An Assembly Member that I spoke with this morning, however, says that congestion pricing is totally dead or, as the Assembly Member put it, "There's no legislation to vote on, no one is planning on returning to Albany, it's in 'Nowheresville.'" Mayor Bloomberg's political people, the legislator says, are "in denial."

Meanwhile, Chad Marlow at the Public Advocacy Group reminds us of the awesome powers of Three Men in a Room and how these powers may render moot the objections of dozens of state legislators. Marlow's 30-second civics lesson is as follows:

In almost every other legislature in the country, when a bill is proposed, only the original sponsor of the legislation has the ability to pull that bill and prevent it from coming to a vote. In Albany, the original sponsor can pull his or her bill but so can the Assembly Speaker and the Senate Majority leader. So, regardless of how many of a legislator's colleagues support the bill, if the leader doesn’t support the legislator, it will never come to a vote. This gives the Silver and Bruno "veto plus" powers. When the governor vetos a bill there's an opportunity for the legislature to override the veto. But when the Leader pulls your bill, that’s it. It's done. That's why Albany legislators are, essentially, forced to fall in line with Silver and Bruno. If they don't, they may never get to pass another piece of legislation.

Reported in the New York Times:

Chad Marlow, who represents the New York City Pedicab Owners Association, said the association agrees with much of the legislation, but plans to file a lawsuit challenging some elements of it. He said it believes that the Council was within its rights to impose a cap as the city does with taxis, but that the restriction on electric motors and the provision giving the police the power to ban pedicabs from Midtown run afoul of the law.

Four council members abstained from yesterday's vote, raising objections to the restriction against electric motors.

At a council hearing before yesterday's vote, Councilman Alan J. Gerson, who supported the original legislation but removed his name from the current version of the bill, said, "They're nonpolluting, they're quiet; why should the city care if they are electric assist or not?"

What we want is something that addresses the problem of bunching up. A cap doesn't address that. [The city] seems more interested in a symbolic solution than an actual one.

New York, New York - February 13, 2007: In an event organized by the New York City Pedicab Owners Association (NYCPOA), concerned pedicab owners, drivers and their supporters will meet on the steps of City Hall at noon to lift the veil off ongoing negotiations to reconcile the Mayor's and City Council's pedicab regulation bills. In particular, the noontime event will highlight how two imprudent "political deals" will needlessly stagnate the environmentally friendly pedicab industry, prevent pedicabs from utilizing the best available safety equipment and exclude the industry's most experienced drivers.

The first "political deal" involves severely restricting the number of pedicabs in operation - a decision whose genesis lies with theater and hotel complaints that groups of pedicabs were blocking traffic in front of their businesses. According to George Bliss, NYCPOA's President, "the pedicab industry wants to be a welcome member of the midtown business community. As such, the theaters' and hotels' concerns became our concerns and we sought to address them through the Council legislation."

But despite proposing numerous solutions, none were accepted. As NYCPOA's lobbyist Chad Marlow of The Public Advocacy Group LLC explained, "first we sought the solution the theaters, hotels and pedicabs all wanted: creating a series of stands where pedicabs could unobtrusively wait for their customers, but that solution was flatly rejected by the DOT. We then proposed a 'Rule of Five' that would have prohibited more than five pedicabs from grouping together while seeking passengers. The Community Board covering the Times Square-Theater District favored that proposal, but the Speaker's office turned it down. We even begrudgingly offered to limit the number of pedicabs in a Times Square zone, but the Mayor said no. We've had no problem coming up with on-target solutions, we just cannot find anyone willing to enact them."

Instead, the Mayor and Speaker are preparing to place a cap on the number of pedicabs. The number being considered, which is in the low 300s, would take 40% of all currently operating pedicabs off the streets. This would stagnate the pedicab industry, drive numerous owners and drivers out of work and create an artificial shortage of pedicabs that cannot meet demand, all while failing to address the theaters' and hotels' concerns.

The second "political deal" reached between the Mayor and Speaker would, without any reasonable justification, ban all pedal-assisted, electric-assist pedicabs. The pedal-assisted, electric-assist power sought by the NYCPOA among others has two elements. First, pedicabs would be allowed to supplement their human power with no more than 750 watts of electric power, which is half the power an average electric lawn mower uses. Second, to ensure electric-assist pedicabs are always operated as bicycles, sensors would prevent electric-assist power from being used unless the pedicab is also being pedaled.

Electric-assist is important because it improves safety. As Amir Chizic, owner of BicyTaxi NYC, explained, "right now my pedicabs operate with a 250 watt motor, which allows me to place a heavy fiberglass shell on them to provide additional protection for my passengers. If the City bans electric-assist, I will just remove the motors and take off the safety shells, but is that what the City wants?" Allowing electric-assist also enables older, more experienced pedicab drivers to remain in the profession. Doug Korman, 53, who has driven a pedicab for 10 years commented that "at my age, after 6 or more hours of driving, when I am pedaling 600-plus pounds of pedicab and passengers up a hill, yes, I need a tiny bit of extra help, and that's all electric-assist provides. If the City was taking a safety-first approach to pedicab legislation, it would be doing everything it could to keep drivers like me on the road because experienced pedicab drivers are the safest pedicab drivers."

As Bliss summarized, "this City needs more than just a pedicab regulation bill. It needs a good one, and that is not what is on the table right now."

 

Left to right: New York City Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner/Senior Policy Advisor David Woloch, Commissioner Iris Weinshall, a procurement and technical servicea aide and City Councilmembers John Liu and Gale Brewer.

As I saw it, the three big bullet points to come out of yesterday's City Council Transportation Committee hearing on Intro. 199, the Traffic Information & Relief Bill were as follows:

• DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall expressed unequivocal opposition to Intro. 199. See below for her reasons. She also told a Newsday reporter that New York City's traffic congestion is more an issue of public perception than a transportation policy and management problem. New York City traffic congestion, the Commissioner says, only seems worse than it ever has been. 
• Councilmember Daniel Garodnick announced mid-hearing that he would sign on as a co-sponsor of the bill. Garodnick's support tips the balance of the Transportation Committee in favor of Intro. 199 and ensures that the bill can move to a full Council vote. With 24 co-sponsors, the bill is two votes shy of passage and 11 votes short of a veto-proof majority. Still, it is hard to imagine that Mayor Bloomberg will allow City Council to pass this kind of legislation. Expect some sort of pre-emptive action from the other side of City Hall. 
• DOT Deputy Commissioner Michael Primeggia provided the day's highlight when he used the traffic engineering term "pedestrian interference" in describing how a street's "Level of Service" is calculated. What a priceless glimpse in to the profession of traffic engineering and the mind of the man who, essentially, owns and operates New York City's streets. The next time you're almost hit by an aggressive SUV driver while crossing the street, think of yourself not as a victim but as "pedestrian interference" impeding that motorist's Level of Service. As for all of the activities that Danish urban designer Jan Gehl refers to as "public life?" Turns out it's actually "pedestrian interference." 

Yesterday's hearing kicked off with Committee Chair John Liu's assertion that New York City is experiencing "unprecedented traffic congestion of epic proportions." Intro. 199, he said, is aimed at helping the city manage its traffic congestion by collecting data in a new way. "We need to pro-actively manage traffic. In order to manage it we have to be able to measure it."

Intro. 199, in short, compels the City to "develop and monitor performance targets with the aim of assessing and reducing the amount of traffic citywide and within each borough." Rather than focusing on "output measures" like the number of traffic lights repaired and potholes filled as DOT currently does in the annual Mayor's Management Report, the new legislation would mandate that DOT evaluate itself based on "targets" built around specific transportation policy objectives such as reducing congestion and pollution and increasing the percentage of trips taken on buses, bike and by foot. This is similar to the kind of data collection now being done in London (see the bottom of this Transport for London press release to access TfL's massive, detailed, annual traffic congestion monitoring report).

Flanked by two aides, Commissioner Weinshall was first to testify. "Under the Bloomberg Administration, DOT has made reducing vehicular congestion and bolstering alternative modes one of our primary goals," she said. She cited the ongoing Bus Rapid Transit study, the Thru Streets program, Muni Meters and the recent bike lane expansion as examples.

Weinshall then cited five reasons for her opposition to Intro. 199 (her full testimony can be found here). First, the City Charter already requires that DOT submit data to the annual Mayor's Management Report so "any legislation to require additional reporting seems redundant." Second, DOT "is already, in fact, collecting and making available much of the data the bill contemplates." Third, DOT is about two years away from having "new advancing technology as a means to collect data" so it would be premature to make the agency set policy targets now. Fourth, collecting all of this data would be burdensome and expensive. Finally, transportation issues are regional. "Intro. 199 seems to ignore the multi agency nature of our transportation systems," she said. Weinshall also reported that DOT is planning to increase its data collection contract from $600,000 over two years to $3 million.

After her testimony, Liu asked the Commissioner if she thought New York City has a traffic congestion problem. "We would not characterize it as a crisis. We'd characterize it as a challenge," she said. Deputy Commissioner Primeggia added that Central Business District traffic counts were one to two percent higher than their pre-9/11 all-time highs. Weinshall said the increase in traffic is "an indication of the vitality and the growth of the city of New York." This particular rationale for not doing anything to change the dysfunctional status quo of New York City's streets is also used by Weinshall's boss, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the MTA.

Weinshall frequently pointed to the reams of data that the agency already collects and repeated her willingness to share that data with Councilmembers. During his testimony, Chad Marlow, president of the Public Advocacy Group, said that that particular point "warrants further examination." 

"I find it peculiar that, so often, when an individual Councilmember needs something done involving traffic or transportation, say, the installation of a new traffic signal or traffic calming measure, DOT's response is, 'We don't have data to back that up,'" Marlow said.

"Yet in their testimony, all the DOT could talk about was how much data they already have and how happy they are to share it. I'm more persuaded by DOT's day-to-day responses to Councilmember's real world problems than by the claims they made at this hearing."