Streetsblog New York City

Dear Steve Cuozzo --

I was ready to ignore your rant yesterday, IDIOTIC DOT TAKES A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, as another in The Post's reflexive (if well-written) screeds against any incursion into NYC car-dominance, when I came across this line:

"The madness just came to Grand Street as well, where a dangerous bike lane is shunned by any sane cyclist."

I take that personally, seeing as how just last Sunday, my teenage son and I used the Grand Street bike lane to ride from Hudson Square to the East Village.

The lane was great. The green paint, the arrows that mark the lane at intersections, and the strategic placement of the lane between the curb and the line of parked cars, evidently made it clear to our fellow New Yorkers that this was indeed a bicycle lane. For the entire distance, a good 3/4 of a mile, we only had to maneuver around one parked car and a handful of pedestrians.

Otherwise, it was smooth sailing, and a lot safer and more relaxing than the usual Sunday traffic mix. For me, it's no big deal, I'm an adult and have been cycling daily here for 35 years. But for my 14-year-old, who's still learning what it takes to maintain his legal right to the road in the face of swarms of cars and trucks, many of them operated heedlessly, the lane made a big difference.

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Front row l-r: Tish James, Paul Steely White, John Liu, David Yassky. Photo: Mike Infranco.

With the fallout from Wall Street taking a toll on city coffers, Mayor Bloomberg has a lot of tough calls to make. The "Bikes in Buildings" bill [PDF] is not one of them. It's a lay-up -- a simple rule change that promises big gains for bike commuting. The bill, also known as Intro 38, would require commercial landlords to allow tenants to bring bikes inside buildings. No storage requirements attached.

On the steps of City Hall this morning, City Council members David Yassky, Tish James, and John Liu joined Transportation Alternatives' Paul Steely White and a band of advocates to urge passage of the bill. In total, 30 members of the City Council have already signed on to the measure, a majority of the chamber.

A similar pledge to promote bike storage in commercial buildings is enshrined in the transportation plank of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC. As the speakers were quick to point out, "Bikes in Buildings" is an even easier lift.

"It's simply to mandate that you have to allow access to bicycles, and then you let the landlords figure out, case by case, what's the most efficient way to do it," said Yassky. The way things stand now, he noted, even if businesses encourage employees to bring bikes to work, most building managers won't let it happen. "You can bring a dolly or a stroller, but not a bike."

Reversing this widespread policy would address one of the major obstacles to bike commuting, especially among people who already ride: the lack of a secure place to keep bikes at work. Rigorous projections of the bill's effect are not available, but, drawing from his decades of experience analyzing bike traffic, former TA president Charles Komanoff gave a rough estimate that "universal bike commuter access to buildings would cause at least a 25 percent increase and perhaps as much as a 50 percent increase in bike commuting."

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Looks like Chrysler has figured out a novel way to move their 2008 model gas guzzlers off the lot. Sign up for their new "Let's Refuel America!" credit card and they'll lock in the price of gas at $2.99/gallon for three years.

That's right, it's a 36-month guarantee that you don't have to think about moving over to a more fuel efficient car, commuting by bus, lobbying your elected officials for a national passenger rail system or the fact that Chrysler is essentially writing checks to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria and Vladimir Putin on your behalf.

Before you rush out to purchase yourself a new, 13 mpg Dodge Durango and set up shop at the nearest pump as a gasoline reseller, you'd better read the fine print. The program caps the number of annual "price-protected gallons" that Chrysler will actually pay for. If I understand their "gallon allotment calculation" correctly (Charlie Komanoff, feel free to step in here and do some math), Durango owners get a maximum of 2,400 discounted gallons over three years. As for global warming, oil war, suburban sprawl and American economic disintegration, Chrysler is offering a lifetime guarantee.

Remember the orange bikes locked up all around Manhattan during Fashion Week that managed to outrage the NYPD and Ghost Bike memorialists in equal measure? It turns out they weren't just an advertisement for fashion house DKNY, they were part of a comprehensive "fashion plan to eliminate all motor vehicles in NYC by the year 2018." For a sense of just how difficult it's going to be to implement the plan, note how much air time the video above gives to Mercedes Benz.  

As the faux fur-clad model narrating this video says, "If supermodels can't solve the world's problems, then I don't know who can." George Haikalis of Auto-Free New York (right), are you listening? You and Charles Komanoff and the Kheel Plan are cute and all, but if you really want to increase attendance, how about getting some supermodels to detail this 2018 plan at the next monthly meeting?

With Michael Bloomberg expressing doubts about an apparently favored proposal to move the congestion pricing boundary south to 60th Street, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican challenged the mayor yesterday to get behind the Kheel free transit plan.

[T]his is the giant carrot to accompany Bloomberg's congestion-pricing stick. Charge $16 instead of $8, the authors suggest - and add parking and taxi surcharges. Really make the drivers pay. Then take that money and make all the buses and subway free.

Bold enough for you?

Henican talked with lead author and Streetsblog contributor Charles Komanoff, who said the same approach could be applied to the LIRR, Metro-North and Jersey Transit.

Meanwhile, there's a lively discussion going on over at Second Ave. Sagas, where blogger Benjamin Kabak says he likes the Kheel plan, a lot, but sees it as too good to be true.

People in New York City are, stupidly, married to their cars. They demand below-market, on-street parking. They demand access to roads at the expense of wide sidewalks and bike lanes. They demand access to roads at the expense of common-sense bus rapid transit lanes. They demand the right to drive as though it were protected by the Constitution, and this is simply a misguided and harmful attitude.

But sadly, the ideal society where a Kheel plan could pass because it would negatively impact the people who could afford and positively impact the people who need it doesn't exist. Ted Kheel should be applauded for his vision, and his plan deserves as much attention as anything under consideration now. It's groundbreaking; it's visionary; it would work; and it just won't happen.

Setting aside the Kheel plan's chances of being taken seriously by the mayor and the Congestion Mitigation Commission, before it's over they may be among the few who aren't at least talking about it.

In related news, a new program in Chicago that will allow seniors 65 and up to take transit for free has been deluged with applicants. The AP, via WTHI in Terre Haute, IN, reports that "Governor Rod Blagojevich says response has been so strong that the state is adding a second toll-free number to accommodate callers who are registering for the program."

Yesterday, Theodore "Ted" Kheel's traffic plan was officially unveiled with a 52-page report (pdf) outlining his proposal to make transit free via a round-the-clock $16 congestion charge for cars ($32 for trucks) entering Manhattan below 60th Street. The report says Kheel's "Bolder Plan" would cut CBD traffic by 25 percent, and traffic citywide by nearly 10 percent, all while increasing mass transit funding and decreasing the number of overcrowded trains and buses.

Skeptical? So was lead author Charles Komanoff, he says, until he delved into the data. Not only do the numbers add up, Komanoff writes, the Kheel plan offers an irresistible political hook:

Don Shoup wrote recently that the dilemma confronting congestion pricing is not that opposition is too high, but that support is too low. Free transit resolves this dilemma by offering as tangible a benefit as one can imagine. As I said last week to a legislator from Central Brooklyn who has lined up against the mayor's congestion pricing plan, "Are you really going to tell your constituents that you walked away from a plan that would let them ride the trains and buses for free?" I wish you'd seen his double-take, followed by: "Um, okay, what's this Kheel Plan again, and how exactly is it going to work?"

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

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

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

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April Greene reports on Monday's congestion pricing panel discussion at the New School:

"And now the last of the bald men will speak," said Jeffrey Risom, an urban designer at Gehl Architects of Denmark, as he took the podium at Monday night's congestion pricing panel at the New School. Indeed, all four panelists did possess this common trait, but the diversity of their backgrounds -- in academia, government, non-profits, economics, and private development -- set them well apart despite that shall-we-say glaring similarity.

Leading off from the event's title, Jean-Christophe Agnew, a professor of American Studies at Yale, spoke about congestion pricing's roots in bridge-crossing and stall-renting tolls in early modern Europe. Jeffrey Zupan of the Regional Plan Association fast-forwarded to 20th century New York when Columbia professor and Nobel prize winner William Vickery and Mayors Lindsay, Dinkins, and Koch, as well as the RPA itself, all proposed different modes of congestion pricing (none of which came to pass). Zupan also highlighted some points in New York's troubled transit history, among them the fact that, despite population growth in the millions during the last century, the extent of NYC's subway system peaked in 1937.

Environmental economist and "re-founder" of Transportation Alternatives Charles Komanoff jumped in next with some of the theories behind the plans. Quoting pedicab luminary George Bliss, Komanoff pointed out that mobility and community should not be in conflict, "they should enhance and serve each other." Jeffrey Risom followed with examples of Copenhagen's effective methods for reducing traffic congestion while bolstering quality of life: many use incentives for biking and walking rather than "punishments" for driving.

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In an op/ed piece in Monday's Daily News, Brooklyn-based transportation consultant Brian Ketcham proposed some changes to Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. Ketcham, who has been pushing for some form of congestion pricing since his time working for the Lindsay Administration more than 30 years ago, argues that New York City should:

• Put tolls on the free East River Bridges.
• Move the pricing zone's northern boundary down to 60th Street.
• Eliminate all free and long-term street parking and charge hefty garage rates at on-street meters inside the Central Business District.

It is not surprising to see the idea of East River bridge tolls popping up right now. Prior to Mayor Bloomberg's Long-Term Sustainability announcement in April, virtually everyone who was doing serious thinking about New York City traffic reduction was focused on the 170,000+ vehicles traveling over the free East River bridges each day.

In July 2003, Ketcham and economist Charles Komanoff published, The Hours, a study that found that tolling the free East River Bridges would "do away with more than 9% of the idle time that motorists, truckers and bus riders now lose in traffic tie-ups throughout New York City" with significant congestion reductions in the outer boroughs, in particular.

Earlier that year, Komanoff also published "Who Will Really Pay," a study that found commuters who drive to work over the East River bridges earn, on average, $14,300/year more than those who don't drive to work over a free bridge (download it here).

A September 2003 Transportation Alternatives study of East River bridge tolls by Bruce Schaller made similar findings. Schaller also noted the difficult "political realities" of tolling the bridges.

In November of 2003, Jeff Zupan and Alexis Perrotta at the Regional Plan Association published a study that tested four different congestion pricing scenarios, all of which included some form of East River bridge tolls (download it here). One of their models found, "At the East River bridges traffic would drop by about 25 percent, likely leading to the virtual elimination of congestion at those crossings," as well as "relief on local streets" and "less traffic on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway."

With all of that in mind, here is Ketcham's Daily News editorial, re-printed in full:

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New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will
declare his support today for a national carbon tax, according to a
report posted this morning on the New York Times City Room blog by
metro reporter Sewell Chan:

Mayor Bloomberg plans
to announce today his support for a national carbon tax. In what his
aides are calling one of the most significant policy addresses of his
second and final term, the mayor will argue that directly taxing
emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute
to climate change will slow global
warming, promote economic growth and stimulate technological innovation
— even if it results in higher gasoline prices in the short term.

Mr.
Bloomberg is scheduled to present his carbon tax proposal in a speech
this afternoon at a two-day climate protection summit in Seattle
organized by the United States Conference of Mayors. (A copy of the speech was provided to The New York Times by aides to the mayor; the full text is available here, along with the complete Times story.)

Needless to say, Charles Komanoff at the recently spiffed-up Carbon Tax Center, thinks this is a big deal (worthy of an Oscar or a Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps?):

With his speech today, Mayor Bloomberg joins former Vice-President Al
Gore as the nation’s leading advocates of a carbon tax to cap and
reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

And consistent with the Mayor’s local transportation policy push:

Bloomberg’s support of a U.S. carbon tax is philosophically consistent
with his big current local initiative, a congestion pricing plan to
improve mobility, economic activity and the quality of life in the
Manhattan Central Business District by charging an entry fee for motor
vehicles. A carbon tax and congestion pricing both embody the principle
that safeguarding “the commons” — our air, water and public space –
requires that we exact from ourselves a commensurate price for uses
that damage or deplete it.