Doug's got a great mind and conversations with him are always fun and interesting, so tune in to 91.1 FM in New York or 90.1 FM in the Hudson Valley. Media Squat is a live, call-in radio show and it would be great to hear from some Streetsblog readers and commenters while I'm there. Call in to 201-209-9368 if you want to join in.

Doug's new book is called Life Incorporated: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back, and here's how he describes his radio show...

The Media Squat looks at both sides of Life Incorporated: How life has been literally "incorporated" by business and economics, and how can we incorporate LIFE back into our world via local commerce, community, social currency, and other emerging forms of participatory culture. This is free-form, bottom-up, open source radio looking towards similarly open source, bottom-up solutions to some of the problems engendered by our relentlessly top-down society.

You can find previous episodes of Doug's show and interviews with folks like Stephen Johnson, R.U. Sirius and Richard Metzger right here.

If you've ever wondered how Aaron Naparstek and Clarence Eckerson whiled away the hours before the advent of Streetsblog and Streetfilms, here's your answer. They donned cheeseheads and Hummer suits while role-playing in support of a car-free Prospect Park. Clarence has been hanging on to this proto-Streetfilm for some time (it was shot in 2002), waiting for the right moment to spring it on us. With the push for a car-free Central Park and Prospect Park gaining steam as summer approaches, not to mention the launch of the Livable Streets Network two days ago, that time is now.

It may look silly, but this little demonstration -- together with a 10,000 signature petition drive and a 500-person town hall meeting -- helped win a significant expansion of car-free hours in Prospect Park. Before the campaign, cars had been allowed through the park 24 hours a day during the work week, from the end of October to the beginning of April. Afterward, cars were only allowed into the park during the morning and evening rush.

So, who says the glory days of car-free park rallies are over? A few more events like this could provide just the push advocates need to get a car-free trial for both parks this summer.

On Monday, April 7, Sheldon Silver walked out of a closed door meeting of State Assembly Democrats and announced congestion pricing was dead. Never mind that New York City's mayor and City Council supported the plan along with the governor, the State Senate and an unprecedented coalition of business, labor, environmental and civic groups. Like so much else in Albany, the decision was made in secret, without a debate, a vote or even a record of the proceedings.

Until congestion pricing came around, I never paid all that much attention to Albany. Sure, I knew about the sex and graft scandals, the "three men in a room," and the Brennan Center reports showing New York's government has more in common with the old Soviet Politburo than America's 49 other state legislatures. I knew "dysfunctional" was the official adjective to describe Albany. But the dysfunction never seemed to impinge on my own life in any immediate, tangible way. Until congestion pricing.

I was really looking forward to seeing motorists pay to drive into Lower Manhattan. While I understood the importance of $354 million in federal aid, $491 million per year in revenue for transit and fewer kids growing up with asthma, this wasn't what pumped me up. What I liked most about congestion pricing was the fact that the people who make life in New York City most miserable -- the armada of horn-honking, exhaust-spewing, space-hogging, oil-guzzling, climate change-inducing motorheads that rolls through my neighborhood every day, to and from the free East River bridges, were finally going to have to pay for the privilege.

Assembly Democrats gave lots of reasons why they couldn't support pricing, few of which dealt with substance and most of which boiled down to their feeling that an arrogant, imperious billionaire mayor and his elitist supporters were trying to stick it to New York City's poor and middle class. No matter that New York City's poor and middle class already pay a fare to ride the subway and bus and that the number one propagator of this populist claptrap was Richard Brodsky, a Westchester Assemblyman who represents the region's wealthiest Manhattan-bound car commuters, average annual income, $176,231. At least Brodsky did a good job standing up for his constituents. That's a hell of a lot more than Joan Millman, Deborah Glick, Hakeem Jeffries, Daniel O'Donnel, Jonathan Bing and the rest of the city's Assembly delegation can say for itself.

The moment I realized pricing was doomed in the legislature was when Denny Farrell, a 34-year Assembly veteran, stood up before the Congestion Mitigation Commission, of which he was a member, and delivered an impassioned speech against toll booths on the bridges between Manhattan and the Bronx. Toll booths, Farrell said, would "freeze all of northern Manhattan in gridlock" on Yankees game nights. The speech took place not at the first Commission hearing in September but at the penultimate meeting in January. Somehow, incredibly, Farrell managed to sit through four months of meetings and hearings without realizing that congestion pricing fees are collected electronically; toll booths were not part of the plan. This was the guy who was assigned to bring the work of the Commission back to his colleagues in the Assembly and he either wasn't paying attention or simply didn't care.

During Commission meetings, Farrell frequently shared his experiences driving and parking in the city. Invariably, his personal transportation anecdotes never involved a subway, bus, bike or even a sidewalk. It was a reminder that while New York state legislators are paid a middle class salary (by New York City standards, at least), they are still members of New York City's other elite -- the free riding class. Their unlimited parking privilege allows them to drive wherever and whenever they want. From their windshield perspective, the city is a transportation problem to be solved for cars. Ultimately, the biggest hurdle congestion pricing faced was the simple fact that the people required to enact the legislation were the ones who stood to pay the most because of it. You know that beleaguered middle class driver the Assembly kept talking about? He was a state legislator.

If any good has come of the Assembly's failure to act on congestion pricing, it's simply this: A new generation of citizen activists got to see up close and personal how broken New York State government is and how badly it's in need of fixing. Assembly members come up for election every two years and are often ushered in to office by as few as 5,000 votes. September 2008 ought to be the last time any of these legislators have the pleasure of seeing only their own name on a Democratic primary ballot.

By Aaron Naparstek. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Transportation Alternatives.  

Streetfilms' Elizabeth Press was in attendance this week at the New York Historical Society where neighborhood activists, professional planners, and experienced advocates gathered to share their secrets on how New Yorkers can transform the public realm. The event was hosted by NYC Streets Renaissance and was moderated by Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek.

Panelists included:

• Christine Berthet (Clinton Hells Kitchen Coalition for Pedestrian Safety)
  
• Joshua David (Friends of the High Line)
  
• Penny Lee (Department of City Planning)
  
• Milton Puryear (Brooklyn Greenway Initiative)
  
• Paul Steely White (Transportation Alternatives)
  
• Robert Witherwax (Grand Army Plaza Coalition)
  
• Chauncy Young (Highbridge Community Life Center)

Here are some highlights.

Want to learn more about Bus Rapid Transit? Watch this StreetFilm and let Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek show you how BRT works in Bogotá, Colombia. Take a gander and you’ll see an efficient, modern and — relatively speaking — inexpensive way of moving 1.3 million people per day.

In Bogotá, where the BRT system goes by the much more sexy name, TransMilenio, you’ll travel almost three times the speed of the typical New York City bus. The average TransMilenio vehicle travels at 17.4 mph. In New York City, buses poke along at 6.2 mph. Some TransMilenio routes average nearly 25 mph!

For quite a few years now, New York City’s Department of Transportation and the MTA have been studying and studying and, sigh… studying the possibility of implementing BRT routes on selected corridors. And if Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan passes, a significant portion of the promised $354 million in federal funds will go towards launching new BRT lines.

Hopefully, New York City’s BRT system will offer many of the excellent features that we saw in Bogotá; features like physically-separated bus lanes, pre-boarding fare payment, wide doors that open at boarding level and a control room nerve center that monitors and manages the entire system. These features give Bogotá a bus system that really works. Take a look.

What can you do to reduce automobile dependence and improve conditions for pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders in New York City? As an individual with finite time, energy and resources, how can you make a Livable Streets revolution happen in your own neighborhood?

On Monday I'll be moderating a panel discussion with eight of New York City's most successful neighborhood change-makers. They'll be sharing inspiring stories and practical advice on what it takes to transform the public realm.

If you're interested in getting more involved with New York City's growing Livable Streets movement or you have ideas for changes you'd like to see made in your own corner of the city, don't miss this event. Seating is limited, so RSVP now.

6:00 pm: Panel discussion
8:00 pm: Reception and exhibit

This event is free and open to the public but seating is limited.
Please RSVP online

Panelists include:

• Christine Berthet (Clinton Hells Kitchen Coalition for Pedestrian Safety)
• Joshua David (Friends of the High Line)
• Penny Lee (Department of City Planning)
• Milton Puryear (Brooklyn Greenway Initiative)
• Paul Steely White (Transportation Alternatives)
• Robert Witherwax (Grand Army Plaza Coalition)
• Elizabeth Yeampierre (United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park)
• Chauncy Young (Highbridge Community Life Center)

Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek and StreetFilms' Nick Whitaker hit the intersection of Atlantic, Flatbush and Fourth Avenues Thursday morning to see what a "Gridlock Alert Day" looks like at one of New York City's most congested intersections.

After about 25 interviews with drivers it became pretty clear that if City Hall truly wants to reduce traffic congestion during the holiday season, it needs to do a whole lot more than just say, "Hey, everybody it's a Gridlock Alert!" 

What might the City do instead of issuing futile alerts? Here's one idea from London that seems to be working pretty well.

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel with comrades Karla Quintero of Transportation Alternatives and Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek to Bogotá, Colombia to document some of the amazing advances going on in the livable streets movement there. We spent an entire Sunday, from 5am 'til nearly 5pm, riding bicycles around during Ciclovía, a weekly event in which over 70 miles of city streets are closed to traffic and opened to walking, biking, running, skating, recreating, picnicking, and talking with family, neighbors and strangers. Ciclovía was simply one of the most moving experiences I have had in my entire life (no pun intended).

I shot with no plan, not knowing much of what was coming up next while we rode our bikes, just trying to capture the event in the moment. We were aided tremendously by the indefatigable Gil Peñalosa, Executive Director of Walk and Bike for Life (yes, he is brother of Enrique, the former Bogotá mayor). Gil and his friendly support crew booked us an ambitious schedule and provided unparalleled access to people and places, allowing this mini film to be so much more than I had planned.

And dare I leave out our StreeJ Karla Q, who was just so great on the mic and shows she has some hot dance moves too. I think we came up with something very special and fun that will hopefully support and propel this movement forward in U.S. cities.

Read more of Clarence's thoughts on Ciclovía here.

Here is the fourth and final installment of Streetsblog's congestion pricing Q&A with Rohit Aggarwala, New York City's Director of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. Click these links to find Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Add your questions to the comments section and we'll see if we can get Aggarwala or someone else in city government to try and answer them for you.

Aaron Naparstek: Should the mayor's congestion pricing plan be submitted to an Environmental Impact Statement process?

Rohit Aggarwala: I don't think so. And the reason is simply that an EIS would be no more valuable for the decision of whether or not to go forward with congestion pricing, and what to do to mitigate its impacts, than the analysis that we've already done, and the analysis that the commission will be doing. The problem with traffic congestion is that it is so difficult to model.

That's why we've proposed a three year pilot. The pilot itself effectively will be the Environmental Impact Statement. Keep in mind congestion pricing is very different from building something you can't tear down. We can turn this system off whenever we want. If it turns out that the environmental impacts are negative, then by all means we'll want to turn it off. We're pretty convinced that the impacts will be wildly positive, and any specific impacts that might take place that are negative are things that we would be able to adjust.

AN: What exemptions do you foresee or would you like to have or not have?

RA: The mayor's plan has a few exemptions. First of all, yellow cabs and radio cars. Second, handicapped license plates. Third, mass transit and emergency vehicles. The reason for the third is kind of obvious, As for the handicapped, although we have Access-a-Ride, if you have a disability but you can still drive, there are large parts of the transit system that don't really work that well for you.

The reason for yellow cabs and radio cars is that we believe those pretty much function as an extension of the transit system. If you take a subway into Manhattan and you're going to the far west side, you may want to take a taxi or you may want to have the option to take a taxi home at the end of the night if you work late or something like that. Similarly, because it can be difficult to find a yellow cab, particularly parts of the outer boroughs, we want to keep the ability for people to use radio cars. I don't think we want to force people out of taxi cabs. A taxi is actually very efficient use of the street. It never circles for parking and, particularly at rush hour, you have very high utilization of taxis, as we all know since it's hard to find one that's unoccupied.

Black cars and limousines would be charged in the mayor's plan. Frankly, those are corporate trips that, number one, can bear the cost, and number two, we want those people to think, "Well, couldn't I just take the subway it would be faster and cheaper?"

AN: Would you be open to adding more exemptions if that comes up during the commission discussion?

RA: I think the real challenge with exemptions is that they are a slippery slope. You don't want government to be in the business of making the decision over who is driving for a good reason who is driving for an unacceptable reason. If you get into that business you wind up with all sorts of problems about how you judge. If it's not based on, say, a handicapped license plate or some pre-existing handicapped permit, does that mean we have to establish a whole new bureaucracy for assessing who's really in need of driving or not?

I know there was a proposal to exempt Rockland County residents because the transit options from Rockland County aren't as good as other parts of the region. But if you do that, well, there are also parts of Brooklyn where the transit options aren't as good. You wind up almost having to go down to the individual level to measure how long it takes someone to walk to the subway and take the subway into Manhattan. I don't know how you do that.

AN: How will it work inside the pricing zone when people need to move their cars on street cleaning day?

RA: We will want to talk to technology vendors about the specific metrics or the specific decision rules and the billing system for how you'd do that. But there are any number of ways you could do it. Since we know by neighborhood, in fact, we know block by block when people are likely to have to move their cars to deal with alternate side parking, you could build that into the billing system.

Likewise, you could do something where you have to drive a certain number of blocks before you get charged. There are any number of ways you could do that using camera placement or billing logic. We don't have a good proposal yet, but we have enough different ideas that we're pretty confident we can make it work.

AN: If you keep a car inside the pricing zone and want to move the car either within or outside of the zone, how does the charging work?

RA: They pay. The rules are that if you are only moving within the zone during the 6:00 am to 6:00 pm period, you're only going to pay $4 not $8. And that's true wherever you live. If, for example, you drive in from Brooklyn or New Jersey at 5:30 in the morning and you're driving around in the zone at 7:00 and you keep your car parked until 6:00 pm when pricing turns off, you're only going to pay $4. You're not going to pay $8 because you were only driving within the zone during the charging period.

So, a resident who lives in Hells Kitchen, say, and owns a car and decides for whatever reason that he's going to drive down to City Hall during the day is only going to pay $4. But if that person drives out of the zone between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm, our proposal is they pay $8. The reason for that is that if they choose to drive out at 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon when everybody else is also driving out, they're making a significant contribution to congestion.

AN: I promised this interview would be about the policy not the politics but what do you think is the key to moving congestion pricing forward?

RA: Educating people about what congestion pricing really is, and what it isn't. There are a lot of myths out there, some of which have been perpetuated by the opposition. We need to make sure people are aware of what the proceeds could be used for and what the benefits would be. We need to ask New Yorkers to start thinking about what alternatives we have for reducing congestion and improving transit. The answer is we don't really have any good alternatives. The 17 member Congestion Mitigation Commission and the timetable that we've agreed to with the legislatures and the governor allows us a little more time to make our case and explain this to people.

AN: Speaking of timetables, I see we're out of time. Thanks for doing this. Are you sick of answering these same questions over and over again?

RA: I'm kind of used to it at this point.

Rohit Aggarwala, New York City's Director of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, sat down to answer some of the more frequently asked questions about Mayor Bloomberg's proposal for a three-year congestion pricing pilot program. Below is the third part of our four part interview. Here is Part 1 and Part 2.

Aaron Naparstek: Mayor Bloomberg's plan proposes that all of the congestion pricing revenue would go to a new public authority called the SMART Fund. Why not let the MTA receive the funds? Why is it a good idea to create a new bureaucracy?

Rohit Aggarwala: I think that's one of those things that has to be discussed and worked out. Our proposal was to create the SMART Fund. Roughly half of its revenue would come from congestion pricing, the other half would be a joint contribution from the city and state. By devoting the revenue to a new financing board that would make regional decisions about transportation investment priorities, that would be one way that you can prevent the money from disappearing.

There are a variety of other ways you can do it. I think the commission and the state legislature and the governor are going to wind up weighing in on whether the SMART Fund is the right way. But I think there is near universal agreement that congestion pricing revenue should be dedicated to transit investment.

AN: What transit enhancements will the City undertake prior to the launch of congestion pricing?

RA: The proposal that we submitted jointly with the MTA and the State to the U.S. Department of Transportation envisioned a number of things, the most important was the roll out of more than 300 new buses. The buses would be used for increasing the frequency of bus service, new express routes, and some enhanced express bus service to specific areas within the suburbs.

What's particularly important in terms of making those buses move quickly are some of the Bus Rapid Transit improvements that the City will do, like signal prioritization, automated bus lane enforcement, and some of the incremental improvements that, for example, could facilitate easier transfers from certain bus lines to certain subway stations, things like that.

AN: If congestion pricing is so successful that it removes 112,000 daily car trips from the streets, will the subway system have the capacity to handle all of the new riders?

RA: Yes. On those few lines where there's truly no more capacity during rush hour, the plan takes that into account and creates new capacity on the bus routes that would allow people who use those crowded subway lines to switch over to buses. We think that we can enhance bus service so that it's faster and more attractive.

I think one of things that most people miss is that it's not like all 112,000 drivers are going to switch over to the 7 train or the Lexington Line during rush hour. There are lots of subway lines that, even at rush hour, have the capacity for more frequency or more cars and a lot of the people who will switch will actually be riding during the middle of the day. That is a time when the river crossings are not at capacity, but the street grid in Manhattan is at its most congested. So, that's a time when it's very easy to switch somebody onto the subway system because the subways are by no means at capacity at lunchtime.

AN: Will congestion pricing funds be used for public space, bicycling, and pedestrian improvements?

RA: We envisioned congestion pricing partially funding the completion of the city's Bike Master Plan. The Bike Master Plan is, of course, a tiny about of money compared to the Second Avenue Subway. But because bicycling contributes to a reduction in auto-based transportation, bike projects are something that I think should be eligible. We didn't include pedestrian plazas or things like that in the financing but we made a commitment in PlaNYC to do those projects. There's a lot that DOT is already beginning to work on. The concrete changes do take time but it's a new regime over there, and I think they are really pushing that kind of thinking as quickly as it goes.

This is the second segment of a four-part interview with New York City's Director of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, Rohit Aggarwala. We're talking about Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal for a three-year congestion pricing pilot project in New York City. Part 1 of our interview can be found here.

Aaron Naparstek: Why does the mayor's congestion pricing plan designate 86th Street as the northern boundary rather than 60th Street, which is traditionally considered the top of the Central Business District?

Rohit Aggarwala: There are a couple of problems with 60th Street as a boundary for congestion pricing. The CBD traditionally ends at 60th Street, but on the west side up in the 60s you've got Lincoln Center, ABC TV, and other big office buildings. On the east side, you've got the hospitals, the buildings to the north of Bloomingdale's and the museums. There are lots of non-residential destinations for drivers well above 60th Street. That's the first issue.

Second, if you look at traffic patterns, it's not as if the traffic immediately dissipates as you cross 60th Street going northbound. Depending on the time of day, depending on which avenue you're looking at, the traffic really changes in the quality of the congestion and delay somewhere between 72nd and 110th Street. And so while that doesn't dictate 86th as exactly the right line, it suggests that the boundary should be somewhere north of 60th Street.

Finally, some people have argued that people are going to drive in and park in Greenpoint or park on 87th Street and take the subway the rest of the way in and, frankly, we don't see that as being a big risk. Compared to a round trip subway ride, you're only saving $4 and you're adding a lot of time to your trip, both because the parking itself is scarce and because the subway trip will add time. So, it's unclear to us why anybody really would do that.

But if somebody is going to Bloomingdale's on 59th Street, certainly, if you charge $8 to drive south of 60th Street they're going to park on 61st and walk. And if somebody is going to Columbus Circle or Carnegie Hall, or any of the many businesses and offices in the 50s, you are more likely to have that parking problem.

So, those three reasons combined suggested to us that the boundary ought to be somewhere between 72nd and 110th Street. We picked 86th Street as a place that we thought made sense but as the mayor has said many times, we're open to conversation about that.

AN: Wouldn't it be far less expensive and nearly just as effective simply to toll the East River bridges?

RA: Not really. The largest vector through which cars enter the Central Business District is not the East River, it's 60th Street. More cars are coming south from upper Manhattan, the Bronx and Westchester than are crossing the East River. So, you would get some of the benefit by only tolling the bridges but you wouldn't get all of it.

Furthermore, we believe that it's very important to toll traffic inside the zone. You would never want to have the situation where you're charging people who are driving in from places that have lesser transit access while inadvertently encouraging Manhattan residents to buy cars and drive around Manhattan for free. That would be a complete mistake.

AN: Won't the current plan send a lot of excess traffic congestion onto Manhattan's East and West side highways since there will be no charge to drive on them?

RA: I don't think so. Frankly, with the congestion you have on the Manhattan street grid, it would be a bit of an irrational if your destination is Harlem or the George Washington Bridge and you come across the Brooklyn Bridge, why would you drive up Broadway rather then just getting on one of those highways? What we don't want to do is charge to drive on the East and West side highways and wind up pushing the traffic that's currently on the FDR Drive onto the BQE. That doesn't necessarily benefit anybody.

AN: If New Jersey commuters are only paying an additional $3 atop the tolls they already pay to cross the Hudson, is that really enough of a price increase to prevent them from driving?

RA: It's going to have an impact. It might have a lesser impact because it's a lesser increase in the costs that they are currently paying. One of the reasons that we went with the credit and made every crossing the same price is to make sure that you reduce the instance of, say, people driving down Flatbush Avenue to cross a less expensive Manhattan Bridge when the more direct ride takes them through the Battery Tunnel.

Keep in mind, the credit doesn't only apply to New Jersey commuters. It's the same thing with people who currently drive in through the Battery Tunnel and the Midtown Tunnel. They will have a lesser price increase under the mayor's proposal. The fact is they are already paying something. They're making the decision that driving is worth the cost. And that's all we want to do is make people make that decision.

The goal here is not to force people out of their cars, the goal is to encourage people who have good transit options to take transit and to reduce the perverse incentive we've currently got, which is that for some people it may actually be cheaper to drive than to take transit.

AN: Why not feather the fees at the start and the end of the charging periods as was done in Stockholm so, say, driving in at 6:00 am is cheaper than driving in at 8:00 am during the absolute rush hour peak?

RA: It's a concept we're open to. As with so many things, the issue is creating a balance between precision and simplicity. The most precise thing you could do would be to have variable fees that depend on the actual level of traffic at a given time. The challenge here is that a price signal only works if people understand it. So, you need some level of simplicity. We went with a very simple approach that's just kind of binary but I think we're open to the idea of feathering or any other variation that might make it work better as long as we're all convinced, and eventually the commission itself will have to be convinced, that people will be able to understand it.

Among New York State Assembly Democrats, that has been one of the most frequent criticisms of Mayor Bloomberg's proposal for a three-year congestion pricing pilot project in New York City. Last month, Lower Manhattan Assembly member Deborah Glick said that she and her colleagues were "confronted with a dearth of information regarding the Mayor's proposal." Bronx Assembly member Jeffrey Dinowitz made similar complaints in an editorial to the Riverdale Press a couple of weeks ago. 

In an attempt to get answers to some of the more frequently asked questions about congestion pricing, I did what I assume any state legislator could do just as easily, if not more so. I called Rohit Aggarwala and asked him for a meeting to talk about congestion pricing. He agreed.

Aggarwala is New York City's Director of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability and the lead author of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030. We met for about 45 minutes on a Monday afternoon in August in a conference room at the Mayor's Office of Operations. I've divided the interview into four parts. Here is the first part:

Aaron Naparstek: How are you enjoying the job? It's been what? A year?

Rohit Aggarwala: Fourteen crazy months, actually. It was June 12th when I started.

AN: A lot has happened since then.

RA: It's been amazing. It seems like only yesterday but it's been a lot of work.

AN: I bet.

RA: Had we just written the plan, that itself would have been a lot of work, but to do so with the input that we got from the advisory board and the town hall meetings -- all of the input makes the plan better -- but it meant a lot more work too.

AN: Having gone through that public input process, what is your impression of how New Yorkers view transportation issues and the idea of congestion pricing?

RA: New Yorkers are keenly aware of the problem that we have in terms of transportation congestion. Whether it's on the roads, on your daily subway commute or just walking through Time Square, we all know that mobility is a challenge. Everybody wants to solve the problem. The challenge is that nobody really wants to pay for it. Everybody thinks that the other guy shouldn't be driving, but I'm driving for all the right reasons. Everybody says, sure, I want more people on transit, but not on my train because I want to get a seat. And, yeah, we need more money for transportation investment, but don't take it out of my wallet.

But thinking back to the town hall meetings, far more people were in favor of congestion pricing than anybody would have thought just a year ago. If you told a politician a year ago that when asked point blank, "Should we have congestion pricing in Manhattan," without even being told that the money would go to transit, that nearly 40 percent of New Yorkers would say, "Yes," nobody would have believed that high a number was possible.

AN: A Wall Street Journal opinion piece was forwarded to me recently that said, "Their goal isn't easing congestion at all, it's raising money. The city's plan foresees only negligible improvements in traffic density and speeds, less than 8 percent, but millions for the city to spend on other priorities." Is the congestion pricing just about raising money?

RA: If all the mayor had wanted was additional revenue, there would be far easier ways to get it than to engage in the congestion pricing debate. It would have been so much easier for us to find the money in a different way.

That quote that you just read completely misses the fact that this money isn't going to be for the city to spend. Our proposal was that the revenue goes to the SMART Fund, which the city would have only a 50% voice in. Others have proposed the money goes to the MTA. The bottom line is congestion pricing revenue is not going into the city's budget, it's going towards transit.

It's misleading to say that we're only doing this for the revenue. The reason that congestion pricing is such a powerful concept, and the reason that the mayor, who was initially skeptical about it, warmed to it and now has obviously embraced it and believes in it quite strongly, is that it solves multiple challenges at once. It reduces traffic while raising money for transit. And it gets people to think more about the personal choices they make.

Just like you get charged every time you decide to take the subway, and that makes you think about whether you want to use this scarce resource that costs money to provide, you also want a price on making the decision to drive into one of the most congested and transit-rich areas in North America. That's the goal.

I've heard time and time again, that the 8 percent increase in vehicle speeds is a negligible difference. But that's 112,000 cars a day off of the streets. That's hardly a negligible difference. What people often don't understand is that a reduction in 6.3 percent of vehicle miles traveled, or an increase in speed of 8 percent -- those are averages. Those changes make a big difference because the bulk of that speed improvement isn't going to come at 5:00 in the morning, or on one of those few streets that you can find during rush hour that isn't crowded. Those improvements are going to be concentrated on the streets that currently have the worst congestion.

But what really counts to the driver is the reduction in delay -- the reduction in the amount of time you're stuck in traffic. London found that the increase in average speed translates to a reduction of driver delay by at least a factor of two. So, an 8 percent increase in average vehicle speed translates to a 15 to 20 percent reduction in driver delay. That is sizable.

AN: Many say they are concerned that congestion pricing will hurt New York City's poor, middle class, and small business people. How do you respond to that?

RA: I think its fundamentally not true. If you look at New York City as a whole, if you look at every class of people, however you want to define class, the majority of New Yorkers rely on transit far more than they rely on automobiles. Are the relatively small percentage of New York's middle class that drives into Manhattan everyday going to be hurt by congestion pricing? Potentially. But in exchange for $8, those who continue to drive are going to get a more reliable drive, a more comfortable drive, a faster drive.

When it comes to transportation, the best thing we can do for New York City's middle class has nothing to do with what goes on on the roads, it's what we can do in the subways. That's why it's so important to use the proceeds for transit improvements.

As for small businesses, I think it's exactly the same kind of thing. Even if you assume that small businesses do rely on driving, the efficiency gains from reducing traffic by 6.3 percent translates into greater productivity. So, for a cost of $8, a van delivering flowers can make one or two extra deliveries a day with the same vehicle and the same labor costs. The reduction in traffic congestion has more than made up for the incremental increase in transportation cost. As for bigger trucks, most of them are already paying tolls.

AN: Still, if it costs more for trucks to transport goods, won't that translate to price increases for all New York City consumers across the board?

RA: London has seen nothing to indicate that that's the case. Stockholm, in some very detailed analysis of what goes on downtown, has actually seen an increase in customers to local businesses because the pedestrian spaces are that much more attractive with fewer cars clogging the roads. So, Stockholm has actually seen small business directly benefiting from congestion pricing.

Really, how much inflation can you create on an entire truckload of goods by adding $21? There were some outrageous numbers being thrown around about how congestion pricing will cause all groceries to go up by 10 percent or something. When these claims come up, do the math. If a $21 charge on a truckload of milk translates into a 10 percent increase in the cost of a gallon of milk, that means they are using an entire truck to deliver something like 10 gallons of milk per day.

There's so much misinformation that people are putting out there to scare people.

The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook

Each of the book's 77 articles is presented as a brief instruction or command. I contributed a few pieces that Streetsblog readers might appreciate. They were: Ride a Bike, Decongest Downtown, Ride the Train and Fly Right (which, more accurately would have been titled "Fly Less," but that's not very snappy). It was a fun project and, I think, a great opportunity to inject some of the progressive ideas that we talk about here on Streetsblog into the mainstream.

The book was edited by Duncan Bock and produced on a ridiculously short timeline by Melcher Media. Charles Komanoff also helped to research and fact check some of the book's carbon emission calculations.

Here is the Ride a Bike chapter...

Why cyclists, drivers and pedestrians can't just get along, with Aaron Naparstek, editor of Streetsblog, a blog that advocates for cycling issues, Robert Sinclair, manager of media relations for AAA New York, Harris Silver, founder of a pedestrian rights advocacy group called CityStreets.

A Livable Streets Discussion and Happy Hour
Wednesday, March 28th, 6:30 pm @ The Tank
279 Church Street, downstairs

At 7 o'clock, leaders from a few organizations will introduce themselves and say a few brief words about their current activities:

• Aaron Naparstek, Streetsblog
• Sean Clifford, Streetfilms
• Jasper Goldman, Municipal Art Society
• Nick Grossman, The Open Planning Project

Judge for yourself. Here's the text:

Motion 1: CB6 thanks DOT for their efforts to improve pedestrian safety and facilitate the flow of traffic in and around Park Slope as dialogue and discussions are always beneficial; however, we request that DOT not proceed with their proposal to convert 6th and 7th Avenues from two-way to one-way streets at this time because there are too many questions about the impact of this change and how it would affect the neighborhood's traffic flow and pedestrian safety.

We further request that DOT continue to work with the Community Board and the Park Slope community in resolving Park Slope's very real traffic and pedestrian safety problems. For example, the perceived/actual high rate of speed of vehicles traveling on 8th Avenue and Prospect Park West, and the congested Union Street approach to the Grand Army Plaza . By working more closely with the Community Board and community we are committing to work with DOT to produce an improved set of remedies and actions designed to further enhance pedestrian safety and facilitate the safe movement of vehicles within our community.

Motion 2: CB6 would table making a recommendation on the 4th Avenue proposal until after such time as we have had a chance to engage DOT in a more comprehensive discussion of the traffic planning needs and challenges facing the Park Slope community.

Streetsblog's Aaron Naparstek (who, full disclosure, is a member of the committee) reported the next day that the committee "fully and unequivocally" rejected the DOT proposal. But AYR's Oder was correct when he wrote that things were a bit more complicated, and that what actually happened was that "the committee, expressing disapproval, voted to table discussion on the plans until further talks with DOT and implementation of community-requested changes." Watch video of the motion's passage by Kevin Burget here.