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

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

When the floor opened for questions, many in the full-house crowd of about 80 asked about the fairness of congestion pricing -- wouldn't it run poor drivers off the road while providing a smoother commute for the rich? Komanoff asserted that, for one, most people driving into Manhattan's CBD have higher annual incomes than those who take public transit, so most people paying congestion fees wouldn't be those who could least afford it. He also said that in existing congestion pricing systems, such as California's State Route 91, it has been shown that most drivers choose to pay the fee for situational, not habitual, reasons (for example, taking a sick child to the hospital rather than just wanting to get to work faster every day). This tendency leads to less essential car trips as a group, rather than less wealthy drivers as a group, being cut from the equation.

Also discussed was the notion of reforming the car from its growing status as entitled emotional limb back to simply a method of transport. The panel agreed that the proclivity of old habits to die hard is one of congestion pricing's toughest foes. Zupan iterated that the process will take patience and that people do grow to like new and better systems, but only when they can see them in action.

Talk shifted from the historical and theoretical to the immediate and practical: the what's and how's of congestion pricing for New York City. When asked how taking one in ten cars off the road would make any real difference to gridlock, Zupan responded that the relationship between the number of cars on the road and the amount of congestion is not necessarily linear. For example, he said, when there is a 10% reduction in volume of traffic, there can be up to a 30% gain in space for the remaining cars.

Other points raised included the fact that New York, unlike London, already has a way to track almost three-quarters of its drivers -- through their E-Z Passes -- and that adding a tracking element to the existing technology wouldn't incur nearly the cost that creating and installing all-new tracking systems in the UK has. Therefore, New York City's congestion pricing system might not have to start as high or be raised as much as London's to make equivalent capital gains.

Komanoff outlined his four stopgap measures for the time between the implementation of congestion pricing (and the subsequent swell in numbers of transit riders that might result) and the completion of the Second Avenue subway and East Side Access: 1) drivers can stagger their trips to spread out rush hours, 2) while many subways are currently operating at capacity, MetroNorth and the LIRR are not; they could take more intra-city riders and help relieve subways, 3) there is unused subway track on many lines and being able to use it depends not on politics but on raising money, 4) potential for biking in the city is largely untapped; thinning car traffic would provide a great incentive for more to ride.

Reported by April Greene

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congestion pricing is a terrific and necessary idea, and Mayor Bloomberg deserves great credit for reenergizing the concept. But to have a real chance to work, his plan must be rejiggered - now. It must be simplified in its design and coordinated with proposed fare hikes.

The basics are clear. Across the city, people are fed up with traffic. And they don't want to pay more for transit until it gets better. That's why we should immediately halt the MTA fare and toll hike process so we can determine whether a simpler congestion charging plan could net a reliable $500 million a year for fares and capital improvements.

But that's just the necessary first step to purchase the goodwill of the public. At the same time, Mayor Bloomberg should roll out a much simpler traffic control system that really makes sense to all New Yorkers. The plan that's currently on the table prescribes a needlessly complex infrastructure and demands costly administration and enforcement.

Here's how to fix it. First, ditch the elaborate detection grid. For his three-year trial, the mayor has proposed building a full-scale network with 340 charging stations on Manhattan streets south of 86th St. A grid of E-ZPass sensors and cameras would track and charge cars $8 and trucks $21 to drive into the core of Manhattan during the business day. Trips that begin and end in the charging zone would pay $4 a day. Taxis and through-traffic, which are a large part of the traffic, would be exempt from charges, as would residents moving their cars on street-cleaning days.

Charging cars and trucks to get into the central business district makes perfect sense - but the rest of this scheme would be a logistical nightmare. All trips would be screened and photographed, some many times, and payments and locations recorded, producing a database of great concern to the American Civil Liberties Union - but adding little revenue.

The complication, controversy and confusion are not worth the costs - which would be around $169 million more than the federal government has allotted to install the new technology.

There's an easy alternative that would actually work. New York should capitalize on its bridge and tunnel portals to Manhattan. Close the loophole of the four untolled East River bridges in Brooklyn and Queens - which right now are the source of nearly half the free entries into Manhattan. Install overhead charging monitors on the six inbound bridge spans and set the congestion fee on them so there is no difference with MTA tolls.

Drivers would then no longer clog local streets to find cheaper routes. Research shows that tolls on the four bridges will cut congestion citywide by 9%, which is more than the mayor's 6.4% traffic reduction goal in his Manhattan target zone.

The bigger challenge is how to charge the more than half of drivers who now enter the central business district free from north of 60th St. This traditional northern boundary of midtown provides an elegant line in the sand - and an ideal site to test charging on Manhattan streets. Tolls would be collected only once on the two highways and on the 11 southbound avenues that cross 60th St. These 19 total stations would cost $7 million to install - well within the $10.4 million in federal funds allotted for the pilot. The low operating cost would leave $500 million a year for public transit improvements.

Supporters of the mayor's plan might have one reasonable objection to this idea: How can we also discourage people from driving within the central business district? The answer: Eliminate all free and long-term street parking and charge hefty garage rates at on-street meters.

New York needs congestion pricing. But to succeed, congestion pricing itself needs to be transformed into a more sensible version of the mayor's costly, headache-prone proposal.

Ketcham has more than 30 years of professional experience in traffic engineering. As a New York City official in the early '70s, he authored the nation's first transportation control plan to meet clean air standards.

Thanks to Zupan, Transportation Alternatives and other critics, four fundamental problems with the Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free plan have emerged:

1. Any alternative plan which does not include some form of congestion pricing will forfeit $354.5 million in federal transportation aid -- much of which is dedicated to bus improvements in Brooklyn and Queens.

2. The plan does not address through traffic, which accounts for 39% of driving in the Manhattan CBD. Congestion pricing does.

3. The plan does not address -- and may worsen -- traffic diversions from paid river crossings to free East River and Harlem River bridges, which hurt neighborhoods including Downtown Brooklyn, LIC/Woodside, Harlem and the South Bronx. Congestion pricing directly addresses these traffic diversions.

4. Some of the traffic reducing measures in the plan -- value parking pricing, variable tolls and BRT, for example -- would be far more effective if used with congestion pricing, instead of as a substitute for it. Many of the measures are not "alternatives" to congestion pricing but complements.

Among other problems with the report, the Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free plan applies an "equity double standard":  It harshly criticizes congestion pricing for its pocketbook impact on middle class motorists while ignoring the impacts of value parking, variable tolling and $200 double parking tickets that the plan would impose on these same motorists.

Zupan sums up the "Alternatives" report:

While many of these measures are worthwhile, the report overstates both their traffic reduction impact and their revenue potential. Many of these estimates are speculative, and the costs and difficulties of implementation are largely unaddressed. More importantly, nearly all of these would be far more effective if implemented in combination with congestion pricing.

The full text of Zupan's comments appears after the jump.

Comments by Jeffrey M. Zupan, Senior Fellow for Transportation
October 15, 2007
on “Alternative Approaches to Traffic Congestion Mitigation in the Manhattan Central Business District (October 2007)”
by Keep New York Congestion Tax Free

This report argues for a set of 13 proposals that could reduce vehicles miles traveled and congestion by as much or more than PlaNYC’s proposed congestion pricing pilot program. While many of these measures are worthwhile, the report overstates both their traffic reduction impact and their revenue potential. Many of these estimates are speculative, and the costs and difficulties of implementation are largely unaddressed.  More importantly, nearly all of these would be far more effective if implemented in combination with congestion pricing. The following comments address the specific proposals in the report.

Meter 10,000 now free on-street spaces and charge double the current rate: The report estimates that this action would reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 1.8 to 2.4 percent and increase revenues by $80 to $100 million per year. The report indicates that a 1995 study found that cruising for on-street parking accounts for 15 percent of VMT in west midtown during midday, and they extrapolate this to all day for all of the charging zone, an unsupported assumption. The revenue assumptions are equivalent to each parking space being used fully for 13 hours each weekday, which may be overly optimistic. They do not account for the added cost of meter installation, enforcement, and administration. Conclusion: Traffic impacts are conjectural and net revenue gains are likely to be too high.

Reforming placard use: The report indicates such reform could lead to reductions of “perhaps 2 to 3 percent” and add $50 to $60 million in revenues. They cite Bruce Schaller’s reports on the subject. There are three problems with their analysis. First, they rely on a hypothetical example by Schaller of a 14,000 reduction in cars driven by government employees, i.e. a “what if” not an estimate. But they also say that a review to identify which workers should receive (or keep) placards must be done. There is no certainty that the resulting review would eliminate 14,000 workers from the placard pool. Second, they assume that each worker travels 4 to 5 miles per day within the zone, which is much too high since most of the workers are destined for Lower Manhattan and the vast majority are likely to cross into the zone across the nearby East River, and if they do come from the north use the FDR Drive or West Street. Third, the report takes credit for added revenue as former placard users switch to on-street meters.  This assumption is flawed in two respects: a) it cannot assume that these workers would continue to drive and switch to on-street meters, as many may switch to public transit or off-street parking, and b) the added revenue has already been counted in the on-street meter proposal discussed above. Conclusion: Both the VMT reductions and revenue potential are likely to be much lower than estimated in the report and implementation will be difficult.  

Reduction in taxi cruising: This action is estimated to reduce VMT by “perhaps 2 to 3 percent.”  No revenue potential is assumed. They target a goal of 50 additional cab stands to accomplish this, but do not discuss locations or the difficulty in finding locations where it can make sense from a traffic impact perspective. The report states that cruising accounts for 13 percent of VMT and takes credit for reductions in cruising by 10 to 20 percent, not out of line IF you could install 50 cab stands. Conclusion: Ability to implement is unproven.

Higher taxi fares: A $3 surcharge for trips starting or ending in the zone is suggested, which is estimated to reduce VMT by 1.5 percent. The report points out that taxis are excluded from the current congestion pricing (CP) plan. No revenue gain is assumed for the City. In effect, this is a policy that could also be effectuated through congestion pricing by eliminating or reducing the taxi exemption. There is no discussion of the City’s argument that this could have negative economic impacts, or the political difficulty of getting it enacted. Conclusion: This measure, if included as part of the City’s congestion pricing plan, would increase the revenue potential to be directed toward public transit.

Higher and variable tolls on existing tolls facilities: The report’s proposal is estimated to reduce VMTs by 1.5 percent and bring in $195 million per year. The assumption about these tolls increase is that the added revenue is a substitute for the revenue achieved by the congestion pricing proposal. However, it tries to take credit for expected increases in PA and MTA tolls that have to be made in any case to cover rising operating, maintenance and debt service costs rather than the new money for state of good repair and system expansion that CP would generate. So the revenue cannot be counted as a replacement for congestion pricing revenue. It does raise the unanswered question of whether the CP charge will increase along with tolls.

This proposal also highlights the inequities and inefficiencies of the current system, flaws that congestion pricing would correct. The increase of tolls on current facilities while leaving other entry points free places the entire financial burden on only a portion of drivers entering the CBD. It will also exacerbate congestion in neighborhoods leading to the free crossings as drivers seek to avoid higher tolls. Variable tolls would also be far more effective when combined with congestion pricing. In fact, a study commissioned by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign in August found the largest time saving benefits would be realized if MTA instituted a value pricing program consistent with PlaNYC’s proposed congestion pricing plan. Conclusion: Periodic toll increases cannot be seen as a substitute for congestion pricing, and in the absence of it would be inequitable and lead to more traffic problems, especially in Brooklyn and Queens, not less. Variable pricing is an effective tool that should be implemented along with congestion pricing.

Two-way truck tolls on the VN Bridge are estimated to reduce VMT by 0.1 to 0.2 percent and add $10 million in revenue. These estimates are small and conjectural and the proposal, no matter how sound, will and has received tremendous resistance from Staten Island. Conclusion: This proposal, although a sound one is largely irrelevant as part of a substitute for the City’s Plan.

Increased fines from traffic enforcement are estimated to gain from $75 million to $150 million in revenue annually. At the proposed fine levels, this would require an average of 6,000 summonses a day. It would be useful to know how much of an increase in summonses that represents. The estimates are conjectural and the cost of issuing these summonses is not accounted for. If successful in reducing violations, which is not ensured, the revenues would diminish over time. One cannot take credit for both traffic gains and sustained revenue gains from enforcement measures. Conclusion: In the absence of more analysis, it appears that the revenue estimates are overstated and the enforcement costs understated.

Block the box ticketing is proposed and estimated to gain $15 or to $25 million in revenue based on 300 to 500 additional summonses daily. This is highly conjectural, but like other traffic enforcement measures that issue summonses, even should the program be successful in reducing block the box violations, the revenue gains would diminish over time. Conclusion: The revenue gains are likely to be overstated.

Black car enforcement measures, construction project regulations, traffic signal upgrades, and implementing 511 are proposed but all traffic gains are conjectural and revenue gains, if any, are modest. Conclusion: These measures are useful complements to the City’s CP plan, but traffic and revenue benefits are conjectural and modest.

Added bus and ferry services are assumed to attract 5,000 auto commuters, but this estimated is highly conjectural and unlikely; there will be no financial incentive for drivers to shift, as there is with the congestion pricing plan.  The shift is presented as hypothetical and none of the net added costs associated with these new services are accounted for. Conclusion: The traffic benefits are conjectural and the net revenues are likely to be exceeded by the costs to implement.

The leader of the New Jersey Senate called on New York yesterday to find a seat on its 17-member congestion pricing commission for a representative from New Jersey.

Senate President Richard J. Codey said 250,000 New Jersey commuters a day would be affected if New York approves congestion pricing.

"This is a collective failure on the part of New York's leadership to recognize New Jersey's important role in this decision-making process," he said. "The stakes involved in this process are far too important to be governed by purely parochial political considerations."

Codey yesterday called on New York officials to reconsider the appointments.

"If you're thinking about the regional impact of this, New Jersey should have some say," said Jeffrey Zuppan, senior fellow for transportation at the Regional Plan Association, an independent group. "But the reality is officials in New York are probably not going to think about changing this intricately constructed compromise."

For the Regional Plan Association, Michael Frumin visualized their plan for a rapid transit line in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx that could be built almost entirely on pre-existing rail and would connect with at least twenty existing subway lines. The "Triboro RX", which originated in the 1996 Third Regional Plan, could provide effective transit between these boroughs at a fraction of the cost of most transit projects.

Working with Jeff Zupan and Alexis Perrotta, I helped to develop a possible alignment for the Triboro RX, and a crude estimate of what levels of initial commuter ridership one could expect to see if it were built. At the end of the day, we can comfortably say that at least 76,000 New Yorkers (including 32,000 diverting from other modes of transportation) would use the Triboro RX to get to and from their jobs every day. This number that is quite competitive with many existing lines, and without ever touching the island of Manhattan.

At the heart of our ability to make this estimate is the Journey-to-Work data published by the census -- counts of commuters between every census tract and every other census tract in the city. Given these flow data, the shape of the subway network with and without the Triboro RX, and a rough model of how people make travel decisions on public transportation, it's not so hard to guess which subway riders would use a new transit line if it were built. Estimating new transit riders is more nuanced, but we did our best with limited resources.

To create these transportation models, Frumin used one of The Open Planning Project's software projects GeoServer. Take a look at the fruits of Michael's labor:

• Interactive map of New York City, its subway system, and the Triboro RX
  
• Subway and Triboro RX in Google Earth
• The whole enchilada in Google Earth
  

How would the TRX tie into congestion pricing? The graphic above shows that the TRX would do a great job of providing mass transit to unserved communities in the outer boroughs.

Last December, in announcing the goals of his Long-Term Planning and Sustainability initiative, Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised the terrifying specter of New York City commuters in the year 2030 stuck in an eight-hour "rush hour." This all-day traffic jam would become a reality, the mayor said, if New York City failed to plan for growth.

Just a short bus ride away from the Queens Museum of Art, where the mayor delivered his speech, is Downtown Flushing. There, the ideal of the mayor's Long-Term Planning and Sustainability project is running up against the reality of New York City's current-day development boom.

Though Downtown Flushing is accessible by more than twenty bus lines and the number 7 train, two major new development projects, Flushing Commons and Flushing Town Center, have been planned with the assumption that people will come by car. Flushing Commons, a $500 million project which will include a hotel, retail, and community center, is being built on city-owned property. Flushing Town Center is a combination residential and retail complex whose $600 million cost is being helped along by a variety of state tax breaks. Together, the projects will create a net gain of 3,500 hundred parking spaces in Downtown Flushing, an amount more suitable for a suburban mega-mall than the most transit-friendly neighborhood in all of Queens.

New York has a reputation as a walking and public transportation city, and cutting commute times is one of the goals of the PLANYC 2030 project. Yet the city's recent development boom has included the planning and construction of tens of thousands of new parking spaces, many of which are being paid for by public money. New York City and State are, in essence, subsidizing a parking boom that, some experts say, may ensure decades of automobile dependence and traffic congestion no matter what Mayor Bloomberg's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability has to say about it.

No one seems to know exactly how many new parking spaces are being built across New York City, but Matthew Roth of Transportation Alternatives says he can think of 18,000 spots off the top of his head. The new Yankee Stadium includes 10,000 slots for vehicles, more than doubling the amount of parking per fan at the old stadium. The Bronx Terminal market will offer room for 2,800 cars. And vast, accessible parking lots are a basic element of plans for Atlantic Yards, Ikea, Fairway, Whole Foods, Lowe's and many other developments in Brooklyn. In April 2005, Brian Ketcham and Carolyn Conheim of Community Consulting Services tallied up over 20,000 new parking spaces planned, under construction or already built in and around Downtown Brooklyn (Download their PDF).

While many outer borough Community Boards view new parking spaces as a traffic mitigation, experts say otherwise. "Those new parking spaces result in encouraging more people to drive while at the same time you're trying to eliminate traffic by other means," said Jeff Zupan, a transportation analyst with the Regional Plan Association. "You're working at cross purposes, no doubt about it."

All of this new parking space is necessary, city officials say, because outer borough New Yorkers are more likely to drive where public transportation is not as developed. Even in Flushing, with its wealth of transit, Councilmember John Liu (chair of the council's transportation committee), has fought to keep the cost for parking at Flushing Commons below market rate and to keep the number of new spaces as high as possible, despite studies that show they aren't all needed.

The City Planning Department has long tried to restrict driving in Manhattan's Central Business District by not requiring developers to include parking, putting caps on the amount of parking that can be built, and taxing parking lots. A recent, notable exception is the rezoning of the enormous Hudson Yards area on Manhattan's West Side. City dollars are being spent on extending the 7 train to the area. Still, developers will also be required to build a certain amount of parking based on the size of the buildings they are constructing. These are the first such parking requirements in Manhattan since 1982.

City officials argue that they are simply providing people with a choice by accommodating both public and private transportation. But UCLA Professor Donald Shoup, whose book The High Cost of Free Parking is the most thorough examination of parking ever written, argues that simply offering a choice won't cut congestion.

"Off-street parking requirements encourage everyone to drive wherever they go," he writes, "because they know that can usually park free when they get there." Inexpensive and abundant parking, in other words, creates more traffic congestion. So, how does Mayor Bloomberg square his administration's laudable long-term sustainability goals with the boom in parking that his administration has, in many cases, promoted and subsidized?

Photo: wakejunkie/Flickr

The barriers were often ugly and almost always stole vast tracts of sidewalk space from the public. Meanwhile, their security benefit was usually questionable. While annexing public space from the city's pedestrians the bollards did absolutely nothing to prevent a rental truck filled with explosives from rolling freely into Midtown (a camera-based congestion charging system like London's might help with that, however).

Jeff Zupan of the Regional Plan Association raised the issue here on Streetsblog in July with his short photo series of sidewalk-blocking bollards (here and here). He also wrote an excellent essay, Bombs, Barriers and Bollards for the RPA's Spotlight on the Region newsletter.

Five years after September 11th, the City has responded. Saturday's New York Times reports:

After evaluations by the New York Police Department, the city's Department of Transportation has demanded that many of the planters and concrete traffic medians known as jersey barriers be taken away. So far, barriers have been removed at 30 buildings out of an estimated 50 to 70 in the city.

Officials found that the barriers obstructed pedestrian flow and, in the case of planters, often ended up being used as giant ashtrays. Counterterrorism experts also concluded that in terms of safety, some of the barriers, which building owners put in of their own accord, might do more harm than good.

"Wherever possible, we want to avoid the appearance that the city is under siege or unwelcoming," Iris Weinshall, the city's transportation commissioner said in an e-mail message.

Photo: Jeff Zupan.