancman). Six appeared with Brodsky a press conference today. Aaron Naparstek attended and will have more details tomorrow.

As for initial public reaction, judging from comments on City Room Brodsky may have finally succeeded in rallying the public behind congestion pricing.

Photo: the dancing kids/Flickr 

The Daily News, which has pounded the transit agency with its "Halt the Hike" series ("Even as the MTA is poised to stick straphangers with a fat fare hike, Chief Executive Lee Sander went shopping for a new necktie yesterday"), called the fare increase "the great train robbery of 2007," and characterized Sander and new Chairman H. Dale Hemmerdinger as puppets of Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Spitzer.

There was a time when MTA bosses were independent, standup people who represented the riders, even if only in losing battles with governors, Legislatures and mayors. Men like Dick Ravitch and Peter Kalikow come to mind.

At this point in their relatively young tenures, Hemmerdinger and Sander pale in comparison.

They are order takers, dictated to by Spitzer and Bloomberg, who have assumed full personal ownership of this fare hike.

New MetroCards should come bearing photographs of the governor and the mayor, like on wanted posters, including their records.

Also in the News, Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, while critical of the hikes, says transit customers have reason for hope in the promises made by Spitzer and other pols, including Assembly Member Richard Brodsky, that more state aid is forthcoming. Russianoff also thinks further hikes will be politically infeasible for the next several years.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign, for one, believes the hike will be used against the MTA come budget time, and sees it as a broader failure of the MTA and elected officials to advance a pro-transit agenda. Calling yesterday a "Sad Day for Transit Riders," TSTC's Kate Slevin writes:

Overall, by approving the hike and the proposed fare and toll plan today, Governor Spitzer and the MTA missed out on a number of key opportunities. First, they missed an opportunity to win support from transit riders who feel the pressure of crowded trains, slow buses, and an increasingly expensive region. Second, they missed out on a chance to let vocal state legislators put their money where their mouth is and produce more state transit aid. Third, they missed an opportunity to connect the transit funding debate with the Traffic Mitigation Commission's recommendations to be released in January. Fourth, the MTA failed, as it has in the past (see MTR #s 425, 401, 237, and others), to use the toll hike as an opportunity to bring its tolling structure and facilities into the 21st century with things like variable tolling and non-stop tolls.

Finally, the MTA and Governor Spitzer failed to connect the fare and toll proposal with their own efforts to promote sustainability. The MTA established a top-notch Sustainability Commission in September to help create an agency "master plan" to reduce the agency's ecological footprint. But the agency's toll proposal punishes most transit riders more than most drivers - under the plan EZ Pass users (which account for 75% of all crossings) will pay only 3.8% more while transit fares for most riders will increase more than that. Last time we checked, promoting transit use over driving is an vital part of "sustainability."

Today's vote came after weeks of public hearings, at which commuters and advocacy groups expressed overwhelming and nearly unanimous opposition to the fare and toll increase. In particular, opponents called on the M.T.A. board to hold off at least until April, when the State Legislature is expected to evaluate recommendations from a state commission studying Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal and other ways to mitigate traffic.

M.T.A. executives maintained that they could not wait until then because it faces looming multibillion-dollar deficits. For the last several years, the authority has benefited from a windfall in real estate taxes, but the slowing of the housing market has slowed down even as the authority faces rising costs for four key expansion projects: the new Second Avenue subway line, the East Side Access project to link the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal, the West Side extension of the No. 7 subway line and the completion of the Fulton Street Transit Center in Lower Manhattan.

As for State Assembly member Richard Brodsky's insistence that Albany can find ways to come up with transportation funding other than Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal, City Room notes:

Barry L. Feinstein, a longtime board member who represents the governor, warned that Albany is unlikely to offer the authority a financial bailout. He predicted that the state government was facing a "dog fight" among competing priorities in education, health care and the environment.

"If you were to design the ultimate system, you would have mass transit be free and charge an enormous amount for cars."

So said Mayor Michael Bloomberg last April, right about the time he unveiled his plan to charge motorists a fee to drive into Manhattan's central business district. Eight months later, as the mayor's original proposal mutates for better or worse, the MTA is hours away from raising transit fares. Neither idea has exactly caught fire with the public, and the fare hikes could actually end up a foil for congestion pricing -- a plan originally intended as a sustained financial boost for the transit system.

And then there's Theodore "Ted" Kheel. The environmentalist, philanthropist, and renowned labor attorney has lobbied for free transit in New York for over 40 years. Last February he commissioned a $100,000 study that, as it turns out, could put the city's money where the mayor's mouth is. A summary of findings released late last week shows that if the city were to impose a $16 congestion fee ($32 for trucks) below 60th Street in Manhattan, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, along with higher curbside parking fees and a taxi surcharge, the MTA could remove its turnstiles and fareboxes forever.

Relying on exhaustive analyses of dozens of factors ranging from vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and transit capacities to emissions and employment data, assembled in an interactive spreadsheet created by Charles Komanoff, the study, managed by the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility (IRUM) and researched by Joseph Clift, George Haikalis, Brian Ketcham and Carolyn Konheim, found that the Kheel Plan would:

• Reduce traffic within the Central Business District by 25% and within the entire city by nearly 10%. Auto trips into the CBD would drop by one-third.
• Save the public a staggering $4 billion a year in recovered productivity, or more than 100 million "vehicle hours" that would otherwise be spent in traffic. (Some 20% of this value would be realized by bus riders, 32% by truck, taxi and auto users within the CBD, and 48% by vehicle users in the rest of the city.)
• More than recoup revenues now generated by fares. The one-two punch of the $16 automobile toll ($3 billion annually), taxi fare surcharge ($340 million annually) and higher curbside parking fees ($500 million annually) would generate nearly $4 billion annually - enough to replace the $3.5 billion in current tolls and subway and bus farebox revenues and still leave an annual revenue stream of $500 million for improving and expanding transit.
• Provide universal no-fare transit with less crowding than today's service. Making transit free will be an enormous boon for all New Yorkers, particularly low-income residents, and lift, once and for all, the specter of fare hikes. The Kheel Plan also includes a strategy for handling the anticipated increase in ridership that will result in less, not more crowded trains and buses.
• Shorten travel time: Enable a one-third (34%) increase in vehicle speeds within the CBD and an average one-tenth (10%) increase in the rest of the city. A typical 12-minute taxi trip in the heart of midtown Manhattan would be trimmed to nine minutes, while five minutes would be shaved from the typical 55-minute ride for a non-CBD trip, say from Bayside to Bensonhurst. Bus travelers would also save time: a fare-free system would eliminate the tedious swiping of MetroCards that leads to frustrating boarding delays, thereby shortening a typical 20-minute bus ride to 15-16 minutes.
• Produce additional, significant benefits: The plan would generate an additional $2 billion in health cost savings and other benefits from reduced pollution, fewer traffic crashes, lower insurance costs, and increased tendencies to walk and bike - all due to diminished traffic levels.

"The PlaNYC proposal, while commendable and courageous, offers little if any relief to endlessly spiraling subway and bus fares," researchers conclude, while "the Kheel Plan banishes fare escalation from the civic horizon by abolishing the fare itself."

While it was developed independent of the Congestion Mitigation Commission process currently underway, its authors say the Kheel Plan "takes Mayor Bloomberg's visionary congestion pricing proposal to its logical conclusion." As Commission chairman Marc Shaw noted at yesterday's meeting, however, that logical conclusion is going to have to be something that "works in the real world" -- a world filled with term-limited City Council members, parking garage industry-funded lobbyists, a debt-laden MTA and various other challenges. Logical or not, one thing is for certain: With the Commission's aggressive timeline set to deliver an Implementation Plan to City Council by January 31 and Council scheduled to vote by March 28, a conclusion will be reached shortly.

Congestion pricing is in trouble. With just weeks to go before the Traffic Mitigation Commission makes its recommendations to the City Council and State Legislature, public support is waning and opponents appear to have the upper hand. The one sales pitch that scored high in public opinion polls, using pricing revenue to hold down transit fares, was discarded this week when the Mayor decided to support the governor's fare hike.

Congestion pricing is struggling for two reasons. First, it has been framed as a revenue issue instead of a traffic-busting, quality-of-life-improving, environmental measure. Second, City Hall has not made a politically compelling case for how pricing revenue will be used. Politics demands that congestion pricing be about more than extending the 7 train and building part of the Second Avenue subway and LIRR connector -- projects that won't be completed for many years and overwhelmingly serve Manhattan.

In contrast to these mega-projects, the congestion fee is immediate and specific. This clash between specific, immediate costs and diffuse, long-term, benefit has produced a public discussion focused on who will pay the congestion fee and how, rather than what the benefits will be and for whom. Fortunately, there is still time for Mayor Bloomberg to turn things around by combining congestion pricing's broad social and environmental benefits with a package of short-term, highly visible, specific transportation and quality of life benefits that excite the public imagination.

Flatbush Avenue and Fulton Street, Downtown Brooklyn.

By January 31, the Traffic Mitigation Committee will present a new congestion pricing plan that will likely suggest tolls on East River Bridges and a fee to cross 60th Street. Once the Committee issues its new recommendations, City Hall should relaunch congestion pricing by proposing two major new benefits. First, the rapid implementation of neighborhood streetscape and pedestrian improvements on the city's busiest commercial corridors, especially outside of Manhattan. Second, a Paris-style, bus service expansion including the launch of new bus rapid transit lines and major improvements in local service accompanied by aggressive promotion targeted at bus riders and transit unions.

Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue, Flushing, Queens.

The Commission's new congestion pricing proposal is expected to raise an estimated $500 million a year. The boroughs would be buzzing if City Hall dedicated $150 million a year of this new revenue to highly visible, streetscape and pedestrian improvements on the city's busiest commercial corridors, especially in fast-growing Queens. The Mayor would utterly transform the congestion pricing debate if he traveled the boroughs like a Livable Streets Johny Appleseed sprinkling new buses, wider sidewalks, greenery, street furniture and truck traffic-reducing bulb-outs in his wake. In doing so, the Mayor would re-frame congestion pricing as an economic development and quality of life project rather than a "tax on the working class." The Mayor, rather than suburban Assembly member Richard Brodsky, would dominate media coverage as he met with local business and civic leaders and offered speedy, attractive plans to revitalize neighborhood centers using congestion pricing revenue.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone's staff say they used three words to generate public support for congestion pricing in London: "Buses, buses and buses." City Hall should hammer the message that bus riders are the big-time beneficiaries of pricing. Local TV news networks, daily commuter papers and weekly community papers should be filled with stories about the new bus services that pricing will create in neighborhoods throughout the city. Bus riders should be made aware of exactly how many new buses, fewer delays and increased service they get on their own routes.

Roosevelt Avenue and 76th Street, Jackson Heights, Queens.

Mayor Bloomberg's 2030 Plan already includes a massive boost in bus service. With $258 million in one-time federal congestion pricing aid the MTA will roll out 367 new buses on 36 routes in 22 neighborhoods and ten new Bus Rapid Transit lines. But buses need even more. Paris, which is about one-third the size of New York City, is building 17 new BRT lines. With the additional revenue from the Commission's expected bridge tolling proposal, Mayor Bloomberg could double the number of planned BRT lines to 20 for an additional $120 million per year. This would still leave $230 million per year for MTA capital expenses -- substantial new revenue to bond for big subway and rail expansion.

Initially, Mayor Bloomberg presented congestion pricing as part of a grand vision for a greener, more sustainable New York City. Cynical opponents diluted that vision by re-characterizing congestion pricing as just another bad tax on New York City's working families. Yet, the Mayor's original vision had the support of 40 percent of New Yorkers without even mention of a specific benefit. Mayor Bloomberg is a great salesman. He can win congestion pricing if he revisits the idealism of his original vision and adds to it local, visible and immediate benefits that the average New Yorker can understand and appreciate.

Flickr Photos: Betty Blade, Threecee, Haikiba, Pete Biggs.

Lawmakers and transit advocates made the announcement today at City Hall.

City Room reports:

If the authority holds off until next April, it would give Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the Legislature “a chance to provide additional funds needed in order to avoid a fare increase,” the lawmakers and advocates wrote in their letter.

“Fare increases are a last resort,” said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat. “After 12 years of neglect under the Pataki administration, we want to work with the M.T.A., the city and state governments to change the failed policies of the past.”

The letter said: “There are many strong reasons for increasing government aid to the M.T.A. There has been no permanent new state operating aid to M.T.A. New York City Transit in at least a dozen years.”

The letter was signed by New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. and 22 Assembly members: Adam Bradley, James F. Brennan, Richard L. Brodsky, Kevin A. Cahill, William Colton, Ruben Diaz Jr., Richard N. Gottfried, Michael N. Gianaris, Carl E. Heastie, Hakeem S. Jeffries, Janele Hyre-Spencer, Micah Z. Kellner, David G. McDonough, Joan L. Millman, Mike Spano, Catherine T. Nolan, Daniel J. O’Donnell, N. Nick Perry, Linda B. Rosenthal, Robert K. Sweeney, Harvey Weisenberg and Keith L. T. Wright.

Whether legislators can stop focusing on one another long enough to advance a substantive public policy initiative (with or without the use of medication) remains to be seen.

The MTA invites members of the public to a hearing on proposed fare changes.

Who is going to come up with the best caption for this photo?