Photo: Ken Coughlin.

I deliberated long and hard about whether to press my case. The driver was probably just trying to make ends meet and save up a little by working grueling 12-hour shifts. Hell, I used to drive a cab myself. But I also thought of my responsibility to other cyclists. If the driver had swiped me on a four-lane boulevard in broad daylight, couldn't he do the same to someone else, with perhaps a devastating outcome? I decided to file a complaint.

The hearing took place several weeks later. I had a choice to testify by phone or in person in Queens (I live and work in Manhattan). Not wanting to take a half-day away from work, I opted for the surreal experience of being sworn in by a judge while sitting at my own desk. The driver, through his lawyer, did not dispute that he had hit me. His only defense was that he hadn't realized he had done so. To me, it seemed an open-and-shut case: Driver admits hitting cyclist, driver will face some consequences.

The judge's ruling came in the mail a few days later.

"There was no allegation of speeding or reckless driving during the hearing and certainly no proof of same," it read. "Thus a prima facie case for the violations charged has not been established and the Summons and charges are dismissed."

In effect, the judge was saying that it's okay for a cab driver to strike a cyclist as long as there is no evidence of reckless driving. But, I wondered, isn't the mere fact that a cyclist was hit "prima facie" evidence that the driver failed to exercise due care?

I sought out the opinion of my friend and cycling attorney par excellence, Adam White. "While I'm sure it was upsetting getting brushed by this guy," he told me, "a judge is left with determining findings based upon the evidence presented. This guy presented a reasonable case and took it seriously enough to hire an attorney." Adam said the TLC appeared to be applying a recklessness standard and that I had not alleged recklessness. "Aside from that," he added, "the civil justice system is available to people who are injured or suffer property damage." Adam also noted that my case might have been strengthened had I shown up in person.

Perhaps I should have appeared in person, but it was undisputed that the driver hit me through no fault of my own. Without a finding of recklessness or negligence, any such case would not appear on a driver's record. Couldn't a driver repeatedly sideswipe cyclists, throughout his career presumably, and pay no price? What if this particular driver has, say, a vision problem that causes him to repeatedly come close to or brush more vulnerable road users? What if he is simply habitually careless? It appears that there is no mechanism within the existing TLC system to address such possibilities.

My guess is that few cyclists would pursue the matter as I did. For anything to appear on such a driver's record, there would have to be an injury serious enough to suggest to a TLC judge that recklessness might be involved. But by then it could be too late.

Congestion pricing paired with a significant taxi surcharge would speed cab trips and boost Manhattan's transit funding contribution. Photo: Bill in STL/Flickr.

A side benefit is that the discouragement of taxi use due to the surcharge should cause travel speeds in Manhattan to rise, saving time for car and truck drivers and bus passengers. With some taxi trips switching to subway or bus, transit farebox revenues will go up as well. But the surcharge is so slight -- around 5 percent of a typical fare -- that these gains will barely be perceptible: a mere 0.1-0.2 percent rise in Manhattan travel speeds and a $2-$3 million-per-year rise in transit revenues, according to the BTA. And any increase in taxi cruising to make up for the lost fares would cut into the minuscule improvement in traffic.

While the press bewails the surcharge's impact on taxi users, the people likely to suffer the most are the drivers, who on average can be expected to turn 1½ to 2 fewer fares a week. Losing $20-$25 in weekly revenue may not seem like much, but it's a bitter pill for drivers who can barely pay off their medallion leases as it is. Indeed, the taxi surcharge, enacted by the legislature as an afterthought to the "mobility (payroll) tax" last spring, may do to drivers what the new taxi credit card payment system reportedly has not: drive them to the wall, economically.

Does this mean that surcharging taxi fares to pay for transit is categorically a bad idea? Decidedly not. I'm prepared to argue that a taxi surcharge a good deal larger than 50 cents per ride is essential to the political and logistical success of congestion pricing. At the same time, congestion pricing is essential to making a taxi surcharge fair for taxi drivers and passengers. With, and only with, a cordon toll, will Manhattan traffic improve sufficiently that cabbies can book more fares per shift, not fewer. Moreover, the same speedup will enable users to save valuable time, partially compensating them for the surcharge and ensuring that the taxi sector stays robust.

To grasp these synergies, consider a variable toll to drive into the Manhattan Central Business District of $3 to $9 on weekdays and $2 to $4 on weekends, with the revenues used to cut transit fares roughly in half. Residents of Queens and Brooklyn would pony up 45 cents of every dollar in new toll revenue, because of tolls on the East River bridges. Manhattanites would contribute less than 7 cents of each dollar, less than residents of Nassau County, Staten Island and the Bronx, yet would reap most of the benefits of quieter and safer streets, cleaner air, and faster bus service.

Such a plan would be DOA in Albany. Indeed, I would argue that this very imbalance between beneficiaries and benefactors helped doom the Bloomberg cordon fee in 2008 and the Ravitch bridge tolls this year.

Now take the same toll plan and add a 33 percent taxi surcharge -- yes, a one-third increase in the mileage rate, the waiting time rate and the "drop." Instantly, Manhattan residents -- who comprise an estimated three-fourths of medallion taxi users -- would see their payment share nearly quadruple to 25 percent. Brooklyn and Queens residents' share would shrink from 45 percent without the taxi surcharge to 28 percent with it. The borough-inequity argument largely disappears.

Not only that, the taxi surcharge revenue, a cool $400-$500 million according to the BTA, could allow transit officials to eliminate bus fares. Free buses would be a particular boon in distant precincts where subway lines don't reach. As well, the rise in the taxi fare would offset the fall in the "time cost" of taxi service due to the decrease in auto traffic, and keep new taxi trips from inundating the CBD. Total use of medallion cabs would stay roughly constant under this integrated plan, with the reduction in gridlock enabling drivers to handle an extra 15-20 fares per week without booking more hours.

As for the effect on taxi users, the BTA indicates that the integrated plan outlined here would add $2.16 to the price of the average CBD cab trip while shortening the ride by 1.8 minutes. In other words, passengers pay $1.20 per minute saved -- a steep rate, for most of us, and it would be steeper for trips that venture outside the CBD, where the travel time savings would be smaller, percentage-wise. Even with a cordon toll, then, taxi surcharges can't be sold to riders as an unalloyed win-win, although riders could help themselves by cab-pooling and prioritizing their taxi use.

Of course, taxi surcharges are still justified as a means of internalizing the "social delay" costs of vehicle traffic on congested streets. They're most fair and effective, though, when coupled with cordon tolling.

In August, 8-year-old Axel Pablo was killed by a cab driver in Harlem. Witnesses say the cabbie was on his cell phone. Though police cleared him of wrongdoing, the TLC has since revoked his hack license. Photo via Daily News

According to the News, keeping cab drivers off the phone should only be required when passengers are present -- apparently because News editors believe distracted driving is a mere annoyance, rather than a well-documented threat to public safety:

The present TLC rules forbid cell chatting while cabbies are driving. That's reasonable; you shouldn't have to listen to your hack yack while you're paying $2 per mile, no more than you should be forced to listen to the radio at full blast.

But when drivers are alone, using their cabs as cars -- just like millions do -- they should live by the same rules as the rest of the population.

So instead of advocating for more stringent distracted driving laws for everyone who gets behind the wheel, the editors of the Daily News would prefer that we "cut some slack" to thousands of professional drivers who patrol streets teeming with vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists 24/7/365. Never mind that cell-phone-using drivers, hands-free or no, are four times more likely to be involved in a crash. And remember that national summit a couple of weeks ago, when the U.S. secretary of transportation declared distracted driving a "deadly epidemic"? Honestly, people: Where have you been?

For the record, the Post is in favor of the new TLC rules. And no wonder. It's hard to believe a position so ill-informed as that of the Daily News editorial board could be held by anyone who reads a newspaper on a daily basis, much less publishes one.

Central Park erupted into a scene of chaos early Saturday afternoon after witnesses say a taxi heading west from 60th Street toward Fifth Avenue hit an empty horse and buggy carriage before slamming into a brick wall.

"Actually he was coming very high speed, too, cause you see the big hole he made in the wall, he was coming very, very fast," said one witness.

"All of a sudden I heard this loud thump and I saw a horse going over toward Fifth Avenue, loose, before I saw a couple of drivers, the carriage drivers, stop the horse and there was a cab driver I assume it was now laying in the street," said another witness.

The cab driver and the carriage operator were injured, while horse Blackie, miraculously, was unharmed. No word that we could find on what charges, if any, were issued (the Post says the driver "was reportedly suffering from a seizure," but gives no source).

Though animal advocates were quick to paint Saturday's crash as further evidence that horse carriages have no place in traffic (an argument with which I personally agree), it was in fact only the latest example of cabbie-induced carnage.

The Times on Sunday ran a brief editorial reiterating the paper's recent coverage of cab drivers and cell phones. Cab-riding New Yorkers may recognize the dangers of driving on city streets while distracted, the Times says, but few do much about it: the TLC reports just 175 complaints regarding yakking drivers through July of this year. Despite the ubiquity of the offense -- when was the last time you got in a cab where the driver wasn't on the phone? -- NYPD is virtually no help, issuing under 1,000 tickets to cabbies in all of 2008, and just 232 through the first half of 2009.

Given the bleak state of enforcement, the Times advises readers to either buckle up or withhold gratuities. While option two might work on a case-by-case basis, this got us wondering: What should the protocol be for a safe streets advocate sitting behind a reckless cab driver? Confront the cabbie? Complain to TLC? Both? Or are you a conscientious objector, avoiding cabs altogether?

Reader Trish Naudon-Thomas sends this picture of yesterday's cab crash in Chelsea. Information about what transpired is still hard to come by, but an AP squib notes that the collision has put one person in critical condition and two others in serious condition. It's a miracle that even more people weren't hurt in such a pedestrian-packed city environment.

As noted in the comments to our first post about this crash, it's much easier to acquire a hack license in New York City compared to London. A survey released this June ranked New York cabbies the world's worst taxi drivers. London's were named the best. Think of the lives that could be saved if we decided that driving a multi-ton vehicle all day, all over town demanded more rigorous certification.

Miraculously, unlike Akim Saiful Alam, the unidentified driver in yesterday's crash didn't kill anyone when he lost control of his cab on Amsterdam Avenue. But it wasn't for lack of trying. Witnesses told NY1 the cabbie was speeding before he attempted to "make a turn from the far right lane of Amsterdam and turned all the way into the far left lane." The News reports what happened next:

The cab careened off the roadway and nearly cleared a 4-foot-high wrought-iron fence separating a traffic island from the intersection.

"He hit the fence, and he went flying," said Samuel Valerdi, 34, of Brooklyn.

Then the taxi smashed into a small building that houses the entrance to the 1, 2 and 3 subway trains.

"It hit like a bomb," said newspaper vendor Mohameed Raza, 22, of Brooklyn.

Pedestrians ran for their lives, but "luckily no one was coming out of the subway at the time," said David Spiers, 44, a Bronx electrician working across the street.

All told, three people -- the driver, his passenger, and a pedestrian -- were injured. The News says NYPD is still investigating, though no summonses were immediately issued.

While this incident will soon drop off the radar (just as surely as it will soon happen again), not everyone will be quick to forget. After the jump, witness Lisa Sladkus questions why all of us, every day, should suffer the consequences of dangerous driving.

What will it take to make these streets safer? A low-stress afternoon interrupted by screeching tires, a loud crash, and the terrifying thought, "Where are my kids right now?" It shouldn't be like this. Today on Broadway between 71st and 72nd Street, a cab went straight through the wrought-iron fence and landed on the sidewalk right outside the subway entrance. My sister and I rushed out to see what seemed to be the cab driver with a bloody head and at least one pedestrian with a head injury. The sadder part was hearing the first police officer to the scene of the crash say, "It's shocking there weren't more injuries or deaths."

What's more shocking to me is that this is okay with the powers that be. Why is it okay to have a person walk out of the subway and get hit by some flying metal from a car crash? Why is it okay to have 53 pedestrians and four bicyclists die on the Upper West Side between 1995 and 2005 because of car crashes? Why can cars drive through red lights and nothing happens? Why is Amsterdam Avenue more like a bustling highway than a lovely city Boulevard?

This similar shock and sadness happened to me a few weeks ago while walking home with my three kids and loads of groceries. A woman riding her bike was hit by a car in front of the popular grocery store, Fairway. She didn't move for many minutes, and my kids kept asking, "Is she dead?" Once we determined that she, in fact, didn't die, my kids switched their questioning. The question that really got me was from my four year old, "You and Daddy bike. Are you going to get rolled up by a car too?"

All I can say is that we need a serious re-thinking of our neighborhoods. How do we want them to feel? Do we want kids to feel safe while walking and biking? Do we want peaceful streets where we can meet neighbors and frolic with our children? Do we want our valuable police force, fire department and EMT doing something more beneficial than spending hours dealing with the aftermath of a totally preventable crash? If so, we need to start by lowering speed limits, we need to re-design our streets and sidewalks to accommodate the masses of people instead of motor vehicles, we need safe places to bike and walk, we need trucks off our neighborhood side streets (and, frankly, completely out of our neighborhoods unless they are absolutely necessary), and on and on.

After the death of 8-year-old Axel Pablo last week, the Post called on Mayor Bloomberg, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and TLC Commissioner Matthew Daus to crack down on cell phone-talking cab drivers. While this would be a welcome move, a more effective approach, for starters, would be an across the board no tolerance policy to speeding on city streets, coupled with prosecution of reckless motorists who maim and kill.

We know what it takes to "help us make safer streets and sidewalks," Sladkus concludes. "The question is: do we want that as our outcome?"

A DOT team received a mix of gratitude and derision at Tuesday's public forum about recent pedestrian improvements in the Meatpacking District, which attracted an audience of about 100 people to the Housing Works offices on West 13th Street. It was an interesting window onto the competing interests now vying to shape what has been, from the beginning, a genuinely community-based project seeking to put pedestrians on equal footing with vehicle traffic.

Those who came to praise described the new sense of safety they feel walking around the area near Gansevoort Plaza. Those who came to scorn suggested rolling back those improvements in the hopes that livery passengers might not have to wait another minute or two to be dropped off right at their luxe destinations. The former enjoyed a two-to-one advantage over the latter among those who spoke, with much of crowd opinion resting with a sizable, aesthetically-driven middle ground -- people who professed support for street reclamation in theory, but just don't like the look of nipple bollards.

The goal of the meeting, said DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione, was to get "a sense of the overall feeling and a sense of what can be tweaked" about the project, which is slated to enter a permanent design phase this July, followed by construction the next year. There was no shortage of thoughtful ideas -- and clunkers -- for a neighborhood attempting to deal with the influx of cab and limo traffic on weekend nights. Taxi stands, anyone?

One solution for the Meatpacking District's livery congestion: taxi stands. Image: NYCDOT

On the side of preserving safety gains, longtime resident Cynthia Penney encapsulated the sentiment of many locals. "I love the fact that I can cross the street without taking my life in my hands," she said. "Judging by the crowds outside Pastis, I don't think anyone is having trouble getting here."

On the side of maximizing vehicular throughput, Andrew Winter, a representative of luxury resto/lounge tandem Vento and Level V (a favored haunt of "good-looking, well-heeled New Yorkers in their late twenties, happy about how, well, good-looking they are" says New York Mag), put it to DOT thusly: "Instead of spending money on moving these cement block things into new areas, can we focus our funds on how to get the traffic in and out much easier?"

Not that all testimony hewed to the residents-vs.-businesses pattern. Paolo Secondo, owner of the restaurant Revel on Little West 12th Street, was firmly in favor of the pedestrian improvements. "I believe that a privilege we can no longer afford in New York is to be able to arrive at a restaurant in a cab or a limo," he said, assigning blame for traffic congestion in the area to the willy-nilly pattern of livery pick-ups and drop-offs. "I would much prefer to have stands or drop-off zones." His call was bolstered by comments from a CB4 member who recounted how taxi stands had eased traffic tie-ups and quieted late-night honking in Chelsea's nightclub district.

One of the most intriguing storylines to develop was -- brace yourself -- the question of management. As Project for Public Spaces can tell you, the success of any public space depends on programming and maintenance. Someone has to care for it. The Meatpacking District, unlike Madison Square and other areas where DOT plazas have bloomed, does not have a BID to assume this role. It does have a merchants' association -- the Meatpacking District Initiative -- and here's the Catch 22: The MPDI is funded through voluntary contributions, not mandatory assessments, so if the businesses don't like the new public spaces, they don't have to pay for things like putting on events or keeping planters looking good, and perceptions of the pedestrian zones will suffer.

"People want us to fund something that our members are not pleased with," said MPDI founder David Rabin, who called for some of the pedestrian areas on Ninth Avenue to be narrowed or removed. "It is unacceptable for me to hear people say they think it's okay that it's hard to get to the Meatpacking District."

Rabin was followed immediately by Florent Morellet, one of the first restaurateurs to set up in the area and a driving force behind the public space plan. "Cabs can come to the outskirts of the neighborhood but not to the middle," he said in a plea to fellow business owners. "The concept that people can drive wherever and whenever they want is over. You're going to kill business with the old way of thinking. Don't think the old way."

Judging by much of the testimony, many of Rabin's design-conscious members would be satisfied with changes to surface appearances -- nipple bollards, apparently, offend their haute sensibilities. As one boutique owner put it, the street furniture doesn't match the "Paris-like setting" that first attracted her to the neighborhood. Finding a substitute may prove tougher than you'd think. Any device to demarcate pedestrian space will have to meet DOT traffic engineers' exacting safety standards, which the reflective tops of nipple bollards manage to achieve.

With the final design phase slated to commence this July, the Gansevoort project is one to keep an eye on. Some changes may already be in the works. We checked in with DOT the day after the meeting, and the agency said they hope to install taxi stands in the next month or two.

City cyclist and graphic designer Marko Bon is working to get a logo like this one added to taxi video screens as part of the "Taxicab Passenger Enhancement Program." Bon tells Streetsblog that the Taxi and Limousine Commission has shown interest in the design, which he hopes can be incorporated in a way that will draw passengers' attention. Info stickers have included anti-dooring messages, designed by Transportation Alternatives, for years, but video PSAs got lost in the shuffle when making their "Taxi TV" debut in 2003.

Bon is looking for design feedback from Streetsbloggers. (An alternate version of the graphic is posted on Flickr.) After the jump, a mock-up of Bon's design as it might look on today's taxicab screens.

Streetsblog: With congestion pricing off the table and the deadline to receive $354M in federal support about to pass, will other traffic mitigation measures surface in the state legislature?
Brodsky: Several have already been proposed, including better enforcement (block-the-box and double parking being the prime targets) and reforms of yellow cab and black car services. But there is no support for using pricing or any other ability-to-pay mechanisms.

Streetsblog: How will the projected shortfall in the MTA capital plan be addressed? Pricing would have taken care of a big chunk of it -- what are some likely alternatives that will be proposed?
Brodsky: The Assembly has already passed a small increase in the income tax rate for those who earn over $1,000,000 a year, with the proceeds largely going to mass transit capital across the state. It has the added advantage of being pay-as-you-go, saving billions in interest costs.

First, the Daily Politics spoke to Bronx Assemblyman Michael Benedetto, a pricing supporter who identified three major sticking points among his colleagues:

• Taxis, which contribute considerably to traffic, getting off with just a $1 surcharge.
• No provisions for the elderly or sick people who are traveling into the congestion zone to go to medical appointments.
• The fact that commuters from New Jersey won't be affected because they're already paying $8 in PANY/NJ tolls.

The New Jersey issue, which prompted 20 City Council members to sign a letter of objection, may be on its way to being hashed out, according to a story in the Sun this morning:

Mr. Bloomberg has said he will address the issue and is expected to propose a possible fix soon.

The Sun also reports on the favors Council members are seeking in return for their vote:

"I know what my issues are -- northern Manhattan," Council Member Robert Jackson of Harlem, who said he is undecided about the mayor's plan, said yesterday. Mr. Jackson said his wish list includes more express bus routes and support for building a cross-harbor rail tunnel that would reduce truck traffic in the neighborhood.

He added that he is in talks with the mayor's office on local concerns and is leaning toward voting in favor of congestion pricing.

Want to urge Jackson and the rest of City Council to get behind pricing? There's a public hearing at City Hall on Monday. Details after the jump.

The Campaign for New York's Future sent an email to supporters yesterday to organize pro-pricing turnout. Here's the deal from CNYF:

WHAT: City Council is holding its last hearing on congestion pricing in order to gauge community support for the plan before it goes to a vote. This is likely your last opportunity to make your voice heard on this issue!

WHEN: Monday, March 24th at 9:30 a.m. and at 5:30 p.m. – READ ON FOR THE FULL DAY’S SCHEDULE

9:30 session: The morning hearing will hear testimonies from pre-invited panelists only but is open to the public.  We encourage you to attend and show your support for pro-pricing testimonies as well as sign up to testify at the evening hearing.

5:30 session: The evening hearing is open to the public -- anyone can testify. The sign-up for the evening hearing opens at 5:30. Testimonies are limited to 2 minutes each. The line up will be determined on a first come, first served basis.

To sum up: come all day if you can make it; if you can only come at one time make it at 5:30pm.

WHERE: 2nd Floor, Council Chambers - City Hall. City Hall is located in City Hall Park. You can enter the plaza from either the west side of the park at Broadway and Murray Street or the east side at Park Row.

Please let us know if you are coming or if you have questions: contact Katie at ksavin@mrss.com.

Bring congestion pricing related signs and t-shirts to show your support even when you are not testifying!  The CNYF will bring extras in case you need them.

Streetsblog's Brad Aaron files this report from Albany.

A contingent of about 80 New Yorkers is in Albany today to advocate for congestion pricing. Following a brief rally on the capitol steps this morning, led by the Campaign for New York's Future, the crowd broke off into small groups for a day of sit-downs with individual lawmakers.

I shadowed a group assigned to Senator Frank Padavan of Queens, who is against pricing, though he represents a district where just six percent of the population commutes by car to Manhattan's central business district. An amiably cantankerous fellow, Padavan started the meeting with a question: "Did the mayor send you up here?" The senator then went on for a bit about Bloomberg's helicopter and private jet before getting down to business.

"We've gotten tons of info," Padavan said. "We have reviewed it all, and I don't really have any questions."

Padavan said Residential Parking Permits would help his car-owning constituents avoid park-and-ride problems, and allowed that new express buses would be a welcome addition to his district. But he also said that, according to the MTA, there is no way to add subway capacity from 179th Street in Jamaica.

Then, when the senator was presented with specific plans for transit improvements in Queens, things got off track.

"When are we going to do something about the taxicabs and the limousines?" Padavan asked, apropos of nothing. "There's nothing in the plan that addresses that."

Padavan proceeded to rail against limos double-parking as they wait for affluent Manhattanites. (He was unaware of the proposed $1 surcharge for yellow cab rides.) He then suggested a fleet of jitneys along the avenues, which would be financially self-sustaining. ("What does he think buses are?" wondered one advocate after the meeting.)

Padavan pointed out how many City Council members from Queens and Brooklyn are against pricing, concluding, "You ought to be down there talking to them."

A cyclist in the group spoke eloquently of the vision needed from Albany to move the plan through, to make New York a city of livable streets. "We'd love you to provide leadership," one advocate said.

Padavan responded that City Council members don't listen to him. In fact, he said, one of them is running against him.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Wednesday that the hybrid changeover for yellow cabs will be extended to cover the city's 10,000 black cars.

Under a proposed rule change, the Taxi and Limousine Commission would require new licensed black cars to meet a 25 m.p.g. standard for city driving in 2009 and 30 m.p.g. in 2010 -- ratings "currently achievable only by using hybrid technology," according to the city. Today's black cars average 12 to 15 m.p.g.

The black car requirement is a component of PlaNYC. Last year it was announced that all yellow cabs are to go hybrid by 2012.

"We've come up with a proposal similar to the new yellow cab standards, which the TLC board approved unanimously last December," said Bloomberg. "Between yellow taxis and black cars, more than 23,000 TLC regulated cars will be required to be more efficient. This will allow us to achieve substantial emissions reductions for our city -- and keep us moving towards our long-term goal of creating a truly sustainable city."

It is estimated that the hybrid switch will reduce black car emissions by 50 percent.

Black cars would also be subject to a retirement regulation under the new rules. Unlike yellow cabs, black cars are not currently required to be removed from the for-hire fleet due to age.

SmartTransportation.org says the TLC will vote on the rule change on April 10.

Hybrid models that could be used include the Toyota Camry, Toyota Highlander, Nissan Altima, Mercury Mariner, Lexus Rx400h, Ford Escape and Toyota Prius.

Photo: Edward Reed/NYC.gov

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 

Here's one for the anti-pricing populists. 

Scared of or repulsed by public transportation, too impatient to wait for a cab, and burdened with excess cash, more well-to-do parents are enlisting driver-cum-nannies to ferry the kids to school and soccer practice, according to a recent article in the Observer.

Say hello to the "Dranny."

Jill Zarin, an Upper East Side mother of a teenager, who together with her husband operates Zarin Fabrics and Home Furnishing, is a "dranny" pioneer, having employed one for a decade ... and calls the hire a practical investment. "Cabs are exorbitant!" said Ms. Zarin, who is featured on the upcoming Bravo TV series The Real Housewives of New York City. "I took a cab from 60th street to downtown the other day and it cost me $20."

Crystal Sikora, a classical singer and mother of a 7-year-old son, lives uptown but chauffeurs her son, who had an unspecified traumatic experience on the school bus, to and from his downtown private school in her black Dodge Durango. "I spend four hours a day in the car," she said. "My son loves it because I have a DVD player and we spend quiet time in the car together. I like control of my nice, clean car."

Of course all those Durangos and Denalis are clogging up the streets, leading schools to spend extra money on personnel to direct traffic and neighbors to complain about rampant double parking. And though police are reportedly hesitant to ticket cars of prominent families, some dranny employers feel victimized when their $60K-per-year drivers can't park wherever they want ("Bloomberg's ticket marathon is out of control," said Barbara S.).

The New York Times ran a similar article about a year ago, focusing on congestion and safety issues at the 92nd Street Y, brought by a surge of chauffeur-driven pre-schoolers.

In the interest of sanity, the Observer also talked to parents who are put off by the dranny trend. Said one: "Part of growing up [in the city] was learning how to budget transportation time, how to choose the best route and how to take responsibility for ourselves. The rewards: self-confidence, freedom to explore the city and a treasure of experiences."

At least one kid feels the same way.

Allyson Shapiro, Ms. Zarin's 10th-grader, is one of the sheltered kids finally allowed to explore the glory of mass transit. "This year I started taking the train," she said, and marveled: "It was so fast!"

Photo: Jennifer S. Altman/New York Times

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.

Also among my chief concerns is the fact that there have been no assurances that the money generated from the plan will actually be spent on improving mass transit.

Dinowitz must have missed out on the opportunity to get with McCaffrey and City Council Member David Weprin when they called a January press conference to raise this same issue. Thing is, state and city electeds were already working on a "lock box" to secure pricing revenues for transit, and the TCMC plan includes such a "dedicated transit account." Has Assemblyman Dinowitz actually read the commission recommendation?

There is no guarantee that the revenues generated by the plan will be as much as the city is claiming, and there is also no guarantee that the expenses involved in setting up and running this project won't be even more costly than they expect.

This is technically true, but the same can be said of any government plan -- or any business model, for that matter. What is known is the cost of doing nothing would be catastrophic for the MTA. Just ask Elliot Sander.

Furthermore, it is important to remember that in the initial MTA proposal, there was not a single improvement recommended for mass transit in the western half of the Bronx.

Though the city says there will be increased service on the 1 train and funding for Bus Rapid Transit service on Fordham Road, and there are references in PlaNYC to making better use of Metro-North and exploring new ferry service, Dinowitz has a point here. But instead of expending so much effort assailing a plan that would fund improvements to transit infrastructure that almost fifty percent of his constituents depend on, perhaps he could use his position as a state lawmaker to expedite and augment those upgrades. Of course, if the relative lack of transit options in the western Bronx mattered all that much to him, he probably would have been doing that already.

To make matters worse, it is shocking that the city has not done an environmental study for a project of this magnitude. There is no way of knowing, for example, if this plan will actually result in cleaner air for Manhattan or, even worse, perhaps more pollution for the residents of the Bronx.

Again, the commission report includes a recommendation for environmental monitoring to begin as soon as the plan is implemented, with adjustments to be made as needed. This is an especially spurious argument, since Dinowitz and other pricing foes would certainly shred any preemptive environmental study that didn't back up their position, just as they have criticized the TCMC process, which itself was initiated after complaints that the mayor's original plan was being forced through Albany. And what do you know, a revised plan approved by 13 members of a 17-member bi-partisan commission after months of public hearings isn't good enough either.

There is the very real possibility that commuters will begin using the outer boroughs as a parking lot to avoid paying the congestion pricing fee.

Surely Dinowitz is aware that the city plans to institute residential parking permits to discourage park-and-ride activity. He must know that DOT has, for the last two weeks, held neighborhood parking workshops in areas that would border the pricing zone to gather public input on same, and that the pricing plan recommended by the commission includes an RPP provision. And he must know, if he's done his homework, that the "edge effect" is a generally discredited phenomena that has not proven a problem in cities where congestion pricing is in place. In fact, research by the TCMC shows that congestion in border neighborhoods would actually decrease with pricing in effect. But reality-based evidence and research would not serve Dinowitz's purpose nearly as well as another inflammatory broadside.

Among some of the commission's other faults in their revised plan is the fact that the West Side Highway and FDR Drive will now be included in the congestion pricing zone so that someone driving from Bronx to Brooklyn would have to pay the fee, and that surcharges will be added to passengers in taxi cabs.

The commission's recommendation to expand the cordon to include the West Side Highway and FDR Drive is indeed new, and since Dinowitz is opposed to the concept of congestion pricing it makes sense that he would be against broadening the plan's scope -- though he gives no credit to the commission for recommending the zone's northern border be moved from 86th to 60th Street. As for taxi surcharges, in September Dinowitz complained that taxis and car services would be exempt, offering further confirmation that no matter how many times congestion pricing is reviewed, discussed and altered, the assemblyman and his cohorts will never be satisfied, and the possibility of yet another volley of hackneyed half-truths and outright obfuscations will always be as close as the next news cycle.

Newsflash from Crain's New York: Congestion pricing is politically challenging: While I don't think any Streetsblog reader will be shocked by that big scoop, there are still some interesting tidbits in here. The Traffic Mitigation Commission has a new mandate, Greg David writes: "Save the mayor's plan by modifying it." If nothing else, I suppose this means that opponents have to stop calling the Commission a "sham" now. The Crain's story is available online only to subscribers. Here it is in full:

When the state legislature created a panel in June to review Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, his aides claimed victory. They maintained that a majority of members would be appointed by officials who back the scheme. The thinking was that the panel would endorse congestion pricing, and show that the alternatives would neither reduce traffic enough nor raise large sums for mass transit. The City Council and the Legislature would then ratify that conclusion.

So much for the fix being in. Today, the plan is in deep trouble. Details emerging about the cost and the onerous implementation are worrying even the plan's supporters. The mass-transit bonanza is now pegged at as little as $100 million a year, a far cry from the almost $400 million initially promised. Polls show public support declining. And the political calendar isn't favorable; a vote on the plan is scheduled a mere eight months before legislators face the voters themselves.

Now the panel has a new mandate: Save the mayor's plan by modifying it. The members may have to do so despite the mayor. Earlier this month, after Crain's reported on the revisions being considered, he seemed to dig in his heels to defend his original proposal. Maybe he hadn't been briefed on recent developments.

Marc Shaw, the former top deputy mayor who is in charge of the review, understands the new reality. He has three major objectives: Co-opt as many opponents as possible by adopting some of their alternatives, reduce the enormous administrative cost, and greatly increase the money generated for mass transit.

A number of the alternatives could easily be folded into a broader plan, though some involve political risks. One no-brainer is to sharply increase the cost of on-street parking. Another option-which would be subject to public outcry but would be very effective-is to establish taxi stands and discourage cruising. Voiding the tens of thousands of special parking permits that are abused by city workers clearly would help. Municipal unions will scream, but taking that step would convince New Yorkers that the burden of congestion pricing will be shared.

Administrative costs, now estimated at 40% of monies collected, must be trimmed.That likely will be accomplished by moving the northern boundary of the affected zone to 60th Street from 86th Street and focusing enforcement on people driving into the central business district, not those traveling within it.

Congestion pricing could raise more revenues for mass transit if tolls for tunnels and bridges aren't deducted from the congestion pricing fee. Because of imminent increases in tolls, many New Jersey residents would pay no congestion pricing fee. Imposing East River bridge tolls would be lucrative, but such a proposal might kill the plan.

Political problems will remain even if these steps are taken. While the New York media have concentrated on opposition in the boroughs outside Manhattan, legislators from suburban counties also have been vocal about what they see as a city tax on their constituents. These leaders have had a great deal of influence on Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, and they will require concessions before allowing the plan to be enacted.

Mr. Shaw proved himself to be a talented operator while on Mr. Bloomberg's staff. This policy tap dance will test even his skills.

Photo: Aaron Naparstek, September 25, 2007 Congestion Mitigation Commission meeting.

This week's Time Out New York offers advice on the best ways to navigate the city (all of them sans private automobile). In addition to tips on cheating the MTA out of a subway fare and knowing when the bus is better, TONY explains that pedicabs aren't just for tourists.

“I’ll get you anywhere in midtown in under ten minutes, or I’ll pay you,” says Gregg Zukowski, driver and owner of pedicab company Revolution Rickshaws. “For example, Grand Central to Penn Station takes me seven minutes.” What if there’s gridlock? “Then it might take eight,” he brags.

“It’s ‘transportainment,’” says New York Pedicab Association president Peter Meitzler. “It’s cheaper than a limo but just as much personal attention. I like to think of it as a pedal-powered limo service.”

Just don’t breathe too deeply -- think about all those fumes pedi passengers must inhale as they zip around idling cars. “I know, I know,” sighs Zukowski. “It’s a bitch. I’m trying to get those automobiles banned.”

Photo: ultrahi/Flickr

Taxi stands. Anyone who has tried to get a taxi in New York in the rain, particularly at rush hour, knows that the system is broken. Hailers maneuver along the street, and to alternate corners, to get an edge over other taxi-seekers who have been waiting longer. Taxis waste gasoline, and needlessly spew out fumes, as they cruise for fares. Taxi stands, which work just fine in Paris, could be strategically placed around New York. People and cabs would line up. It would be civilized.

Residential parking permits, for a fee. Relatively few New Yorkers take on the expense and hassles of owning a car in the city — which is good, since it encourages the use of public transit. But there are still plenty of drivers, including many from out of town, who take advantage of the city’s generosity and park on the streets free. The city could get more cars off the street and raise badly needed money for mass-transit improvements if it set aside spots for residents for an annual fee. The mayor has not ruled out residential permits as part of a congestion pricing plan. But as cities from Berkeley, Calif., to Chicago and Baltimore have demonstrated, the idea works on its own.

Take away parking permits from city employees. Those vehicles that cavalierly park in front of hydrants or bus stops all too often do so with the impunity that comes with a privileged card placed on the dashboard. Virtually every city agency issues these permits, and there is no reliable count of how many are floating around. But they number in the thousands, including a lot of counterfeits. It’s time to end the free parking. This is New York, not Monopoly.

Photo: Usonian/Flickr

Thanks to Zupan, Transportation Alternatives and other critics, four fundamental problems with the Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free plan have emerged:

1. Any alternative plan which does not include some form of congestion pricing will forfeit $354.5 million in federal transportation aid -- much of which is dedicated to bus improvements in Brooklyn and Queens.

2. The plan does not address through traffic, which accounts for 39% of driving in the Manhattan CBD. Congestion pricing does.

3. The plan does not address -- and may worsen -- traffic diversions from paid river crossings to free East River and Harlem River bridges, which hurt neighborhoods including Downtown Brooklyn, LIC/Woodside, Harlem and the South Bronx. Congestion pricing directly addresses these traffic diversions.

4. Some of the traffic reducing measures in the plan -- value parking pricing, variable tolls and BRT, for example -- would be far more effective if used with congestion pricing, instead of as a substitute for it. Many of the measures are not "alternatives" to congestion pricing but complements.

Among other problems with the report, the Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free plan applies an "equity double standard":  It harshly criticizes congestion pricing for its pocketbook impact on middle class motorists while ignoring the impacts of value parking, variable tolling and $200 double parking tickets that the plan would impose on these same motorists.

Zupan sums up the "Alternatives" report:

While many of these measures are worthwhile, the report overstates both their traffic reduction impact and their revenue potential. Many of these estimates are speculative, and the costs and difficulties of implementation are largely unaddressed. More importantly, nearly all of these would be far more effective if implemented in combination with congestion pricing.

The full text of Zupan's comments appears after the jump.

Comments by Jeffrey M. Zupan, Senior Fellow for Transportation
October 15, 2007
on “Alternative Approaches to Traffic Congestion Mitigation in the Manhattan Central Business District (October 2007)”
by Keep New York Congestion Tax Free

This report argues for a set of 13 proposals that could reduce vehicles miles traveled and congestion by as much or more than PlaNYC’s proposed congestion pricing pilot program. While many of these measures are worthwhile, the report overstates both their traffic reduction impact and their revenue potential. Many of these estimates are speculative, and the costs and difficulties of implementation are largely unaddressed.  More importantly, nearly all of these would be far more effective if implemented in combination with congestion pricing. The following comments address the specific proposals in the report.

Meter 10,000 now free on-street spaces and charge double the current rate: The report estimates that this action would reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 1.8 to 2.4 percent and increase revenues by $80 to $100 million per year. The report indicates that a 1995 study found that cruising for on-street parking accounts for 15 percent of VMT in west midtown during midday, and they extrapolate this to all day for all of the charging zone, an unsupported assumption. The revenue assumptions are equivalent to each parking space being used fully for 13 hours each weekday, which may be overly optimistic. They do not account for the added cost of meter installation, enforcement, and administration. Conclusion: Traffic impacts are conjectural and net revenue gains are likely to be too high.

Reforming placard use: The report indicates such reform could lead to reductions of “perhaps 2 to 3 percent” and add $50 to $60 million in revenues. They cite Bruce Schaller’s reports on the subject. There are three problems with their analysis. First, they rely on a hypothetical example by Schaller of a 14,000 reduction in cars driven by government employees, i.e. a “what if” not an estimate. But they also say that a review to identify which workers should receive (or keep) placards must be done. There is no certainty that the resulting review would eliminate 14,000 workers from the placard pool. Second, they assume that each worker travels 4 to 5 miles per day within the zone, which is much too high since most of the workers are destined for Lower Manhattan and the vast majority are likely to cross into the zone across the nearby East River, and if they do come from the north use the FDR Drive or West Street. Third, the report takes credit for added revenue as former placard users switch to on-street meters.  This assumption is flawed in two respects: a) it cannot assume that these workers would continue to drive and switch to on-street meters, as many may switch to public transit or off-street parking, and b) the added revenue has already been counted in the on-street meter proposal discussed above. Conclusion: Both the VMT reductions and revenue potential are likely to be much lower than estimated in the report and implementation will be difficult.  

Reduction in taxi cruising: This action is estimated to reduce VMT by “perhaps 2 to 3 percent.”  No revenue potential is assumed. They target a goal of 50 additional cab stands to accomplish this, but do not discuss locations or the difficulty in finding locations where it can make sense from a traffic impact perspective. The report states that cruising accounts for 13 percent of VMT and takes credit for reductions in cruising by 10 to 20 percent, not out of line IF you could install 50 cab stands. Conclusion: Ability to implement is unproven.

Higher taxi fares: A $3 surcharge for trips starting or ending in the zone is suggested, which is estimated to reduce VMT by 1.5 percent. The report points out that taxis are excluded from the current congestion pricing (CP) plan. No revenue gain is assumed for the City. In effect, this is a policy that could also be effectuated through congestion pricing by eliminating or reducing the taxi exemption. There is no discussion of the City’s argument that this could have negative economic impacts, or the political difficulty of getting it enacted. Conclusion: This measure, if included as part of the City’s congestion pricing plan, would increase the revenue potential to be directed toward public transit.

Higher and variable tolls on existing tolls facilities: The report’s proposal is estimated to reduce VMTs by 1.5 percent and bring in $195 million per year. The assumption about these tolls increase is that the added revenue is a substitute for the revenue achieved by the congestion pricing proposal. However, it tries to take credit for expected increases in PA and MTA tolls that have to be made in any case to cover rising operating, maintenance and debt service costs rather than the new money for state of good repair and system expansion that CP would generate. So the revenue cannot be counted as a replacement for congestion pricing revenue. It does raise the unanswered question of whether the CP charge will increase along with tolls.

This proposal also highlights the inequities and inefficiencies of the current system, flaws that congestion pricing would correct. The increase of tolls on current facilities while leaving other entry points free places the entire financial burden on only a portion of drivers entering the CBD. It will also exacerbate congestion in neighborhoods leading to the free crossings as drivers seek to avoid higher tolls. Variable tolls would also be far more effective when combined with congestion pricing. In fact, a study commissioned by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign in August found the largest time saving benefits would be realized if MTA instituted a value pricing program consistent with PlaNYC’s proposed congestion pricing plan. Conclusion: Periodic toll increases cannot be seen as a substitute for congestion pricing, and in the absence of it would be inequitable and lead to more traffic problems, especially in Brooklyn and Queens, not less. Variable pricing is an effective tool that should be implemented along with congestion pricing.

Two-way truck tolls on the VN Bridge are estimated to reduce VMT by 0.1 to 0.2 percent and add $10 million in revenue. These estimates are small and conjectural and the proposal, no matter how sound, will and has received tremendous resistance from Staten Island. Conclusion: This proposal, although a sound one is largely irrelevant as part of a substitute for the City’s Plan.

Increased fines from traffic enforcement are estimated to gain from $75 million to $150 million in revenue annually. At the proposed fine levels, this would require an average of 6,000 summonses a day. It would be useful to know how much of an increase in summonses that represents. The estimates are conjectural and the cost of issuing these summonses is not accounted for. If successful in reducing violations, which is not ensured, the revenues would diminish over time. One cannot take credit for both traffic gains and sustained revenue gains from enforcement measures. Conclusion: In the absence of more analysis, it appears that the revenue estimates are overstated and the enforcement costs understated.

Block the box ticketing is proposed and estimated to gain $15 or to $25 million in revenue based on 300 to 500 additional summonses daily. This is highly conjectural, but like other traffic enforcement measures that issue summonses, even should the program be successful in reducing block the box violations, the revenue gains would diminish over time. Conclusion: The revenue gains are likely to be overstated.

Black car enforcement measures, construction project regulations, traffic signal upgrades, and implementing 511 are proposed but all traffic gains are conjectural and revenue gains, if any, are modest. Conclusion: These measures are useful complements to the City’s CP plan, but traffic and revenue benefits are conjectural and modest.

Added bus and ferry services are assumed to attract 5,000 auto commuters, but this estimated is highly conjectural and unlikely; there will be no financial incentive for drivers to shift, as there is with the congestion pricing plan.  The shift is presented as hypothetical and none of the net added costs associated with these new services are accounted for. Conclusion: The traffic benefits are conjectural and the net revenues are likely to be exceeded by the costs to implement.

Attorneys representing the pedicab industry have succeeded in getting a temporary reprieve from restrictions adopted by the City Council earlier this year, including a cap on the allowed number of operators and a ban on electrically-assisted rigs, until their lawsuit against the city can be heard in court.

From a September 19 Public Advocacy Group press release:

Attorneys for the New York City Pedicab Owners’ Association (“NYCPOA”) and New York City’s Corporation Counsel agreed today to temporarily suspend implementation of Local Law 19-2007 (the “Pedicab Law”) and the Department of Consumer Affairs’ (“DCA”) pedicab regulations until a full hearing on the NYCPOA’s lawsuit against the DCA and City of New York can be heard by a New York County Supreme Court Justice.

Speaking on behalf of the NYCPOA, Chad Marlow of The Public Advocacy Group LLC, whose firm serves as NYCPOA’s General Counsel, said “we are very pleased that Corporation Counsel has agreed to a pause in the implementation of thePedicab Law and regulations until a court can properly determine DCA’s responsibilities under the law and whether it has failed to meet those responsibilities.”  NYCPOA President Peter Meitzler added, “the New York City pedicab industry has been thrown a lifeline, albeit a temporary one.  For now, I am grateful that the hundreds of New Yorkers who earn their livings in thepedicab industry will still have a business to run or a job to go to tomorrow.”

Marlow, who is president of the Public Advocacy Group, was recently named one of the "40 Under 40" -- a list of NYC's rising young political stars -- by City Hall News (scroll).

Photo: NYCArthur/Flickr