Streetsblog New York City

The Observer reports from last night's G Train rally, organized by Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries:

Almost 100 G riders kicked off a month-long campaign to increase service on the "forgotten stepchild" of the New York subway system, as Mr. Jeffries and others have called it.

"It's important to increase the intensity of the public campaign," Mr. Jeffries said, "to stress to the M.T.A. that G train service enhancements are absolutely necessary."

The story does not mention the disconnect between Jeffries' words and his deeds, perhaps in part because the Assemblyman felt it necessary to tightly orchestrate the proceedings. Streetsblog reader Maxwell Ciardullo tells us that, when he approached Jeffries' chief of staff prior to the event, she asked him not to bring up congestion pricing. Ciardullo popped a question at the end of Jeffries' speech anyway, but the Assemblyman quickly ushered him aside. More from his account after the jump.

From today's Crain's Insider:

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, who is holding a rally this evening for better G train service, is drawing fire from transit advocates because of his opposition to congestion pricing. Streetsblog commenters plan to confront him at the rally. "Simply because one did not support the mayor's version of congestion pricing does not mean we shouldn't do everything possible to improve mass transit," Jeffries says.

"The mayor's version." One supposes this leaves open the possibility that there is some version of congestion pricing that Hakeem Jeffries wouldn't have opposed. But despite their attempts to pawn off the coming transit finance crisis on Mayor Bloomberg, Assembly Democrats killed a version of congestion pricing that differed markedly from the mayor's original plan. The final bill reflected the recommendations of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, which, lest anyone forget, was created with Albany's blessing.

This Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., Hakeem Jeffries, staunch opponent of congestion pricing, will stand on the steps of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene and call for increased service on the G train. As Streetsblog noted last week, this move reeks of cynical pandering from someone who had ample opportunity to stand up for transit riders mere weeks ago, but chose to obstruct $4.5 billion in MTA funding instead.

Judging from the response to that post, a counter-protest could be brewing. Might the Brooklyn Assemblyman regret grandstanding on this particular issue? If anyone is planning to go to the event to challenge Jeffries, hand out flyers, ask tough questions, hold up signs, or otherwise call attention to the hypocrisy of his speech, shoot us an email.

From Transportation Alternatives' Spring 2008 magazine:

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.

How cynical is this? Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries is calling on the MTA to increase service on the G train. His office just sent out an invitation to a "Save the G Train" rally on Wednesday, May 21 at 6:30 pm at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene.

Hakeem Jeffries was, of course, in the perfect position to negotiate G train service enhancements during the congestion pricing debate a couple of months back. Instead, the Assemblyman who oversees Flatbush Avenue, the traffic-choked on-ramp to the free Manhattan Bridge, aligned himself with legislators from Westchester, south Brooklyn and eastern Queens against congestion pricing:

Speaking on behalf of a district where 70 percent of households do not own a car, where only 2.2 percent of daily commuters drive alone to work in the pricing zone, where the households that do own a vehicle earn nearly twice as much as the ones that don't, Jeffries said that he opposes congestion pricing because, among other reasons, "it's unfair to working families."

Thanks, in part, to Jeffries and his State Assembly colleagues' refusal to hold a debate or take a vote on New York City's congestion pricing plan, the MTA is staring at a $17.5 billion deficit in its $29 billion capital plan and service increases are about as unlikely as ever. "Save the G" advocates need to hold Jeffries accountable.

Here, by the way, are some of the other improvements that working families (and everyone else) in Jeffries' district lost when he and his colleagues shot down congestion pricing:

We've said it before and we'll say it again: Congestion pricing is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enact progressive transportation policy for New York City.

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.

The Campaign for New York's Future has some handy fact sheets on the transit upgrades outlined in the MTA 2008-2013 Capital Plan, broken down by city and state electoral districts. Since many of these projects will be threatened without the hundreds of millions in annual revenues expected from congestion pricing, some legislators may need to be reminded of what's at stake.

Take Hakeem Jeffries. The Brooklyn assemblyman reportedly has no position on pricing at the moment, but not so long ago he stood with Richard Brodsky in support of the Westchester pricing foe's $6.50 taxi drop charge "alternative."

In addition to system-wide and Brooklyn-specific improvements, here is just some of what residents of Jeffries' district stand to lose without pricing:

• 33 new buses on the B41 line
• Structural overcoating on the B and Q lines between Prospect Park and Sheepshead Bay
• Upgrade of the PA systems in the Bedford-Nostrand, Classon, Clinton-Washington and Fulton Street stations on the G line
• Flooding improvements for the Crosstown Line
• An 8.1% to 22.1% percent reduction in traffic jams

Check your district fact sheets to see what's on the block in your neighborhood. And if you haven't called your reps already, now is the time to pass this information on.

Assembly Democrats met behind closed doors last night to gauge their collective sentiment on congestion pricing. According to the Post, only seven of the 36 legislators who spoke during the meeting expressed support, but the one who matters most, Shelly Silver, remains uncommitted: 

Silver, who has not voiced a public position on the issue, said the meetings will continue today, and he refused to declare the plan dead.

Meanwhile, Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco has proposed that pricing be attached to the budget, the Daily Politics reports, which would make it tougher to vote down. But on this count, Silver's position is already well-known.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver reportedly is vehemently opposed to including congestion pricing in the budget, and has said he doesn't want to deal with this issue at all until after the budget is passed.

After the jump, a collection of quotes from lawmakers following last night's meeting.

De Blasio, Jeffries, Gerson, Millman: Will they tarnish their environmental records by voting against pricing?

The New York League of Conservation Voters announced earlier this month that it is forming a new political action committee called Climate Action PAC. Sitting at the top of the PAC's legislative agenda: getting congestion pricing passed.

When it comes to climate impact, said NYLCV spokesman Dan Hendrick, "congestion pricing is the most sweeping proposal on the table; it's head and shoulders above the rest of what's out there." The Climate Action PAC will spend about $300,000 on elections this fall (you can donate online), to be divvied up among six races for seats in the state Legislature, Hendrick projects. Pricing votes will also be the number one factor that NYLCV considers in making its next round of endorsements for state legislators and City Council members.

"We've signaled that this congestion pricing legislation could give us a quantum leap in terms of improved mass transit and cleaner air," said Hendrick. "We're not only going to weigh this heavily when making endorsements, but how people vote on congestion pricing will weigh very heavily in how we use the PAC money."

On balance, speakers at last night's traffic mitigation hearing in Brooklyn delivered a pro-pricing message -- a strong one if you discount the politicians who said their piece and left the auditorium before their constituents got to the mic.

About 60 people came to Medgar Evers College in Crown Heights and weighed in on the five options presented in the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission's interim report. It quickly became clear that the evening was really a referendum on the two pricing proposals in the report; none of the other options were viewed as viable. By the time it was over, half the audience had testified before commission members Elizabeth Yeampierre, Andrea Batista Schlesinger, and Gene Russianoff. (Richard Brodsky, who came to the Brooklyn hearing instead of the one closest to his Westchester district, left before it ended and missed several pieces of testimony.)

Most encouraging for pricing advocates: Several residents without any group affiliation testified, expressing a unanimous desire for better transit, cleaner air, and safer streets. Congestion pricing, they said, was the surest means to achieve those objectives. (Noah Budnick of Transportation Alternatives emailed us to report that pro-pricing speakers out-numbered anti- in the Bronx and Queens as well.)

But first the elected officials spoke, leading off with Congressman Anthony Weiner. In his allotted four minutes, he repeated the canard that congestion pricing is a conservative ploy to enact a "radical change and reduction in the amount of [federal] transit funding we receive." Then Council Member Lew Fidler and Assemblymen Hakeem Jeffries, Vito Lopez, Alan Maisel, and Alec Brook-Krasny each took a turn to bash both pricing proposals (their most common refrain: "too Manhattan-centric").

The one semi-exception among electeds was Council Member Tish James...

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