Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver could make a slew of transportation bills move through his chamber or let them languish as in years past. Photo: Daily News

This year’s legislative session is rapidly coming to a close in Albany. With the state legislature wrapping up its regularly scheduled official business on June 20, the Capitol is entering a period of intense activity as legislators and lobbyists make a final push for their priorities.

Albany has some big items on its agenda this month: rent regulations, a property tax cap, ethics reform, and gay marriage. Somewhat below the radar, the push is on for a number of street safety and sustainable transportation priorities as well. Time is of the essence, as advocacy momentum built up over the year dissipates after the session ends. Bills that falter this time around will have to start over again after the legislature reconvenes in January.

If support gels for any of the following bills, the legislature can act extremely quickly to turn them into law. That’s especially true in the Assembly, where Speaker Sheldon Silver controls a large majority and where most of this legislation is currently stalled or has died in past sessions.

Complete Streets

Complete streets legislation would require planners to consider the needs of all road users when designing a road receiving state and federal funding. Last year, it passed the State Senate but stalled out in the Assembly.

After talking with the legislation’s opponents, complete streets supporters made some revisions to the language, and an updated version of the bill is headed to the Senate Transportation Committee today, said Nadine Lemmon, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s Albany legislative advocate. As now written, the complete streets bill would cover the large set of projects that already need to conduct extensive reviews as part of the federal approval process, which involves filling out thick binders of paperwork. “We’re targeting projects that already have to do a lot of review and we’re just adding two pages to their world,” said Lemmon.

Purely local projects wouldn’t be covered, but Lemmon argued that as towns or counties prepare complete streets plans on some projects, they’d grow more familiar with the concept, leading to what she called a “trickle down effect.”

In the Senate, the complete streets bill is sponsored by both Charles Fuschillo and Martin Dilan, the chair and ranking member of the Transportation Committee, respectively, along with twelve other senators. In the Assembly, however, the companion legislation hasn’t been introduced yet. That said, Lemmon reported that preliminary conversations about the bill with both the governor’s staff and state DOT officials have been encouraging.

Automated Enforcement for Speeding and Red Lights

Using automated cameras to enforce the speed limit would save lives, but local governments need state approval to do so. Legislation to allow New York City to install such cameras was introduced in the Assembly by Manhattan rep Deborah Glick last week, said Transportation Alternatives State Policy Director Lindsey Lusher Shute. The bill is now in front of the transportation committee. Companion legislation hasn’t been introduced yet in the Senate, she said, though she thinks that Brooklyn Republican Marty Golden may sponsor it.

Though the bill currently has 12 co-sponsors, “it’s going to take quite a few more sponsors and attention by the transportation committee to move,” said Lusher Shute, especially “given the reluctance of the chair to adopt more automated enforcement legislation.” Transportation Committee chair David Gantt killed legislation to allow bus lane enforcement cameras in 2008. Concluded Lusher Shute, “It’s not as close as we’d like.”

Another Golden-sponsored bill, to allow New York City to increase the number of life-saving red light cameras in use from 150 to 300, has moved quickly through the Senate. It passed through committee there and now only awaits a floor vote. Again, however, the Assembly version is stuck in the transportation committee.

Transit Funding Lockbox

The broad array of groups supporting legislation to make it harder for Albany to steal dedicated transit funds is headed up to the Capitol today, said Lusher Shute. The coalition includes transit advocates, labor and business leaders.

The bill is currently in front of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee. Assembly sponsor Jim Brennan urged supporters to contact Ways and Means chair Denny Farrell at a press conference last week.

Lusher Shute sounded optimistic about the lockbox’s chances. “There are tons of groups behind it,” she said, and legislators’ memories of recent fare hikes and service cuts are fresh. “It’s very possible that we could move that this session.”

Crossover Mirrors

An effort to require large trucks on New York City streets to be equipped with mirrors that enable drivers to see pedestrians in the blind spot in front of the cab got a big boost last week, in the form of a mayoral press conference supporting the bill. By standing with the bill’s sponsors, Golden and Brooklyn Assembly Member Joan Millman, Mayor Bloomberg showed that the legislation is a top priority for the city.

Yesterday, the bill passed the State Senate, where it was sponsored by Golden. In the Assembly, the bill is still in front of the transportation committee, but the Daily News reports that it could clear the whole chamber as soon as tomorrow.

In driver-on-pedestrian crashes, a few miles per hour can be the difference between life and death. Graph: Transportation Alternatives

Legislation allowing the city to curb deadly driving through the use of speed enforcement cameras will soon resurface in Albany.

A bill introduced last year called for a pilot program of 40 cameras, to be installed at crash-prone city intersections. Photographs would be taken of license plates (not of drivers), and tickets issued to vehicle owners. Tickets would not result in license points and could be contested in court. The bill included a five-year sunset provision.

A spokesperson for Manhattan Assembly Member Deborah Glick, sponsor of the original bill, told Streetsblog a draft is now being prepared for the current session.

In the meantime, Transportation Alternatives has been drumming up support, finding receptive audiences across the boroughs. Says TA’s Lindsey Ganson:

Five resolutions in support of using speed cameras in NYC have already passed full community boards — in Manhattan, Community Board 2, 4, and 7; in Staten Island Community Board 2; and in Brooklyn Community Board 7.  Many other community boards are in the process of showing their support. The transportation committees of Staten Island’s Community Board 1, Manhattan Community Boards 11 and 12, Bronx Community Board 4 and Queens Community Board 8 will be presenting resolutions to their full boards at their next meetings.

Speed cameras have the endorsement of NYPD, NYC DOT, and the city’s Department of Health. And with good reason. Speeding-related crashes killed 71 people in New York City in 2009, and injured 3,739. Not only have cameras have proven to be a potent deterrent — reducing the number of drivers speeding by 10+ mph by up to 88 percent, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety — they offer a cost-effective means of enforcing the law, and allow police departments to direct manpower to other crimes.

“Safe speed detectors will save lives,” Ganson says. “In New York City speeding is the number one cause of deadly crashes, claiming more lives than drunk driving and distracted driving combined. Speed detectors have cut speeding and reduced crashes in the 89 U.S. communities in 14 states where they’ve been authorized.”

Manhattan’s Tom Duane sponsored last year’s Senate version of the speed camera bill. He could not be reached for comment as of this writing.

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 going un-challenged in a Democratic primary.

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

With higher gas prices pushing drivers onto the city's trains and buses, the Daily News today blasted Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assembly Dems for passing up the billions of dollars that congestion pricing would have brought to MTA coffers. 

The trends prove that the theory of congestion pricing was valid: When the cost of driving rises, people actually do switch to mass transit.

Had Silver and the Assembly passed congestion pricing, as the City Council did, the MTA would already be using that $354 million in federal aid (which has now been disbursed about the country) to make more bus and subway seats available.

Then, the congestion fee would have given the MTA a half-billion dollars a year to pay for big projects like completing the Second Ave. subway and extending LIRR service to Grand Central Terminal. When that money vanished, the MTA's building plan was eviscerated.

The agency does not have the money it needs to keep the transit system in good repair, let alone to expand. Gov. Paterson has asked the estimable Richard Ravitch, a former MTA chairman, to hunt up cash.

He'll find no easy fixes. Option 1: Raise taxes. Option 2: Raise fares. Option 3: Congestion pricing.

Pricing foes must be waiting for Ravitch to make the next move, because we've heard virtually nothing from them since the plan was smothered behind closed doors over a month ago -- other than demands for improved transit service.

But what of Brodsky, Glick, and Weiner? Or Bearak and McCaffrey? Where are they now that their storied working class drivers, priced out of their cars, must rely on a beleaguered transit system that doesn't have the fiscal boost promised by congestion pricing?

Oh, right. They're stuck in traffic.

Graphic: New York Daily News 

As Deborah Glick herself would tell you, no state legislator had more reason to support congestion pricing than she did. In a district where 95.4 percent of working residents would not have paid the charge, where households with a car are outnumbered by households sans vehicle three to one, and which nonetheless finds itself in hellish, fume-choked purgatory largely due to transient car commuters lurching their way to and from the Holland Tunnel, the city-initiated program to reduce gridlock and clear the air while improving transit should have been a gift.

But to Glick, it wasn't. To the contrary, when the Lower Manhattan Democratic Assembly member said anything about congestion pricing -- which, publicly, wasn't all that often -- it was likely to be negative. Rather than tout its obvious merits and work to amend its shortcomings, Glick remained a skeptic throughout the eleven months of the plan's life, repeating often unfounded criticisms spouted by the likes of Richard Brodsky and Anthony Weiner while adding a few zingers to the canon for good measure.

Now that she and fellow Assembly Democrats have killed pricing in its original iteration, Glick has issued her own post-mortem in the form of a constituent letter. After the jump: a breakdown of each of her anti-pricing points, followed by the letter itself.

Here are Glick's "concerns about congestion pricing," as enumerated by the author:

1. Congestion pricing would hurt small businesses. Glick cites "concern" from the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce that the $21 truck fee would harm homegrown entrepreneurs. Never mind that these businesses share the annual $13 billion burden imposed by congestion, or that pricing was endorsed by a coalition of small business groups from across the city. These realities don't mesh with Glick's narrative.

2. The MTA can't be trusted with the money. In her letter, Glick says the city refused to make changes in the pricing proposal as requested by state lawmakers (a ridiculous charge we'll get to in a minute). But this complaint -- that the MTA, with its "abysmal management record," can't be relied upon to use pricing revenues as promised -- is but one example of how those same lawmakers set the plan up to fail. The original pricing proposal included the creation of a separate SMART authority to monitor and allocate pricing revenues. This was one of the first elements of the plan to be seized upon by opponents, and the city, in spite of its supposed stubbornness, dropped it without a fight. In fact, in a March meeting with pricing advocates in Albany, Glick herself mentioned her distaste for the SMART authority (though it had long been removed from the proposal). If neither a separate board, nor the MTA, nor even a lock box set up by the Legislature itself was good enough for Glick et al. to ensure that pricing revenues would be used as promised, it's difficult to imagine that a satisfactory funding mechanism can ever exist.

3. Congestion pricing is a Bush conspiracy. Here, Glick quotes a Washington Post article claiming that congestion pricing is part of a Bush administration plot to "leave a legacy of new tolls roads across the country, a growing number of public roads leased to private companies, and dozens of stalled commuter rail, streetcar and subway projects." You mean as opposed to now, Assemblywoman Glick, when commuter rail, streetcar and subway projects are stalled as motorists wear out publicly funded roads and bridges at no charge? That Post story was truly the gift that kept on giving, providing pricing's Democratic foes, particularly Congressman Anthony Weiner, with a Bushian bogeyman to point to at every opportunity. But a close reading of the piece, as reported on Streetsblog, showed no connection between congestion pricing and reduced transit funding. Instead, its appropriation by Glick and Weiner epitomized a topsy-turvy political scenario in which a lame duck Republican administration's push to apply free market principles to road use clashed with liberal Democratic dogma that regards unfettered automobility as a righteous social construct.

4. Congestion pricing could hurt the environment. In her letter, Glick likens congestion pricing to the controversial Catskills resort development proposal, which would have undermined the SEQRA process had it been approved prior to environmental review. While New Yorkers should certainly be wary of setting a precedent for bypassing such analysis, the congestion pricing legislation dictated that the program would have been monitored after implementation and adjusted as necessary. This is nearly beside the point, since the purpose of pricing is to attach a fee to behavior that harms the environment. At this moment in history, do we need years' worth of analysis to tell us that fewer people driving is a good thing? The baselessness of this argument was laid bare when Glick said one of her concerns was all the dust that would be raised by subsequent transit construction projects. Get real.

5. Congestion pricing wouldn't really reduce traffic. According to studies cited by the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission -- the body that Glick had a hand in creating (and which the supposedly intransigent Bloomberg administration went along with) -- the revised pricing proposal would have reduced traffic in excess of the 6.3% VMT required to qualify for the $354 million in upfront federal funds passed over by Glick and her fellow legislators. But rather than listen to local experts, Glick deferred to critics of London's pricing program for guidance, and conveniently found "differing accounts of effectiveness." No matter that London's program is by and large considered a major success, or that pricing has proven itself effective in other cities. Like so many of Glick's beefs with pricing, this one has the marks of a conclusion in search of supporting evidence.

6. Congestion pricing would have cost too much to administer. Though the mechanics were simplified in the TCMC proposal, reducing the number of cameras by eliminating fees for traveling within the pricing zone, Glick believes operating costs would still have necessitated an increase in the congestion charge. Even if this is true -- and Glick offers little more than supposition (based on the otherwise discredited London model) to back it up -- so what? Did Glick stand up for straphangers when the MTA had to raise fares to cover its rising costs? Where will she be when transit customers are again asked to bear the brunt now that she's helped take away the hundreds of millions in net revenue that pricing would have provided? Stuff costs money. Why should drivers continue to get a free ride while everyone else keeps paying?

7. Congestion pricing lets Jersey off the hook. Do we really have to go through this again? Despite Glick's claim that out of state car commuters would have been "largely exempt" from the congestion fee, the fact is these drivers are already paying to drive into the CBD, and to the benefit of New York state. In addition, contrary to Glick's assertions and assumptions, and her distrust of data that doesn't back them up, the recent toll hike has resulted in a 2.9 percent drop in bridge and tunnel traffic. Oddly, while Glick is frustrated that New Jersey and Connecticut motorists seem undeterred by tolls, she empathizes with the constituent "of moderate income" who drives to his job outside the city because it's faster, yet who was "very concerned" about "the additional $2,000 yearly burden he would have faced under congestion pricing." And what of the millions of transit users who can't afford cars and have no choice but to trip-chain for hours each day, and whose commutes would have been improved with pricing in place? Apparently their stories don't register. But while 95 percent of the city's working population continues to pay to get around on an underfunded transit system, at least Glick can sleep easy knowing she has spared one motorist from having to join them.

8. Deborah Glick doesn't like Michael Bloomberg. All right, this isn't in the letter. But it could be. At that March sit-down with pricing advocates in her Albany office, Glick spent the better part of the time railing against the mayor, whom she clearly dislikes and does not trust. Truth be told, all the significant demands to which the Bloomberg administration consented -- moving the cordon from 86th Street to 60th, removing fees for travel within the zone, adding a tax credit for low-income drivers, turning the entire plan over to a Legislature-driven commission -- were meaningless to Glick, as evidenced by her unsubstantiated claim, repeated to this day, that lawmakers' suggestions fell on deaf ears. Regardless of its obvious benefit to millions of present and future New Yorkers, to her, congestion pricing was, is, and always will be a vanity project of the moneyed mayor -- another example, as she put it to the group of green-shirted citizens who'd given up their day to try to convince her otherwise, of Bloomberg's "out-of-touch billionaire bullshit."

Here is the letter in its entirety, including Glick's "proposed solutions to congestion and mass transit challenges." Check out how many of those challenges would have been addressed by congestion pricing, and note how Glick actually scolds the city for not implementing measures that pricing would have helped pay for, like Bus Rapid Transit. Have at it.

Dear Neighbor,

Thank you for contacting me regarding congestion pricing. I appreciate that you took the time to write to me about this important issue and I apologize if there has been a delay in my response.

Traffic congestion has long been a particular challenge in my Assembly district and, consequently, an issue of great concern to me. Unfortunately, a serious joint city-state effort to alleviate this problem is long-overdue. Similarly, adequate funding for and management of our mass transit system has been a persistent problem. While I appreciate that congestion pricing may have addressed these issues in some small ways, I believe it would have given rise to a host of other issues and I remain convinced that there are a number of other strategies which could be implemented much more easily and better meet these goals.

For these and other reasons, the sentiment in the Assembly, after 8 hours of discussion, was overwhelmingly not supportive of the congestion pricing plan. In fact, even members in support of congestion pricing wanted significant changes and these changes were ones of which the City had long been aware. And as you are most likely aware, in the end, neither the State Senate nor the Assembly took action to approve congestion pricing. During the past few weeks, I have heard from constituents urging me to reject congestion pricing and ones urging me to support it. I realize that some constituents continue to strongly feel that congestion pricing was an appropriate solution and are very disappointed that it was not approved by the Legislature. But I believe that the impassioned debate about congestion pricing will have a positive lasting and important result- that is, the debate has cast a spotlight on the issues of congestion and mass transit needs, something that I am hopeful will help bring state and city officials together to seriously address these issues and craft appropriate solutions. I am committed to being a constructive part of this dialogue and, at the end of this letter, I present a way that you can join me in this effort.

Below, in addition to outlining some of the major concerns about congestion pricing which prevented me from being an advocate for the plan, I have listed a number of solutions that I will not only support, but that I will work fervently to make reality.

*_Concerns about congestion pricing_*

1. One of the most frequent complaints I hear from constituents is about the closing of small, neighborhood stores. Consequently, I share the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce’s concern that the planned $21 fee for trucks would seriously hurt small businesses. In London, the Chamber of Commerce has been vocal in its belief that congestion pricing has been harmful to retail, but particularly to independent stores, whose profitability has reportedly decreased 53% since congestion pricing was implemented in London. For these reasons, I fear that congestion pricing would have exacerbated the struggles that small businesses already face. It is these small businesses that have made our community a neighborhood, not a mall.

2. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has a long history of not delivering on its promises, regardless of safeguards that were put in place to ensure that funds were spent in particular ways. From the 1951 bond issue that was approved specifically for building a 2nd Avenue subway to the recent transit fare increase for which the MTA had promised, but then rescinded, transit improvements and expansions in return, the MTA has an abysmal management record. I do not believe there was any way to ensure that congestion pricing revenues would actually be spent to expand and improve service, instead of plugging MTA budget shorfalls. Notably, the City estimated that 39% of revenues would be used to operate the program.

3. I share transportation advocates’ concerns about the Federal government’s actions to withdraw government support for road-building and public transportation. According to a recent Washington Post article (“Letting the Market Drive Transportation”, March 17, 2008), the Transportation Secretary and other top Federal officials have been acting to “upend the traditional way transportation projects are funded in this country. They believe that tolls paid by motorists, not tax dollars, should be used to construct and maintain roads.” Such a belief is consistent with their commitment of $1 billion to fund congestion pricing projects in 5 cities, which represented all the discretionary spending available that year. In the end, it is expected that, with these and other actions, “the Bush administration will leave a legacy of new tolls roads across the country, a growing number of public roads leased to private companies, and dozens of stalled commuter rail, streetcar and subway projects.” Representative Peter DeFazio echoed this sentiment in stating, “Everything they’re doing is designed to drive things to privatization. They’re just trying to undo 200 years of history and go back to the Boston Post Road.” While any money for transportation would be helpful, I believe that the $354 million in federal funds that would supposedly have gone to improve mass transportation can be found elsewhere. For example, the City committed $403 million to building a new stadium for a Yankees ball club that just signed a $275 million contract with one of its top players.

4. There would have been no environmental review prior to implementation of congestion pricing. The State Environmental Quality Review Act (“SEQRA”) is a crucial process that helps ensure a thorough study of effects before a major project is undertaken. Just a few years ago, National Resources Defense Council highlighted the importance of SEQRA prior to project approval by arguing forcefully that the Legislature defer a vote on a large-scale development proposal in the Catskills until SEQRA was undertaken. Environmental Advocates of New York mirrored these concerns for congestion pricing, stating: “while a willingness to provide a system of environmental quality review is laudable, short-circuiting SEQRA has serious pitfalls . . . Measures that short-circuit the state environmental quality review process should be considered very carefully. Very few exemptions from the state environmental quality review process exist- and that should remain the case.” There have been many large-scale development projects proposed and completed in my district and SEQRA and other environmental reviews have been crucial tools for the community in ensuring that government considers the effects of large-scale projects before considering their approval. Weakening SEQRA by allowing a massive project like congestion pricing to circumvent it, would set a very dangerous precedent that would have effects both in my district and throughout the state.

5. I am skeptical about the projected reductions in traffic. While proponents of congestion pricing have held out London as a model, there are differing accounts of the effectiveness of London’s congestion pricing scheme. The London Group, the London School of Economic’s center for the study of the city’s economic and social issues, reports that the charge has not radically altered traffic patterns. As a Member of the London Assembly stated, the “congestion charge is a charge on congestion that we once got for free.” My skepticism about purported traffic decreases for New York City was only further heightened by the fact that the survey of travel behavior used to inform decisions for New York City’s plan was conducted in 1997. This reliance on decade-old data, coupled with the absence of a SEQRA review, provided me no assurance that purported traffic reductions would materialize.

6. Congestion pricing would have created a huge new bureaucracy that consumed a substantial portion of anticipated revenues and was likely to necessitate increases in the congestion pricing charge. The City reported that well over 1/3 of congestion pricing revenues would have gone toward operating costs, in addition to the approximately $73 million in capital costs (which the federal money would not cover) and that no fee increases were anticipated. Given that more than 50% of London’s revenues are consumed by operating costs and that their fee has already increased from five to eight pounds ($16) for cars and to 35 pounds ($50) for larger vehicles, the city’s calculations seemed overly optimistic.

7. People from New Jersey, Connecticut and other areas requiring use of a tolled bridge or tunnel were largely exempt from paying the congestion pricing fee since that toll would be deducted from the congestion pricing fee. In this way, many of these commuters would pay no additional fee beyond what they currently pay, while others would pay just an additional dollar or two. If we are seriously interested in decreasing the number of drivers into the congestion pricing area, these commuters must be faced with real disincentives for driving. The fact that they are currently paying high toll fees and increased gas prices signals either that they are financially able and willing to pay increased costs for their preference to commute by car or that they have no other choice because they are underserved by the current mass transit system or have another special circumstance. For example, I was contacted by a constituent who drives each day to his teaching job outside of New York City. If he were to take the subway to the train to a bus, his commute would be nearly 2 ½ hours instead of 45 minutes and would cost substantially more. As a teacher of moderate income, he was very concerned about the additional $2,000 yearly burden he would have faced under congestion pricing.

*_Proposed solutions to congestion and mass transit challenges_*

I believe there are a number of easy to implement actions which could address the issues of congestion and mass transit improvement. Below are some of the solutions which I plan to advocate for.

1. The City’s out-of-control parking permit system is evidenced by the fact that, last year, the City estimated that there were between 15,000 and 30,000 parking placards, then this year admitted that the figure is actually closer to 142,000- or 11 times the number of taxis in the City! These permits- a placard placed on the dashboard- allow for free and often illegal parking in most locations. This figure does not even include what is considered to be a substantial number of fake permit placards. While the City has pledged to make a 20 percent reduction in the number of parking placards, it is crucial that the City do so immediately and work to make an even more substantial reduction. As pointed out in an April 9^th New York Times Op-Ed by Gene Russianoff of NYPIRG’s Straphangers Campaign, this 20% reduction would mean 28,000 fewer daily drivers, which represents more than a third of those that congestion pricing was projected to eliminate. I will advocate for the City to remove a much larger number of permits. It is likely that, by simply eliminating 100,000 parking permits, the number of daily commuters who stop driving would approach the roughly 83,000 that congestion pricing was projected to eliminate.

2. For years, the Lower Manhattan community has advocated for the return of two-way tolls on the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge. Two-ways tolls were eliminated years ago in what was supposed to be a 3 year pilot of an outbound-only toll. So I was skeptical when the Mayor first proposed congestion pricing as a 3 year pilot project and my skepticism proved to be justified when the Mayor’s final plan made no mention of congestion pricing as a pilot program.  Like the Verazzano toll, if congestion pricing did not work as  anticipated, there was the possibility that we would have been  stuck with it. And the one-way Verazzano toll clearly does not work. By charging only outbound cars, it encourages visitors to drive into Manhattan by offering a toll-free trip into the City via the Verazzano and out via the Holland Tunnel, compounding the substantial traffic problems in Lower Manhattan, especially along the Broome Street and Canal Street corridors. I and many residents and advocates strongly believe that returning to two-way tolls on the Verazzano would have a substantial impact on downtown traffic. It is time for the City to join me in making the formal request to Washington for this relief.

3. The City continues to advocate for massive development but fails to properly consider or plan for the consequences of these projects, including the traffic ramifications. Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News aptly wrote, “As for pollution and automobile congestion, there was no problem when Bloomberg wanted to build a new Jets stadium near the Lincoln Tunnel. Nothing to worry about when City Hall was proposing those scores of high-rise luxury condos all over Manhattan, or that huge Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn.” At a time when we all agree that there is too much congestion in Manhattan, why force rapid development that only exacerbates this issue? Smart urban planning requires that growth be managed and that issues like traffic, mass transit and classroom seats be addressed. I will continue to raise these issues around projects planned in my district and advocate for real planning to meet the needs of current and future residents.

4. In addition to increasing oversight of the MTA to ensure that money is spent wisely, there are ways in which additional revenue can be generated to support the mass transit system. For example, residential real estate developers continue to reap huge profits; they should be required to pitch in to meet the needs of the residents they will add to our neighborhoods. To this end, a real estate tax on developers could help fund mass transit expansion. I also believe that the Assembly’s proposal for a tax on million-dollar earners would have been an appropriate means to raise additional revenues for mass transit capital improvements. The less than 1% tax increase could have generated $1.4 billion per year, with much of it dedicated for transit improvements- almost 3 times more revenue than congestion pricing. It also would have been far less risky, since there would be virtually no implementation or administrative costs. It is unfortunate that the Mayor opposed this measure and it is unfortunate that the measure was not included in the budget. I am hopeful that a similar proposal might be negotiated in the future in order to ensure a steady stream of funding for mass transit upgrades.

5. The 13,000 taxis in the City and 40,000 black cars account for more than 40% of vehicle miles traveled in the congestion zone, so efforts to reduce congestion must address them. In addition, almost half of a taxi’s driving time is spent cruising for fares. To address this issue, Sam Schwartz, a respected transportation consultant who served nearly 20 years with the City Department of Transportation, has argued that taking 1,000 taxis off the street will speed up traffic, allowing cabs to drop off and pick up passengers more quickly, while not really making it much harder to hail a cab.

6. In order to load and unload, trucks often double-park or cause other vehicles to double-park, obstructing traffic. Beyond greater enforcement to ensure that cars are not parked in loading zones, new commercial buildings should be required to include off-street loading facilities. Currently, commercial buildings are afforded free use of streets as delivery points. They should instead be required to use their own real estate to create off-street delivery areas.

7. Greater enforcement is needed to prevent parking infractions that slow traffic. Illegally parked black cars which may sit in no-parking zones waiting long periods of time for a client, obstruct the flow of traffic and the ability of trucks to make deliveries. Similarly, taxis and other double-parkers slow down traffic and increase honking and idling, which severely impacts some residents’ quality of life. A greater number of traffic enforcement agents are needed to both direct traffic at key intersections and issue summonses. The Assembly has already moved to address this issue by introducing legislation that would allow traffic enforcement agents to issue tickets for blocking the box, and I am proud to be a sponsor of this measure.

8. Idling traffic can emit up to three times the level of pollutants as moving vehicles. For this reason, it is crucial that there be increased efforts to reduce idling. The large number of commercial establishments and substantial number of major construction projects underway in Lower Manhattan have caused particular problems with idling delivery and construction trucks. There must be greater enforcement of existing idling laws.

9. Buses serve as an important means of transportation for many travelers. Bus rapid transit and other measures for providing dedicated bus lanes, hold great promise for speeding commutes and increasing the efficiency of buses. More needs to be done to implement appropriate measures as soon as possible.

10. While the City has appropriately made efforts to promote cycling, I do not believe that they have been truly committed to making our City bicycle-friendly, as evidenced in comment made by the Mayor last year. At an Albany briefing, I commented that, if we were looking to Europe for congestion-mitigation measures, we should do more to encourage bike commuting. The Mayor responded that Europeans are more accustomed to two-wheel vehicles and Americans to four-wheel vehicles. I believe that there are creative models to encourage bike commuting, including finding ways to ensure that new construction includes space for bike storage and encouraging parking garages to offer secure, low-cost bike parking. Safer bike lanes are also crucial and it was a great disappointment that the efforts of many community members and advocates to have a bike lane included in the reconstruction of Houston Street were rejected by the City.

Many of the above solutions were suggested by advocates or concerned constituents who face the daily frustrations posed by traffic congestion and a troubled mass transit system. Since I know that these issues are of concern to you as well, I invite and encourage you to submit your thoughts to me about the solutions I propose above, as well as share your own ideas for addressing these problems. You may do so via email to _glickd@assembly.state.ny.us <mailto:glickd@assembly.state.ny.us>_ or by mail to 853 Broadway, Suite 2120, NY, NY 10003.

I am hopeful that, working together, we can move forward to find and implement the best solutions to these challenges. Please know that I will be a forceful advocate for such changes.

Sincerely,

Deborah J. Glick

Assemblymember

In a scathing editorial published on Saturday, the Times issued a call for change in the state capital, appealing for more Paul Newells to step forward and run against incumbent pols.

Any New Yorker who is not furious at the mention of their state capital, Albany, has not been paying attention. There are the sex scandals that forced one governor out of office and prompted his replacement to confess more details of his own indiscretions than anyone wanted to hear. The state comptroller quit last year after pleading guilty to misusing public assets. This week an Assembly member was convicted of corruption and faces up to a decade in jail. Angry yet?

The place needs a thorough cleaning -- a giant broom to sweep out the rascals, starting with the State Legislature. We are not in favor of term limits, but the idea gains currency when most people who get elected in New York State keep their seats until they retire, die or go to jail.

The ballot box is still the best form of term limits. So, here is how to change Albany: find and support somebody daring and thick-skinned enough to run against the local legislator.

We are not saying it will be easy. The system is rigged against challengers. It takes money, mostly for lawyers to fight lawyers whose job it is to keep other candidates off ballots. It takes time, energy and patience to fight a system so patently anti-democratic.

One example: the petitions to get on the ballot this year are probably due in early June, but the New York State Board of Elections has not yet posted the official schedule. For the record, state leaders appoint the members of that board.

Still, it is possible to run. And right now is the time to find challengers, especially for members of the Assembly. Albany’s stagnation is at its worst there. The cowardly failure of Democrats -- especially Speaker Sheldon Silver -- to allow a vote on New York City’s congestion-pricing plan was the latest example of why a change, in both parties' delegations, is essential.

At least the competition is intense on the State Senate side where Democrats are challenging the Republicans’ slim majority. Switching to a Democratic majority would at least demote Senate Leader Joseph Bruno, who is under federal investigation and a grand master of Albany’s business as usual. But the Assembly has 150 mostly unchallenged seats, and since this is technically a democracy, each race deserves more than one candidate.

In Manhattan, where the Democratic primary is the election, it is time to challenge even the most established members of the Legislature -- like Assemblyman Richard Gottfried on the West Side or Assemblywoman Deborah Glick. And it is far past time for a serious reformer to challenge Mr. Silver in his Chinatown base.

New York, of course, needs more than a few new faces. The state goes begging for challengers who are genuinely committed to changing Albany’s corrupt ways. Candidates need to promise a real reform of the scandalous campaign finance system, including public financing. And they should pledge their support for a nonpartisan commission to draw legislative districts.

New Yorkers deserve to be mad as hell about Albany, and their best revenge is at the ballot box. All they need now is to find decent candidates.

Streetsbloggers -- know any "decent candidates" you'd like to see take a run at an incumbent next fall?

With the midnight deadline to receive $354 million in federal aid approaching in a matter of hours, now is the last chance to call your representatives in Albany to express your support, no matter where they may stand on the issue. And don't forget, when you call you can have these handy fact sheets at your disposal.

As we learned from reader reports last week, several representatives who seem to be leaning against pricing in the press are in fact uncommitted. Your phone calls today will make a difference.

Every state legislator should hear as often as possible from pricing supporters, but here are a few that Streetsbloggers have identified as fence-sitters, and what our readers heard when they called.

Hakeem Jeffries. Despite signals that he does not favor pricing, the Brooklyn Assemblyman has yet to decide how he will vote:

• "i finally got an email back from Jeffries... in his email he said he was still "keeping an open mind" but that his colleagues in the assembly still had concerns that had to be addressed."

Brooklyn Assemblywoman Joan Millman:

• "Assemblywoman Millman supports the concept of congestion pricing, but is hung up on getting assurances from the mayor about the lock box, transit improvements, and handicap access to subway stations."

Upper West Side Assemblyman Danny O'Donnell:

• "I called O'Donnell's office. The staffer on the phone said he "supports the goals" of CP but "has many questions." I gave my spiel on why we need CP."

Lower Manhattan Assemblywoman Deborah Glick:

• "Called Glick’s office. Was told repeatedly that Glick does not have a position on this issue which is bizarre because all of lower Manhattan would benefit from the reduction of trucks heading over the bridges and into the Holland tunnel."
  

Queens Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan:

• "I spoke to a staff member in Catherine Nolan's office. She said Nolan currently has no opinion."

Yesterday we heard that Assembly Member Deborah Glick's office told a constituent the congestion pricing bill could lead to worsening air quality. (Because, you know, building mass transit infrastructure will cancel out all the particulate pollution that pricing will keep out of the air.)

If Glick ends up basing her decision on that tortured logic, here's a look at what she would deny her district [PDF], according to the Campaign for New York's Future:

• 46 new subway cars, primarily for the E and F lines
• 3 additional buses for the M20/M104 Routes
• 5 additional buses for the M101/102/103 Routes
• 6 additional buses for the M15 Route
• 9 additional buses for the M1/M2/M3/M4 Routes

Those are just the short-term enhancements that will be implemented before congestion pricing goes into effect. (And it's worth repeating that the data comes from CFNY's district fact sheets, an excellent tool to help bolster your argument when you call your reps.)

Glick's district, which falls entirely within the congestion zone, also stands to benefit enormously from the most obvious result of congestion pricing: less traffic. Lower Manhattan will see a 33.2 percent reduction in extreme traffic jams and a 6.4 percent reduction in overall traffic, according to DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.

And it goes without saying that a very small minority of Glick's constituents would actually pay the fee. Only 3.2 percent drive alone outside the zone as part of their commute, according to 2000 Census data.

Brodskyite populist posturing would seem especially out of place in these parts. Only 22.4 percent of households own a car, a low figure even in New York City, and the average income of those households is more than $180,000.

I just called Deborah Glick's office as an outraged constituent to ask why she was not doing more to support congestion pricing, since she represents a swath of Manhattan on the West Side that would certainly benefit from reduced cars, better mass transit, etc.

I spoke to one of her top aides, Theresa Swidorski, who told me that while Glick "has not taken a position," one of her main concerns is the fact that the Congestion Pricing bill is not currently subject to SEQR--the State Environmental Quality Review Act.  http://www.dos.state.ny.us/lgss/seqr.htm

I asked why this should be of such a concern that Glick would risk shooting down the whole Congestion Pricing bill and federal funding for better mass transit. Swidorski responded that Glick's worried any work to expand the subways could "negatively impact the air."

That's right folks: Glick is worried that expanding the subways might "NEGATIVELY IMPACT THE AIR."

"There will be digging, there will be debris," Swidorski said.

Forgoing SEQR, Swidorski added, would set a terrible precedent for state law.

I'm not one to argue for sidestepping environmental reviews. But it would seem to me that the environmental benefits of reducing traffic congestion and expanding mass transit are really a no brainer here. I'm not sure why we have to waste a lot of time and precious capital to verify what we already know--less cars and more mass transit are good for the environment.

Supporters of the environment and Congestion Pricing should call Glick's office and let her know that.

Here's the digits:

District Office: 212-674-5153
Albany Office: 518-455-4841

glickd@assembly.state.ny.us

In District 30, which stretches from the Upper West Side to Washington Heights and includes Harlem, Morningside Heights and Sugar Hill:

• 54.5% commute into the proposed congestion pricing zone for work
  
• 45.5% take transit into the zone
• 2.8% drive alone into the zone
• 79.8% of households do not have a vehicle (average annual income: $38,089)
• 20.2% of households have one or more vehicles (average annual income: $89,390)
• 96.8% would not pay the congestion charge

Along with perks that would be enjoyed by the entire city -- reduced traffic, cleaner air, improved overall transit, funds for livable streets amenities, etc. -- Paterson's former district (where he still lives) would also see a host of bus service upgrades. Among them:

• M1/M2/M3/M4: 9 new local buses
  
• M101/M102/M103: 5 new articulated buses
  
• M98: 10 new express buses
  
• M86: 4 new articulated buses
  
• M104: 3 new local buses
  

Taken on the whole, over half of congestion pricing-related bus service improvements in Manhattan would directly benefit residents of Senate District 30.

The 30th District is now represented by Senator Bill Perkins. I was scheduled to attend a meeting with Perkins on congestion pricing in Albany on Tuesday, but when he didn't show after half an hour I had to head to Deborah Glick's office.

Graph: Tri-State Transportation Campaign

Constituents of Lower Manhattan Assembly Member Deborah Glick have a lot to gain from congestion pricing, but they should not assume their representative will vote for the plan once (or if) it reaches Albany.

Meeting with a group of advocates who traveled from the city yesterday, Glick reeled off a list of grievances, both with pricing and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whom she described as an "out of touch billionaire."

Lawmakers who had issues with pricing as proposed last year were greeted with "arrogance and dismissiveness," according to Glick. "We asked a lot of questions," she said, "we got no answers." Even after innumerable public hearings and the months-long Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission process, which she is in part responsible for, Glick says communication from the city is "only slightly better" now.

If the Bloomberg administration really wanted to raise money, Glick said, it would not offer so many tax breaks for developers. Instead, the mayor is more concerned with building luxury high rises for the wealthy, who she said will constitute the majority of new residents expected to settle in the city over the next two decades. Glick believes the original congestion pricing plan was more about Bloomberg's legacy than a workable program to reduce traffic and fund transit.

But enough about the mayor. Here's what Glick thinks of congestion pricing today:

• The toll credit for New Jersey commuters offers them "no disincentive" to drive.
• The effort to implement pricing without an Environmental Impact Statement is part of a larger plan to undermine reviews for future development.
• The city could have taken 100,000 cars off the streets over the past year via placard reform, had it wished.
• New York could do without 1,000 yellow cabs. And all those double-parked limos.
• Congestion pricing is "lacking in thoughtfulness about real issues," like exemptions for doctor visits, and for health care employees who work from 4 p.m. to midnight, arriving at work too early to avoid the congestion charge and getting off too late to rely on train service.
• The proposed credit card based payment system discriminates against the poor, who will not be able to pay congestion fees as conveniently and who will be most vulnerable to "disgusting and outrageous" late charges.

Despite her misgivings, which don't seem to have changed much since last year, Glick still describes herself as "decidedly on the fence." And unlike most legislators, who -- judging from the chatter among advocates who spent Tuesday working the halls of power in Albany -- don't want to talk about pricing, Glick spoke at length and in detail.

"It's totally in my self-interest to get more money for mass transit," she said.

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.

Thank you for your letter expressing support of the Mayor's congestion pricing plan. As residential development booms and our population continues to grow, it is indeed imperative that we search for new and creative ways to discourage unnecessary vehicular travel and encourage more sustainable modes of transportation. I firmly believe in transportation planning that valorizes walking, cycling and mass transit, by making these modes more attractive and viable so as to decrease the number of car-dependent commuters across the city.

With regard specifically to congestion pricing, the devil is always in the details, which seem to be evolving. Such a plan must include greater ease for bicycles and serious mass transit improvements and I will be investigating the particulars of the plan to see if it will truly help our community. The details of the sensor system have yet to be elucidated and I have concerns about how these will function with regard to alternate side parking so as not to target local residents, most of whom keep a car for occasional weekend travel, as they circle blocks in search of parking spaces. Additionally, I have lingering concerns about imposing charges on small truck traffic, much of which originates as a result of small businesses that were pushed to the outer boroughs and now must bear the brunt of city-imposed displacement as they commute daily into Manhattan for regular deliveries. A $21 a-day tax for former Manhattan small businesses seems steep.

Thank you again for your sharing your views on this vitally important environmental and quality of life issue. I assure you that I will be thoroughly examining the Mayor's proposal and encourage you to contact my office with any further thoughts or concerns you may have.

Sincerely,
Deborah J. Glick
Assemblymember

As promised, members of Manhattan Community Board 2 and Transportation Alternatives held a rally yesterday where many elected officials spoke of the need for improved bicycling and pedestrian facilities on the Interstate Highway in our midst, Houston Street. Eighty years ago, Houston Street was a narrow street not much wider than Prince or Bleecker Streets are today. Since Robert Moses-era widening and reconfiguration, many pedestrians needing two traffic light cycles to cross have sought refuge on an eight-foot median as six or eight lanes worth of cars zoom by. Today, those refuge islands are being reduced in size in an effort to accommodate even more traffic and cyclists are being killed on Houston Street at a rate of about one every six months.

Streetfilms brings you video footage of the rally, including these words from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer:

Everybody who lives in this community knows Houston Street is a highway to hell. It's the death street. Children know it. Seniors know it, and tragically, cyclists know it. We do not need another Queens Boulevard in Manhattan. ... So as Borough President, I will tell you that the No. 1 issue facing Manhattan is traffic congestion, and pedestrian safety. This is a wake-up call to the city. If we don't do something proactive, we're going to have more people die under the crush of large vehicles, and that is totally unacceptable to the people who live in this community, and the people who live in this city, and I'm very pleased to join with this great coalition, and I'm looking forward to participating in a human chain that will make it very clear to the planners that this can be accomplished.

The video also features pointed remarks by State Senator Martin Connor, Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick (at lectern above), Councilman Alan Gerson, Philip Mouquinho of Community Board 2 and Kate Mikuliak representing Councilwoman Rosie Mendez.

To vividly demonstrate what's happening on Houston Street, another Streetfilm looks at the corner of Houston and Broadway, with footage that shows why it makes no sense to remove median space to encourage traffic. Community activist Charle-John Caffero, notes that most of the economic activity generated on Houston Street is from pedestrians, and explains how eight feet of pedestrian refuge island will be reduced,

Leaving pedestrians, which are the majority of street users here, having no space to stand or being able to cross Houston Street because the timing of the light is so short. They inevitably get caught on this pedestrian haven, which at least gives them a little protection. That protection is going to be taken away by DOT.

Mark Gorton of the Open Planning Project, explains a broad result of the creation of the left-hand turning bays:

They think Houston needs more traffic? It needs a lot less! I mean, they're just encouraging more driving.

One block south of Houston Street, Prince Street's one traffic lane and two parking lanes create a vastly different experience. Houston Street was originally laid out to be as wide as Prince Street, but was expanded to its present Interstate Highway width and feel relatively recently. As the New York Times explained in a 2004 article:

Houston's plainness stems from the 1930's, when it was widened to accommodate the digging of the IND subway line, and from the 1960's, when it was laid with a daunting eight lanes of traffic. Until these developments, Houston was just another pleasant crosstown street, the width of a Prince or a Bleecker. In an eerie set of photographs taken in 1929 to record pre-demolished Houston, a girl is shown stepping into shadow, toying with her hair, crossing the street casually near Mercer, the same way a girl might nowadays cross, say, West Broadway.

Contrast that image with the images in the film of clusters of people huddling together on an eight-foot median to avoid being hit by heavy, fast traffic.

The rally is being organized by Ian Dutton, an airline pilot from SoHo who said he is jealous of the great urban transportation systems he sees all the time in cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Dutton said he feels that New York City would benefit from increased cycling safety, even though he does not own a bike (yet, but does own a car). 

Streetsblog is told that three elected officials have said they will rally for the bike lane:

• Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer
• Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick
• Councilman Alan J. Gerson

We also hear that three elected officials have said they support the idea of a bike lane and will send staff members to the rally:

• Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn
• State Senator Tom Duane
• Councilwoman Rosie Mendez

The CB2 group that is sponsoring the rally has set up a website, bikehoustonst.net, which is announcing the following details for the rally:

• Date: Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006
• Time: 4 p.m.
• Location: South side of Houston Street between Greene and Mercer Streets

[UPDATE Sunday, 8/27/06 11:53 a.m.:] Courtesy of Ian Dutton: Add State Senator Martin Connor to the list of elected officials who will attend the rally.