Streetsblog New York City

Desperate to look as if they're responding to motorists complaints and prayers, state and federal electeds continue to scramble for a quick fix to ever-rising gas prices.

In Albany, Senate Republicans have adopted the state gas tax "holiday" as their issue of the moment. Since the largely-ridiculed measure is going nowhere in the Assembly, Joe Bruno and colleagues can circulate petitions and distribute mailers like the one above with impunity, scoring cheap political points while accomplishing nothing.

But the diddling in Albany seems innocuous when compared to doings in D.C. Yesterday, with George W. Bush enroute to the Middle East, both the House and Senate overwhelmingly voted to divert oil supplies from the national reserve, even as many lawmakers acknowledged that doing so would at best result in a small, short-term drop in prices at the pump.

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This is the second installment of Streetsblog's interview with Paul Newell, candidate for State Assembly in the 64th District, who's challenging Speaker Sheldon Silver in the Democratic primary this September. In this segment, Newell addresses some of the issues that are fresh in the minds of everyone who followed the death of congestion pricing in Albany without a vote earlier this month. The first part of the interview, about running for office in New York, ran yesterday.

Streetsblog: What made you decide to run? What was the inspiration?

Paul Newell: The inspiration was seeing how Albany's broken and how that impacts
people's lives every day throughout this city and state, and in
particular downtown where I live and work. I've been an organizer for a
lot of years, and increasingly it became clear to me that we are not
going to move forward on new thinking on everything from transportation
to housing and education if we don't have a working system in Albany.
And the reason we don't have a working system in Albany is because of
Sheldon Silver and Joe Bruno.

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Can't wait for someone to challenge Shelly Silver, Deborah Glick, Hakeem Jeffries, Joan Millman and other members of the Albany crew that didn't allow congestion pricing to even come up for a vote? Neither can the New York Times.

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.

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Liz Benjamin at the Daily Politics is reporting that Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno will call a floor vote on congestion pricing today:

Senators on both sides of aisle have received the heads up that the majority is preparing to call a vote on congestion pricing, despite the fact that both Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Minority Leader Malcolm Smith have said they don't have sufficient votes to pass the measure.

This is a departure for Bruno, who has been trying to pin the blame for the delay on Bloomberg's pet project (not to mention its potential demise) on Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, saying the Senate would not move forward until Silver's majority Democratic conference made a decision.

Keep those phone calls coming.

Last week the Queens Civic Congress held an "MTA Capital Plan Forum," where members peddled their commuter tax revival plan to transit chief Elliot "Lee" Sander as an alternative to congestion pricing, which Sander says is vital to the future of his agency.

 
To be fair, the QCC has promoted this idea for several years, long before pricing was introduced by the Bloomberg administration. Here's the QCC in 2005:

Re-instate the Commuter tax after and dedicate this money for transportation infrastructure. If the proposal includes sharing the proceeds with our suburbs, it should pass in Albany. Let the 'burbs keep what their residents pay; New York City will do well with wealthy out-of-staters who live across the Husdon, Connecticut and elsewhere. Double the former rate -- netting $450 million to start, and reaching $1 billion soon.

But it's easy to be cynical when the QCC suggests the city, or the MTA, abandon congestion pricing to get behind the commuter tax. Setting aside the fact that it would do nothing to reduce congestion or VMT and has no environmental or public health benefit, Albany has already rejected it, and did so almost on a whim. Current state legislators Richard Brodsky, Denny Farrell, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver were among those who voted to repeal the tax in 1999.

These guys are still in charge, and no one at the capitol is talking about a commuter tax. There's no reason to believe it would be voted back in. Not even Brodsky, who has elevated anti-pricing rhetoric to an art form, is suggesting a return to the commuter tax to alleviate congestion, preferring a carbon tax and license plate rationing instead.

Besides having no basis in reality, claiming "it should pass in Albany" is a weak nail on which to hang the future of public transportation in New York City. In that light, the QCC commuter tax push should be seen for what it is: another attempt to distract from a plan that would actually reduce traffic congestion while raising critical funds for transit.

Photo, of QCC President Corey Bearak and MTA Executive Lee Sander, by Bruno DeFranceschi via Queens Civic Congress

Congestion Mitigation Commission chairman Marc Shaw has a big job ahead of him.

Newsflash from Crain's New York: Congestion pricing is politically challenging: While I don't think any Streetsblog reader will be shocked by that big scoop, there are still some interesting tidbits in here. The Traffic Mitigation Commission has a new mandate, Greg David writes: "Save the mayor's plan by modifying it." If nothing else, I suppose this means that opponents have to stop calling the Commission a "sham" now. The Crain's story is available online only to subscribers. Here it is in full:

When the state legislature created a panel in June to review Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, his aides claimed victory. They maintained that a majority of members would be appointed by officials who back the scheme. The thinking was that the panel would endorse congestion pricing, and show that the alternatives would neither reduce traffic enough nor raise large sums for mass transit. The City Council and the Legislature would then ratify that conclusion.

So much for the fix being in. Today, the plan is in deep trouble. Details emerging about the cost and the onerous implementation are worrying even the plan's supporters. The mass-transit bonanza is now pegged at as little as $100 million a year, a far cry from the almost $400 million initially promised. Polls show public support declining. And the political calendar isn't favorable; a vote on the plan is scheduled a mere eight months before legislators face the voters themselves.

Now the panel has a new mandate: Save the mayor's plan by modifying it. The members may have to do so despite the mayor. Earlier this month, after Crain's reported on the revisions being considered, he seemed to dig in his heels to defend his original proposal. Maybe he hadn't been briefed on recent developments.

Marc Shaw, the former top deputy mayor who is in charge of the review, understands the new reality. He has three major objectives: Co-opt as many opponents as possible by adopting some of their alternatives, reduce the enormous administrative cost, and greatly increase the money generated for mass transit.

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Though reporters weren't invited, Streetsblog managed to get a stringer into this morning's On-and-Off-the-Record transportation policy talk with Congressman Anthony Weiner at Commerce Bank in Midtown.

During the hour-long Q&A hosted by Edward Isaac-Dovere of City Hall News, Weiner hit on familiar themes:

• Something needs to be done about traffic but the mayor's plan is too costly.
• Though low and middle income New Yorkers overwhelmingly travel into Manhattan via transit, Weiner pounded away at the idea that congestion pricing is unfair to the city's middle class and would hit city residents harder than suburban commuters.
• Rather than imposing a fee to drive into Manhattan's Central Business District, he would opt for improved transit and ferry service, higher truck tolls and better enforcement of blocking-the-box regulations.
• He says that he would pay for these improvements with a federal gas tax increase.
  

While Weiner believes, "The Mayor got the solution wrong," he praised Bloomberg for being "innovative" and appeared to back off a bit from total opposition to pricing.

"There is a version of congestion pricing that will work," Weiner said. "My plan has 'congestion pricing' by increasing tolls and increasing parking fees." Unfortunately, this is probably not a version of congestion pricing for which the federal government will grant $354.5 million in start-up funds.

About 75 people showed up to the breakfast event including Queens Civic Congress president Corey Bearak, Northern Manhattan Council member Robert Jackson, the Durst Organization's Jordan Barowitz and an assortment of advocacy people from Transportation Alternatives, Tri-State Transportation Campaign and the newly-formed SWIM Coalition.

The event started with "on-the-record" questions from Isaac-Dovere and "off-the-record" questions from audience members. Here, in reporter's notebook format, are a bunch of Weiner's responses to both sets of questions:

• When asked about his theory that the Bloomberg Administration has purposely ordered the NYPD not to enforce traffic regulations to aid the passage of its congestion pricing plan, he ducked the question.

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Up to now, State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno has been a supporter of Mayor Bloomberg's proposal for a congestion pricing pilot project. There is no reason to believe that has changed. Yet, he strikes a slightly ominous note in today's Daily News article on the proposed MTA fare hike.

"The people who travel around are taxed enough. We have got to prioritize the use of our state resources to minimize the expense and the impact on the people who come into the city and work in the city," said Bruno.

A couple of weeks ago Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Spitzer, Senate Leader Bruno and Assembly Speaker Silver agreed to a process that would lead to the formation of a 17-member commission that would evaluate and decide on New York City's congestion pricing proposal.

The deal laid out a very specific timeline by which the process would move forward. One of the first big milestones on that timeline was today's date, August 1. That is date on which the Mayor shall "submit the traffic mitigation plan." Here is how it was laid out in the deal summary:

NYC is authorized to present and implement a detailed congestion pricing plan to address traffic congestion within a zone of severe traffic congestion in Manhattan. Such plan shall include (a) the geographic area to be covered; (b) the proposed dollar amount of any congestion pricing fee; (c) the technology to be used to implement such pricing plan; and (d) the number and scope of exemptions granted from such fee requirements. The Mayor shall submit the traffic mitigation plan by August 1, 2007.

Is the Mayor supposed to submit his plan to the 17-member commission? If so, where is the commission? Or does he just have to submit it to the State Legislature and City Council for now? Is the City still on track to meet the August 1 milestone? I've got some phone calls in to various sources. If you know what's going on, drop a line to tips@streetsblog.org or the comments section.

Below is a summary of the congestion pricing deal struck this afternoon by Governor Spitzer, Mayor Bloomberg, Assembly Speaker Silver and Senate Leader Bruno.

The 17 member congestion pricing commission is made up as follows:

3 appointees -- Mayor
3 appointees -- Governor
3 appointees -- City Council
3 appointees -- State Senate majority leader
3 appointees -- State Assembly speaker
1 appointees -- Senate minority leader
1 appointees -- Assembly minority leader

SUMMARYOF CONGESTION PRICING LEGISLATION

· NYC is authorized to present and implement a detailed congestion pricing plan to address traffic congestion within a zone of severe traffic congestion in Manhattan. Such plan shall include (a) the geographic area to be covered; (b) the proposed dollar amount of any congestion pricing fee; (c) the technology to be used to implement such pricing plan; and (d) the number and scope of exemptions granted from such fee requirements. The Mayor shall submit the traffic mitigation plan by August 1, 2007.

· NYC may not impose or collect any fee for traveling into or within designated zone unless the implementation plan has been approved by the State Legislature by March 31, 2008 and signed into law by the Governor, pursuant to a request from the Mayor that the State Legislature consider such plan where such request has been approved by the City Council.

· A NYC Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission shall undertake a review and study of the issues related to the implementation of the plan submitted by NYC. It may also review and study other plans to reduce traffic congestion and other related health and safety issues. The Commission shall have 17 members comprised of appointees by State and City officials.

· The Commission shall conduct hearings, take testimony and review information and proposals regarding traffic congestion. It shall issue to the Governor, State Legislature, the Mayor and City Council recommendations with respect to the details of implementing the plan submitted by the Mayor and other such proposals. These recommendations shall constitute "the implementation plan". The implementation plan must provide at least the same level of traffic mitigation, as measured by the 6.3% reduction in average vehicle miles traveled, as proposed in the traffic mitigation plan submitted to US DOT on June 22, 2007.

· The Commission shall approve by a majority vote its implementation plan and submit such plan to the Governor, State Legislature, the Mayor and City Council by January 31, 2008. The State Legislature shall consider such implementation plan by March 31, 2008.

· By October 1, 2007, the MTA shall submit comments on the Mayor's plan as well as (a) a description of the additional capital needs required for implementation; (b) proposed utilization of any potential revenue derived from such plan for such capital needs; and (c) the impact of such revenue upon the authority's capital and operating budgets.

· By March 31, 2008 (an 18-month acceleration), the MTA shall submit a capital program for the period covering July 1, 2008 through December 31, 2013.

· This legislation will expire on June 30, 2012. It shall also expire if US DOT does not commit at least $250 million in funding prior to October 1, 2007, except that the expiration and repeal shall not occur if the US DOT commits at least $200 million prior to October 1, 2007 and NYC commits prior to December 31, 2007 an amount equal to the difference between $250 million and the amount committed by US DOT.