Streetsblog New York City

It's the New Math: a dollar-a-trip rise in the cost of fuel for a car trip to Manhattan is cutting traffic almost as much as Mayor Bloomberg's eight-dollar toll plan would have done.

Too good to be true, right? But that's the slant of the front-page headline in today's Times, "Politics Failed, but Fuel Prices Cut Congestion":

Soaring gas prices and higher tolls seem to be doing for traffic in New York what Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's ambitious congestion pricing was supposed to do: reducing the number of cars clogging the city’s streets and pushing more people to use mass transit.

The article reports that traffic on MTA bridges and tunnels within the city and the Port Authority's Hudson River crossings was down this spring by 4-5 percent compared with a year ago -- within hailing distance of the 6.3 percent drop sought by the mayor's plan.

Good news, but how much of the decline is due to the price of gas and how much to the toll increases that took effect around the same time?

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Rendering of the preliminary design for Lakeside Center in Prospect Park.

A new Prospect Park skating rink and recreational facility will come with a smaller parking lot and improved bike access, reports neighborhood blog Hawthorne Street. The plan to re-design the southeast area of Brooklyn's flagship park, unveiled at a public meeting this Monday, will also restrict car access at one entrance, but stops short of doing away with the current rink's parking lot altogether. It remains to be seen whether the re-design will address the hazardous entrance at Parkside and Ocean.

A full report on how streets may be altered, courtesy of Hawthorne Street's Carrie McLaren, comes after the jump.

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Only three days remain until 20 percent of government parking placards must be surrendered, but as Gridlock Sam wrote here last month, that should be just the beginning of placard reform. Case in point: Uncivil Servants featured a story last week of an Upper East Side synagogue that manufactures its own bogus placards while the 19th Precinct turns a blind eye and infamous Community Board 8 lends a hand. Uncivil Servants reports that employees of the Park East Synagogue on East 68th Street have been getting away with the printing of homemade placards since the attacks of September 11, 2001:

The original baloney excuse for their parking was terrorism following 911 but the truth is they have used the tragedy of 911 as an excuse to get a free parking perk at the expense of the community. The signage by the way is either NO STANDING or NO PARKING 7AM - 7 PM. The location of this abuse is East 68th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues on both the South and North side of the street where typically you will find 8 to 10 of Park East employees' personal vehicles parked all day using bogus xeroxed placards.

Post columnist David Seifman picked up the story on Sunday, writing that the synagogue has agreed to gradually reduce -- but not eliminate -- its use of false permits, in a scheme brokered by Community Board 8:

"After a very lengthy and detailed discussion, [Park East] agreed to the recommendation that they reduce the number of placards to eight by the end of June 2008, then decrease by four by June 2009, and two the following year, until the number of placards in use is reduced to two by June 2010," said the e-mail from Assistant District Manager Latha Thompson.

City Councilman Dan Garodnick (D-Manhattan) told The Post the community board was way out of bounds. "It's unacceptable for individuals to be generating their own parking placards," he said.

Seifman also reports that Park East director Joel Baum offered an alternative explanation for the placards. Baum says they are used by teachers at the synagogue who are following the example set by the city's public school teachers. More proof that once one group claims a special privilege, the circle of entitlement tends to widen.

Photo: Dick Tracy / Uncivil Servants

The following was contributed by Samuel I. Schwartz, AKA Gridlock Sam.

Mayor Bloomberg correctly recognizes that reining in city workers' parking privileges is a pre-requisite to congestion pricing. But his goal of 20 percent is too modest, and he should know it's easier to do than it looks. Believe me I know; I led the effort to reduce government parking under Mayor Koch in the 1980s, even under threat of arrest. Here's what Mayor Mike needs to do in 2008 under my ten-step plan:

1. Set up a triumvirate to review every permit application. Put DOT, NYPD and the Mayor's Office on the team, an NYC parking version of "checks and balances."
2. Publish the names and civil service titles of every placard recipient. A small number belonging to undercover officers would not be revealed, but their number would be published to ensure no significant changes without explanation.
3. Establish just two recognized machine scannable permit types: 'Law Enforcement' and 'Agency.' Include State and Federal Permits into the mix. Currently, I estimate around 75 different permits, some of which are phonies.
4. Ticket first, ask questions later. If a car has a permit and is in violation, tag it. Let the recipient pay or argue his or her case before the triumvirate.

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Gridlock Sam warns of widespread "pedlock and "traffic wrath" today. Not helping matters was this morning's NASCAR Victory Lap around Times Square, conveniently timed to coincide with the morning rush.

Times Square will serve as one big pit stop for NASCAR's annual Victory Lap Wednesday, starting at 44thSt. between Broadway and Sixth Ave. and proceeding via the following route: 44th St., Broadway, 42nd St., Madison Ave, 53rd St. and Seventh Ave./Broadway, and ending between 43rd and 42nd Sts. outside the Hard Rock Cafe. Between 8:30a.m. and 9:30a.m., there will be rolling closures on the above streets, with 44th St. closed from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. Traffic will be affected throughout the day.

Fear not, New York City, 2007 may very well be the last year of NASCAR's annual Midtown celebration of laundry detergent, motor oil and the lunacy of American car culture. Tom Bowles at Sports Illustrated writes: 

After 27 years in the Big Apple, strong rumors persist that this week-long celebration at the Waldorf will be NASCAR's last; the event appears ready and raring to shift to the bright lights of Vegas for 2008 and beyond.

On paper, it seems a smart move; with a race track already nearby and the shrewd promotion of octogenarian track owner Bruton Smith, the city will doubtless embrace NASCAR with open arms.

"I think we've worn out our welcome in New York," said Smith

Correct.

Photo: Photo Gallery / Flickr

As if we didn't already know it, last week's Traffic Mitigation Commission hearings revealed that opposition to Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan among outer borough and suburban legislators may very well be intractable. Even in traffic-crushed districts where one would almost certainly find a majority in favor of some form of congestion pricing, we didn't see a single state legislator willing to stand up for the Mayor's plan. While support for congestion pricing was surprisingly strong among citizens and civic groups that showed up to testify, elected representatives' timidity was no surprise. As a Transport for London spokesman told me a while back, "If congestion pricing had to go through a legislative process it probably wouldn't have happened."

Enter Sam Schwartz to break the political gridlock. New York City traffic guru, consultant and former DOT Traffic Commissioner calls himself a "strong proponent" of Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing efforts. Schwartz is quietly shopping around a variation on City Hall's traffic plan that he believes could generate "broad-based support" and serve as the basis for a "good potential compromise" between congestion pricing advocates and their outer borough and suburban opponents.

Schwartz's plan, which you can download here, is based on the premise that New York City's overall road pricing scheme is irrational, dysfunctional and makes very little sense from a traffic management perspective:

Adding to the dysfunction, Schwartz notes, is the fact that four separate agencies manage the city's traffic and control the region's transportation funds: The Port Authority, MTA Bridge & Tunnel, and the City and State Departments of Transportation.

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In today's Daily News, former New York City Deputy Traffic Commissioner "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz says congestion pricing should "proceed now" and offers four additional ideas for creating a little breathing room on Manhattan's streets:

One way to reduce congestion is to reduce the number of taxis - permanently. I did the math when I was traffic commissioner and found that the optimum number of taxis was just under 12,000. We now have more than 13,000. With taxi medallion prices at $400,000, it would be too heavy a lift to buy back 1,000 medallions all at once. Instead, the city should purchase 100 medallions a year over 10 years.

There's a second kind of vehicle that's overpopulated on our roads, with more than 40,000 all over the city: black cars, or so-called limousines. The mayor's congestion pricing plan excludes them. It's time to create a black car medallion to 1) reduce those numbers and 2) generate the funding to buy back taxi medallions.

The third big troublemaker is the through truck, or trucks with neither origin nor destination in Manhattan's central business district. Our current pricing scheme - double tolls to go out via the Verrazano Bridge and no tolls to drive through downtown and midtown - encourages truckers to clog many key arteries inside the city. More than 10,000 trucks a day are doing this. We must do two things: 1) bring back two-way tolls on the Verrazano Bridge and 2) charge through trucks $100 for the privilege of using streets and avenues in central Manhattan.

Finally, we need to curtail "privileged" parkers. I estimate that some 150,000 government workers either park free in reserved spaces or just plain park illegally. That blocks access to curbs - and causes a chain reaction of other problems. Privileged parkers contribute to about 8% of the traffic downtown, and add far more than that share to congestion because of their "piggish" behavior of blocking bus stops, bus lanes and even hydrants. I haven't seen conditions this bad in 25 years.

Yesterday we put forth the argument that fastest, cheapest, easiest and most symbolically rich way for Mayor Bloomberg to initiate his new green agenda for New York City would be to make Central Park car-free during the summer of 2007.

Last fall, in a wide-ranging interview with Open Planning Project executive director Mark Gorton, New York City transportation expert "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz explained how eliminating cars from the Central Park Loop Drive will not result in long-term traffic nightmares for the surrounding neighborhoods or NYC in general.

Schwartz served as NYC's Commissioner of Traffic from 1982-86 and is a former Chief Engineer/First Deputy Commissioner at the NYC DOT. He also writes a daily transportation column for the Daily News.

From a recent Gridlock Sam column in the Daily News:

Dear Gridlock Sam:

I received a summons for driving the wrong way in a one-way street. I do admit that I made a wrong turn in a one-way street, and when I did reach the end of that street I resumed driving correctly. I remember reading somewhere that, according to traffic laws, a driver is allowed, if by accident, to continue driving the wrong way in that street, as long as you don't continue going the wrong way on the next turn street. Should the officer have issued me that summons if this traffic law is true?

-- Carlos, via e-mail

Dear Carlos:

If you drive the wrong way on a street, you're subject to a summons immediately, no matter what you do next! The only time you're given a second chance is with an equipment violation (i.e. broken light), and you get it fixed by the next day.

-- Gridlock Sam

Photo: Pellet13 on Flickr

With DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall set to depart city government in three weeks, sources say that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is close to announcing her replacement. The Mayor's choice will have a profound impact on day-to-day neighborhood life as well as the City of New York's long-term future. Though the DOT commissioner job search has barely been covered by the local press, this may very well be one of the most important decisions of the last 1,000 days of the Bloomberg Administration.

Last week, Annie Karni of the New York Sun reported that Janette Sadik-Khan and Michael Horodniceanu are the top two candidates for the job. Sources quoted in Karni's article described Sadik-Khan as the "people-first" candidate and Horodniceanu as "cars-first." While that characterization is, clearly, an oversimplification, there is no question that the two candidates present Mayor Bloomberg and the City of New York with two very different options.

On the one hand, there is Sadik-Khan, 46, a senior vice president at the planning and engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff. During the Dinkins Administration, Sadik-Khan (left) was the director of a now-defunct New York City department called the Mayor's Office of Transportation, which was responsible for long-term transportation planning and the coordination of the various agencies and authorities with power over New York City transportation policy and infrastructure. (Rudy Giuliani disbanded the office.)

In her municipal capacity, Sadik-Khan was the liaison to the MTA and the overseer of the Port Authority's Airport Access Plan, the development of the Farley Post Office Rail Station and a 42nd Street light rail plan that nearly came to fruition. With the Second Avenue subway, Bus Rapid Transit, the Fulton Street transportation hub and a number of other mega-projects planned, underway or envisioned, New York City government is once again in need of an individual with the ability to coordinate the work of disparate agencies and, as Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff said last week, think in "bold and creative" terms about what is possible for New York City transportation policy.

Sadik-Khan, who declined to be interviewed for this article, brings expertise in transit and land use, finance, and communications. She is intellectually curious and in touch with her field's global innovators. An editorial board member of NYU Rudin Center's New York Transportation Journal, Sadik-Khan recently published interviews with Bogota's Enrique Penalosa and Copenhagen's Jan Gehl. She was a driving force behind the Partnership for New York City's congestion pricing study, Growth or Gridlock. Mayor Bloomberg knows that she is qualified for the job. According to "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz, in 2001 Sadik-Khan was the Bloomberg administration search committee's top choice for DOT commissioner -- before the Mayor decided to stay with Giuliani's transportation chief, Iris Weinshall.

Sadik-Khan has professional transportation experience on the federal, state and local levels and a law degree from Columbia University. But her biggest and most important qualification for the DOT Commissioner's job is what is not on her resume. Sadik-Khan is not a traffic engineer.

Horodniceanu, on the other hand, is.

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