Little-known fact: Lew Fidler's bill also requires the city to notify community boards before a bike lane is removed. Photo of Bedford Avenue bike lane erasure: Elizabeth Press

“Our legislation will ensure the Department of Transportation works with community boards and fully considers feedback from neighborhood residents on where, and how, bicycle lanes are installed,” Quinn said in a statement.

This is kind of like bragging about legislation that ensures the Department of Sanitation will pick up the trash. The city already brings bike lane proposals to community boards. The past few years have produced a long record of community board votes in favor of safer streets, as well as a few that went in favor of the status quo. With or without this bill, the bike lanes are going in where the community boards sign off on them.

Defending the need for the legislation, Vacca told NY1, “I don’t think it’s anti-bike to make sure that local neighborhoods have input as to where bike lanes go.”

Can’t argue there. Having a public process for bike lane installation is not anti-bike. What’s anti-bike is to imply that the recent expansion of bike lanes has somehow lacked sufficient public input, which is the message that comes across from the coverage of this bill.

It’s also strange that the City Council thinks it’s necessary to mandate notification for all bike lanes, but not for all changes to motor vehicle lanes. If the city wants to carve out some left-turn bays from a pedestrian median, for instance, there’s no law requiring a public hearing.

So yeah, it’s anti-bike to grandstand about the imaginary problem of community input on bike lanes when the council could be focusing on real transportation problems like the MTA debt bomb, obscenely wasteful subsidies for stadium parking, or NYPD’s refusal to disclose information on traffic crashes.

In any case, Quinn, Vacca, and Fidler missed their chance to boast about the real innovation in this bill. It requires the city to inform community boards before any bike lane is removed:

…at least ninety days before the construction or the removal of a bicycle lane is to begin, the department shall notify each affected council member and community board via electronic mail of the proposed plans for the bicycle lane within the affected community district and shall offer to make a presentation at a public hearing held by such affected community board.

From now on, City Hall can’t make political bargains to rip out bike lanes without telling the affected community board and council member first. Whether the local CB and council member act on that information to notify the broader public seems to be up to them. So the bill isn’t quite a failsafe against future surprises like Bedford Avenue and Father Capodanno Boulevard, but it is a step forward.

NYC DOT has not opposed the bill, and the mayor is expected to sign it into law.

Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca. Image: CBS 2

The City Council Transportation Committee held hearings on three bills today, each of which would add more requirements to the Department of Transportation’s review process for street redesigns, especially bike lanes.

For the most part, the bills codify what DOT already does: present bike projects to community boards, coordinate with other agencies before implementation, and report back on the results.

Intro 412, sponsored by Lew Fidler, would require community board hearings on all bike lanes at least 90 days before construction. (An existing law already mandates CB hearings prior to the installation of most bike lanes.) Intros 626 and 671, both sponsored by committee chair James Vacca, would require DOT to consult with other city agencies before undertaking a major transportation project and mandate the release of safety and traffic speed data for those projects. Each of the three bills would amend Local Law 90, which the council passed at the end of 2009, requiring DOT to go to community boards for all projects that add or remove a travel or parking lane for more than four blocks.

DOT only opposed one of the bills. “We agree with the idea behind Intro 671,” said Deputy Commissioner for External Affairs David Woloch, “but we also believe that since each project DOT conducts is unique, it requires a customized data collection plan.” Woloch said that Gale Brewer’s Local Law 23 of 2008, which created the agency’s Sustainable Streets Index, was preferable in that it maintained the needed flexibility of measurement. During the hearing, Vacca did not spend significant time discussing this bill or pushing back on DOT; he focused on the other two pieces of legislation instead.

The other two bills merely codify existing department practices, Woloch said, adding that DOT already goes to community boards for all bike lane projects, as Fidler’s bill would require. “This process has been successful in gaining community understanding and support for bicycle lane projects,” he said. DOT also already consults with NYPD and FDNY on all street redesigns and works with the Department of Small Business Services and Mayor’s Office for People With Disabilities on more general policy issues. While Woloch said that DOT would need to see some minor changes to the bills’ language — changing the wording to clarify that community boards would hold hearings over bike lanes, not DOT itself, for example — the department was on board with the basic concepts.

That made for a conciliatory hearing while DOT’s reps were testifying. “I’m thrilled that the commissioner is behind it, because I think she gets it,” said Fidler of his bill. He also said that he could tell DOT’s public outreach had significantly improved. “There’s been a notable difference in DOT’s outreach, at least in my community, in the last few years.” While he carped about “bike lanes dropped from the sky,” Fidler also said that he expected his bill to constrain future administrations more than this one, which was already complying with its rules.

Transportation Alternatives came out strongly against Fidler’s bill, saying that it would add unnecessary red tape to nuts-and-bolts safety improvements. With Local Law 90 on the books, the Fidler bill would only cover the smallest bike projects, which shouldn’t require additional oversight unless community boards or the DOT want it, he said. Currently, the law already requires DOT to get community board input on projects that take away or add a travel lane or parking lane for four blocks or more.

“We’re talking about the most minor, the most routine bike lanes that DOT paints,” said TA general counsel Juan Martinez. “When we’re talking about these routine improvements, the months of delay that happen when you have to go through the community board means New Yorkers’ safety is delayed.”

When Vacca responded, he didn’t acknowledge that Martinez had suggested community boards retain the option to comment on a project, if they want to. “You disagree with their right to have input?” Vacca shot back. “Maybe you consider it mundane, but maybe people in that community consider it important. That’s patronizing and unacceptable.”

Martinez also pointed out that only bike lanes were covered under the Fidler bill. “This bill doesn’t ask for more community input over crosswalks or to add more parking.”

Fidler seemed to acknowledge that public review could grow excessively burdensome. If you went to the community board for every transportation project, he responded, “government would be paralyzed.” But he insisted that even the smallest bike projects — even sharrows — need this level of scrutiny because they’re extremely controversial. Fidler also reiterated his ostensible commitment to building bike lanes — “we need to have safe and complete streets,” he said — and suggested that while he’d opposed proposed lanes in his district, bike infrastructure that brought people to the subway or to parks would be a better fit.

Whether Fidler’s singling out of bike lanes was meant to throw a wrench into efforts to build more bike infrastructure or not, anti-bike activists showed up to support the bill. Jack Brown, the founder of the Coalition Against Rogue Riding, never once mentioned community boards or public planning in his statement in support of Intro 412. He did, however, refer to “bike bedlam,” “a public safety crisis,” and — not once, but twice — compared cyclists to terrorists.

Representatives from community boards who attended the hearing each testified that DOT’s public outreach process is not only adequate but commendable. “My experience is that DOT adheres to the letter and spirit of the law” requiring community input, said Ian Dutton, the former vice-chair of Manhattan Community Board 2′s transportation committee. “I can say categorically that DOT has not installed a single bicycle infrastructure project without the input of CB 2.”

Wally Rubin, the district manager for Manhattan Community Board 5, said he’d seen a lot of DOT as they installed bike lanes and pedestrian plazas through Midtown. “With each of these efforts, they have reached out to us, the BIDs, and the larger community,” he said. “They have listened to us and more than once gone back to the drawing board.” Projects that began as extremely controversial, like the redesign of traffic around Union Square, were explained and revised until the community got on board; they ended up as major successes once complete, said Rubin. “We only wish that other city agencies would be as responsive and interested in our input as DOT.”

Southern Brooklyn's bus riders want the option of safe cycling. Image: Murray Lantner

Southern Brooklyn isn’t necessarily known as the epicenter of New York City cycling. Car-ownership rates are some of the highest in the city, and elected officials from the area tend to be particularly vocal livable streets opponents. But a recent, admittedly unscientific, survey shows that there’s a hunger for bike infrastructure from Sheepshead Bay to Mill Basin.

Murray Lantner, a livable streets activist who lives and grew up in Mill Basin, conducted the survey last fall, asking bus riders how they felt about bike lanes. About two-thirds of those who responded said that they’d like to see more bike lanes in their neighborhood. “Safety was a big concern,” said Lantner, “for them, or often for their kids.”

In these neighborhoods, relatively distant from the city’s job centers, cycling is more likely to link up with the subway system than serve as a stand-alone commute mode. Half the respondents said that if there was a network of safe bike lanes leading up to the King’s Highway B/Q station, along with bike parking, they’d start cycling to the subway rather than wait for the bus.

The survey has a small sample size and the data isn’t from a truly random group of bus riders — respondents were told the survey was about cycling. (You can see the whole thing, along with a letter Lantner wrote to the local community boards and elected officials in this PDF.) Even so, it shows that there’s a sizable pool of would-be cyclists in the area. And their voices aren’t being heard.

Instead, the elected and appointed representatives of these neighborhoods dominate the conversation and are uniformly anti-bike. A Courier-Life article from September noted that community board opposition to bike lanes has sprung up in Manhattan Beach, Gerritsen Beach, and Canarsie in recent months.

I spoke to Community Board 18 District Manager Dorothy Turano at the time, and she told me that “bike lanes create hazardous conditions in our board area” and that she wouldn’t support putting them anywhere in the district. She lambasted DOT’s efforts to build a bike lane network, saying that “the crooks took over the sheriff’s job.” (CB 18 was in the news recently for the $7 million city subsidy lavished on its fancy new headquarters, a quid pro quo secured by Turano’s boyfriend and predecessor as district manager, State Senator Carl Kruger.)

It’s not just the community boards fighting against stripes on the street. When DOT tried to install the Canarsie bike lanes over CB18′s objection, Council Member Lew Fidler stepped in, threatening DOT with legislation mandating additional requirements for public input. “They shouldn’t put down any bike lanes without coming back to the community for relevant input,” argued Fidler at the time. DOT backed down.

Southern Brooklyn neighborhoods are always going to have an organized bloc of drivers. In Fidler’s district, for example, a majority of workers commute by car [PDF]. But Lantner’s survey reveals that many residents would love to speed up their trip to the subway or have a new option for running errands. They shouldn’t be shut out of the debate.

"A real property transfer is subject to our land use review procedure," says Councilman Lew Fidler, D-Brooklyn. "I surely would object on that basis and join any lawsuit brought if it were done without our consent."

The groups fighting bridge tolls would likely challenge any plan that lacked a home rule message from the City Council.

"I realize that two bucks is not a burdensome amount, but if you think that amount will remain so low, I have a bridge to sell you," Fidler says.

What role the council might play in the MTA rescue plan, if any, remains to be seen -- as does the strength of council opposition to tolls in the face of near-immediate transit fare hikes and service reductions. With the city's delegation in Albany finally waking up to the fact that more of their constituents ride than drive, you've got to wonder how it would play -- even in the farther reaches of Brooklyn and Queens -- if council members like Fidler and John Liu tried to scuttle a workable rescue of the transit system.

It’s easy to dismiss City Councilmembers Lew Fidler and Peter Vallone, Jr. as transportation troglodytes. They’ve led the pushback against bridge tolls -- most recently at the City Council hearing this week on the Ravitch Commission recommendations -- yet neither has ever put forth a workable alternative for reducing job-killing, community-wrecking traffic congestion. Judging by their anti-toll rhetoric, you’d think that half their district drives to jobs in the Manhattan Central Business District, yet the actual percentages who do so are surprisingly meager: 5.3 percent for Fidler’s Brooklyn district and 4.4 percent for Vallone’s Queens district (plus another 1.7 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively, who carpool).

But in one respect, bridge-toll opponents may have a point: tolling equity. According to my calculations, 60 percent of the proposed Ravitch bridge tolls would be paid by Brooklyn and Queens residents. Yet these residents make only 36 percent of car trips into the CBD. The disparity would mean a hefty cross-subsidy -- worth a few hundred million dollars a year -- of the region's drivers by drivers from these two boroughs.

Whence the disparity? There are two sources. First, the Ravitch plan imposes no new tolls on auto trips into the Manhattan core that come from New Jersey and northern Manhattan; these constitute almost one-quarter of the total. Second, another 20% of trips into the CBD -- from Bronx, Westchester and other points north -- use one of the Harlem River bridges. Ravitch wants those drivers to pay less than half the standard MTA toll rate that would apply to the four East River crossings -- the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro Bridges.

Under the Bloomberg congestion pricing plan, Brooklyn and Queens actually bore a fairer share of the burden than in the Ravitch plan, in spite of Bloomberg's controversial “toll-net” provision that heavily discounted autos from New Jersey. Even so, under Bloomberg’s plan, auto trips from Brooklyn and Queens, 36 percent of the total into the CBD, would have accounted for 40 percent of toll revenues, making almost a 1-to-1 match-up. That may explain why Councilmember John Liu, from Queens, voted for the mayor’s plan but is blasting the bridge tolls provision in the Ravitch plan.

Was Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal the last word on geographical equity? Hardly. There’s no need for a cordon toll plan to include toll-nets. Nor should it give Manhattanites a free pass; an easy-to-administer surcharge on fares for medallion taxis, which are overwhelmingly used by Manhattan residents, could swell the toll-revenue pie and spread it over a broader population and income base.

Can’t someone fashion a plan along those lines? Hmm, maybe someone already has.

Streetsblog: What's your reaction to today's news?
Fidler: "Look, it would do nobody any good for one side to gloat and for the other side to sulk. We need to really get to work on the problems that we've all acknowledged. You're familiar with the musical Oklahoma? The cowmen and the farmers need to be friends."

For all the negativity on hydrogen fuel cell cars, I hope it did not escape everyone's notice that Westchester [White Plains] has entered into a pilot program. We need to incentivize the infrastructure for fuel cell vehicles. These cars are feasible today. Would you be the first one on your block to get one? We need to find a way.

Streetblog: A broad-based tax?
Fidler: "A regional payroll tax, that's my proposal. Other people have talked about a millionaire's tax. We can't let the MTA capital plan crumble. That's not the message that people who are against congestion pricing are trying to send."

Maria Baez (chair), Bronx - yes
Joseph Addabbo, Queens - no
Eric Martin Dilan, Brooklyn - no
Lewis Fidler, Brooklyn - no
Melissa Mark Viverito, Manhattan - yes
Michael McMahon, Staten Island - yes
Hiram Monserrate, Queens - yes
Joel Rivera, Bronx - yes
Larry Seabrook, Bronx - yes

In this five-minute speech, delivered at the Stonewall Democratic Club in Manhattan and captured by The Politicker, Council Member Lew Fidler draws on the 2005 mayoral campaign of Freddy Ferrer to rehash the old saw that congestion pricing would create a city of "haves" and "have-nots."

"This is its stated purpose. This is exactly how it's supposed to work, so there's no debate on this point: it allocates your ability to enter the heart of our city by who can and can not afford it."

Again, Fidler betrays his windshield perspective. Of course congestion pricing will not keep a single person from entering Lower Manhattan, as long as they can walk, bike, or pay the (up to) $2 transit fare. And, as has been stated ad nauseum on Streetsblog, the city is already stratified, only in reality the "haves" have cars and/or parking placards while the "have-nots" have MetroCards.

Judging by the tepid reception Fidler gets here, his audience seems to get this, even if the councilman does not.

In her opening remarks, Sadik-Khan mentioned that drivers entering Manhattan through the Lincoln and Holland tunnels will pay $45 million per year as a result of pricing. When Council member Joel Rivera asked about the logic behind the number, Sadik-Khan and Aggarwala explained that drivers who pay with cash instead of EZPass will not be eligible for the pricing offset. In other words, those drivers will pay both the Port Authority toll and the full pricing fee.

Pricing revenue would also come from drivers who use the tunnels during the Port Authority's daytime off-peak hours (9 a.m. - 4 p.m.), when the toll is $6. During those times, even drivers who take advantage of the pricing offset would still pay $2 towards the congestion fee. Aggarwala noted that two-thirds of all drivers who use the Hudson River tunnels would pay all or part of the fee.

In another exchange, Council member Melissa Mark-Viverito, a pricing supporter, asked whether the 367 buses to be added before pricing takes effect would be on new or existing lines. Sadik-Khan revealed that the buses will be spread among 33 existing lines and 12 new lines.

Mark-Viverito also wanted to know who would be able to veto any changes to the way congestion pricing revenue is spent. That power, said Sadik-Khan, would reside with the MTA Capital Program Review Board, currently a four-member panel that would grow to five members under the congestion pricing bill. (A rep appointed by the City Council speaker would join appointees of the governor, mayor, Senate majority leader, and Assembly speaker.) To change how congestion pricing revenue is spent, Aggarwala explained, the MTA would have to make a distinct proposal that would in turn have to be approved by the review board.

After the jump -- more from yesterday's hearing, including a back-and-forth with Streetsblog sparring partner Lew Fidler.

Before posing his allotted two questions, Fidler took the opportunity to proclaim that "PlaNYC has 120 good ideas out of 121." After pricing takes effect, he then asked, "is there anything that will guarantee that the state gives the same amount to the MTA and transportation [as it did previously]?"

Aggarwala referred Fidler to page 23 of the congestion pricing bill, which specifically says that pricing revenue will not be used to offset any state funding. This seemed to catch the council member somewhat off guard. "Wonderful, but that's not a guarantee," he said.

When Sadik-Khan brought up the latest Quinnipiac poll, which showed that New Yorkers support pricing by a 2-1 margin if the revenues are spent on transit, Fidler conjured his own -- hypothetical -- survey results: "I think if you polled New Yorkers and asked them if they think the MTA will spend that money effectively, they would say, 10-1, 'No.' You'd find a strong number of New Yorkers that would be dubious of the claim that the state won't reduce transportation funding."

Fidler's second question had to do with the cost of administering residential parking permits, which will be available to residents at no charge in the current version of the congestion pricing bill. "Other cities charge a fee for parking permits," he said. "How much will taxpayers pay for RPP if there's no fee?"

"It was made very clear to us from public input that RPP should be free," replied Sadik-Khan. She added that DOT is still developing the specifics of how RPP will operate, but that "the early estimate is $1.8 million for administration costs citywide."

Other noteworthy exchanges and facts:

• 110,000 fewer vehicles will enter the central business district every day once pricing takes effect, according to the commissioner.
  
• In response to a question from Quinn about mitigating the park-and-ride effect, Sadik-Khan said, "We don't anticipate that this will be a problem. Parking is already at 98% capacity in these neighborhoods [adjacent to the zone]. We think it's unlikely that people will drive to these neighborhoods just to park and get on the subway, but we are mindful of those concerns, so we proposed RPP so that residents have priority to park in those neighborhoods."
• When Maria Baez, chair of the State and Federal Legislation Committee, asked if the proposed $65 late fee might be lowered, the commissioner said "No," explaining that $65 is the same fine levied for a parking violation.
• Asked by Staten Island Council member Michael McMahon whether police and firefighters would be granted congestion fee exemptions, Sadik-Khan responded: "That's not our intent right now. The exemption route is a slippery slope. We are trying to make a system that makes it easier for fire trucks to get around so they can save lives. Right now they are competing with traffic."
• When McMahon opined that the proposed transit improvements for Staten Island "didn't seem like much," Aggarwala said, "The expansion in express bus service -- that's a significant investment in the second most frequent means of getting to the CBD from Staten Island [after the ferry]. For the first time in a long time, the MTA has made a commitment to look at regions that are disadvantaged in terms of transit access."

At the first part of today's congestion pricing hearings, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Rohit Aggarwala, director of the Office for Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, fielded questions from the City Council's nine-member State and Federal Legislation Committee. Several other Council members, including Speaker Christine Quinn, were also there to ask questions, and the chamber was packed with supporters of both pro- and anti-pricing groups.

The hearing followed word this morning that State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno has introduced a congestion pricing bill in Albany -- the same legislation that Governor Paterson announced on Friday, which is based on the recommendations of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission. Quinn began the proceedings with a short but full-throated speech in support of pricing, saying, "The benefits so far outweigh any of the negatives, the concept of inaction is simply, in my opinion, not an option. We have to seize this moment to create a sustainable revenue source for mass transit." Then, after Sadik-Khan delivered her comments (which got big applause), the Council members started popping questions.

Two Council members who have not declared a position on pricing took part in the Q&A during the time I was there to observe. One was Larry Seabrook, a Bronx Democrat who has been identified as a possible swing vote on the committee. "How are we going to say these projects won't stay on the drawing board for another 30 years?" he asked, referring to projects in the MTA capital plan targeted for the Bronx.

Sadik-Khan assured him about the lock box language in the current bill, adding, "I don't see any other way to fund the projects that your district so desperately needs without the revenues from the congestion pricing program." Seabrook repeated his position that the lock box must be ironclad, but appeared satisfied that his concerns had been addressed, wrapping up by thanking the commissioner for considering his district.

The other undecided Council member was Tish James, who represents Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. James first asked if low-income New Yorkers, especially those who have to make trips to Manhattan hospitals, would receive any discount under the current plan. Aggarwala responded by pointing out that most New Yorkers rely on transit or for-hire vehicles to make hospital trips. The transit riders will receive better service, he said, and cab fare will be lower as a result of reduced travel times, yielding a de facto drop in the cost of hospital trips.

James also reiterated Anthony Weiner's claim that pricing will give the federal government an excuse to reduce transit funding for New York, but seemed to back down from that position after Sadik-Khan and Aggarwala rebutted it. "What gave me consolation is that [the Bush] administration is a lame duck and their days are numbered," James said.

Stay tuned for more highlights, and don't forget tonight's hearing, when the council will receive public testimony.

Brooklyn Diary

Where in the world can an elected official park these days without earning the wrath of his fellow Brooklynites?

A silver Infiniti belonging to Councilman Lew Fidler — a vocal congestion pricing critic — was spotted last Thursday parked
on a pedestrian plaza near Borough Hall that has become something of a
go-to spot for law-bending city employees.

But it wasn’t the only time last week the unlucky Canarsie
politician stumbled into a parking problem. Just a day earlier, Fidler
was slipped an angry note on his windshield after parking directly
above a nearby subway grate.

"I did it," said a flustered Fidler after our spies caught the pol.
"I’m not going to apologize for it. I thought it would be better than
parking on the subway grate."

Congestion pricing's first test in the City Council will be a vote this month by the State and Federal Legislation Committee, chaired by Maria Baez, D-Bronx. Speaker Christine Quinn, a pricing supporter, gave the measure a boost by assigning it to Baez's panel instead of the Finance Committee, chaired by pricing opponent David Weprin, who had requested it. Quinn added two members to Baez’s committee last fall, improving the plan’s chances for passage. But committee member Lew Fidler, D-Brooklyn, says the nine-member panel is split. He pegs the uncommitted Larry Seabrook, D-Bronx, as a potential swing vote.

Seabrook is one of 20 council members to sign the letter requesting "fairer" fees be assessed on New Jersey drivers as part of any congestion pricing plan. He is also one of eight council members to officially endorse PlaNYC last June.

Crain's also notes that Fidler predicts a close vote in the council as a whole, while John Liu believes pricing will pass after some tinkering to make it easier for Albany to swallow.

Move over, Ted Kheel. On the eve of the Congestion Mitigation Commission deadline to sign off on some form of congestion pricing, Lew Fidler tells the Observer he will introduce his own 9 CARAT STONE plan to his colleagues on the City Council tomorrow.

The Fidler Tax'n'Tunnel proposal, for those who've somehow forgotten, would avoid congestion pricing by, among other measures, increasing parking rates and traffic violation fees, building $18 billion in tunnel infrastructure, removing one-way truck tolls, moving city agencies out of Manhattan's Central Business District, and convincing the federal government and/or automakers to develop hydrogen cell vehicles. It would be paid for through a one-third of one percent regional payroll tax.

Fidler says his support is diverse. "I want to be very clear," he told me. "I have co-sponsors for elements of this plan that are ardently in favor of congestion pricing, ardently against it, and people who haven't yet committed. But even if they're in favor of congestion pricing, and they put their name next to one of my resolution points, they think that point is a good idea, and some of them [the resolutions] survive with or without congestion pricing."

Fidler said it's not likely his proposal will go to a vote before congestion pricing, since in addition to the mayor, the City Council Speaker supports congestion pricing. "What's wrong is my plan isn't part of the debate," Fidler says.

Fidler's plan was analyzed by Environmental Defense and the Pratt Center for Community Development last year, who concluded that it, along with proposals by Congressman Anthony Weiner and Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free, would promote driving.

Photo: Lila Glogowsky

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...

who skipped the meeting but had an aide read a statement that in order to curb asthma rates, "residential parking permits are an absolute necessity" for any areas immediately outside the congestion zone. Many of the community board reps and neighborhood association members who followed echoed that argument, offering support if a permit plan was attached to pricing, because they feared a park-and-ride spillover effect.

The non-profits in attendance came out strongly in favor of the commission's alternative pricing plan (which would raise more money at a lower cost than the Mayor's plan), countering the assertions of previous speakers with hard numbers. Here's a snippet delivered by Wiley Norvell of TA:

Congestion pricing will benefit the entire city, not just Manhattan. Nearly three-quarters of the congestion reduction from pricing will take place outside Manhattan. 40% of traffic in the neighborhoods of Downtown Brooklyn is from Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridge-bound motorists avoiding the Battery Tunnel toll. Congestion pricing, by equalizing tolls, will cut congestion and finally give traffic relief to neighborhoods adjacent to the free bridges. It is estimated that pricing will reduce traffic by 29% in Downtown Brooklyn and by 24% in North Brooklyn. That is staggering.

Personal note: While the pricing advocates were testifying, I was in a politician sandwich, sitting between two pairs of electeds, and could overhear their snickering and backslapping.

When the "ordinary people" got their chance to speak, they also endorsed the alternative pricing plan by a wide margin. The politicians had already left at that point, a fact that wasn't lost on Sunset Park resident Kay Young. "I have to note the seeming disconnect between our elected officials and everyone else," he said.

They haven't done their homework. They cite no statistics, just general specters. The fact that they left is unbelievable. They didn't even stay to listen to their constituents.

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Deputy Commissioner Bruce Schaller's team at the Department of Transportation has been taking ideas offered up by Traffic Mitigation Commission members and running them through NYMTC's regional traffic model. Schaller's job is to help the Commission determine how effective each of these ideas will be in cutting traffic and reducing total vehicle miles traveled in New York City. To keep its $354.5 million federal transportation grant, the City must reduce VMT 6.3 percent using road pricing.

Schaller presented his findings at yesterday's Commission meeting. You can flip through his presentation above (though, I recommend clicking through to the Slideshare web site and viewing the larger version). Since the first and most important slide is too small to read, here is the list of the traffic reduction ideas that Schaller's team has been modeling either as alternatives, supplements or modifications to Mayor Bloomberg's original proposal (you'll note that Lew Fidler Tax'n'Tunnel plan didn't make the cut):

• Night delivery incentives
• Telecommuting incentives
• Increasing the cost of parking in the CBD
• Taxi stands
• Surcharge on taxi and livery fares
• East River Bridge tolls
• License plate rationing
• Required carpooling
• Creation of High-Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes
• Changing the northern boundary
• Charging to drive on the FDR and West Street
• Changing the hours / variable charges
• Changes to the toll credit policy
• Exempt hybrids.

Aside from Assembly member Richard Brodsky's continued treatment of the scrupulous, forthright Schaller as the quintessential evil government bureaucrat (Brodsky knows exactly how important it is to attack the credibility of the "Keeper of the 6.3%"), the highlight of yesterday's hearing, for me, was an exchange towards the end on government employee parking permits.

Brodsky was pressing Schaller for more detailed modeling of the VMT impact of reducing the number of government-issued parking placards when Teamsters president Gary LaBarbera, pictured right, cut in with strong objections. LaBarbera didn't want Schaller or anyone to do any additional modeling -- or talking -- about government-issued parking permits. I couldn't quite type fast enough to keep up with him, but this is pretty close to exactly what he said:

Parking permits are a form of compensation for teachers, firefighters and police officers. I don't believe in employees losing benefits or compensation. We've got to think seriously before we talk about taking away this benefit from one segment of our community; teachers, firefighters and police officers.

So, there you have it. Though you won't find it accounted for in any City budget, spelled out in any City employee contract, or fought over in any recent negotiation, union leadership believes government-issued parking permits are "a form of compensation." Now that LaBarbera's put it on the table, the City and the unions can finally begin to account for this "form of compensation" and talk about exactly how much of it New York City's hard-working civil servants are actually owed.

Does the Rubber Meet the Road? Investigating the Alternatives to Congestion Pricing, a 14-page study (pdf) issued by Environmental Defense and the Pratt Center for Community Development, breaks it down as follows.

Anthony Weiner's Reducing Traffic and Improving Our Environment: An Alternative to the Car Tax: Many aspects of this proposal are similar to the PlaNYC's original congestion pricing scheme. However, Congressman Weiner would limit congestion pricing to trucks only and would take a series of steps to open up more existing road space for faster-moving traffic, such as reducing alternate side street parking, and increasing traffic law enforcement, that would attract more traffic in the long run. He also suggests large-scale, long-term capital investments, such as building a Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel, that while essential for long-term regional planning, cannot address traffic with the immediacy and revenue-generating capacity of congestion pricing.

Lew Fidler's 9 Carat Stone Plan: This plan to fund long term transportation projects, including three major tunnels requiring massive capital investment, essentially levies a regional payroll tax that would support the state's general fund and not be dedicated to transportation investment, unlike tolls. Councilman Fidler proposes hydrogen powered cars, which automakers and scientists agree are many years and breakthroughs away from being practical and commercially viable. He supplements these ideas with short term measures such as increased truck loading zones and enforcement of traffic laws that, while perhaps good to speed traffic flow and ensure better safety, are not likely to achieve significant reductions in traffic volumes. Other elements of Councilman Fidler's plan, such as moving government offices from Manhattan to the other boroughs, would simply displace current traffic to new locations, and to the extent that those locations are less centrally-located in the transit system, there would likely be a net increase in traffic overall.

Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free's Alternative Approaches to Traffic Congestion Mitigation in the Manhattan Central Business District: This plan, primarily supported by AAA, the Metropolitan Parking Association and the Queens Civic Congress, among others, combines several separate measures that collectively claim to meet and exceed the 6.3% vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reduction of the mayor's plan. In fact, many will simply make driving easier in the Central Business District, thus probably attracting more drivers over time. Furthermore, the report's additive approach for totaling VMT reduction overstates the results dramatically, double-counting many overlapping traffic reduction measures.

"Unlike congestion pricing, these alternatives would encourage driving -- not discourage it -- and as a result attract more traffic in the long term," says Michael Replogle, transportation director for Environmental Defense and the report's primary author, via media release. "They also fail to match the criteria required by the federal grant, by state law, and the reality test for effectiveness, timeliness and revenue potential."

"Alternative proposals to fund mass transit through broad income and payroll tax increases are like taking a sledgehammer to a nail because they place special burdens on low and middle income residents," says Joan Byron, Director of the Sustainability and Environmental Justice Initiative of The Pratt Center. "In contrast, a congestion pricing plan benefits lower-income folks most and burdens them least since the vast majority of them rely on public transportation, and do not drive into Manhattan's zone."

Instead of supporting congestion pricing, Councilman Lew Fidler wants to impose billions of dollars in payroll taxes and dig three new tunnels ("Tunnel visions," Nov. 13). If Fidler truly wants to help those who rely on mass transit, he should recognize that they don't need tax hikes or holes in the ground, but the immediate transit improvements that congestion pricing would provide.

Paul Steely White
Transportation Alternatives

OK, I'll admit it. I just miss mixing it up with Fidler in the comments section. Lew, where'd ya go?

Spencer Wilking reports:

The city's traveling road show of community advocates, local politicians and concerned residents, otherwise known as New York City's Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, stopped in Brooklyn Thursday night as part of its whirlwind seven county tour.

At the hearing Brooklyn politicians delivered a resounding rejection of Mayor Bloomberg's plan for congestion pricing. From the Assembly (Joan Millman and Hakeem Jefferies) to the State Senate (Velmanette Montgomery and Carl Kruger) to the City Council (Vincent Gentile and Lew Fidler), to a candidate for Borough President (Bill de Blasio) they strode to the podium and railed against the plan calling it "Manhattan-centric" and bad for Brooklyn. Except for Councilmember David Yassky (who with great dexterity managed to support congestion pricing AND agree with his fellow Brooklyn politicos), endorsements for congestion pricing were left to residents and advocates. Council member Leticia James came close to supporting it but just couldn't do it, "at this time."

Brooklyn politicians voiced concern that their borough would become a "park and ride" community for those headed across the East River, clogging already crowded streets. They demanded the inclusion of residential parking permits to spurn this practice. Likewise, the usual argument that congestion pricing is an unfair tax on poor and working class families was cited more than once.

"I don't want to be known as an Assembly person from the largest parking lot in New York City," said Assembly member Joan Millman. "This will punish hardworking New Yorkers who live in the outer boroughs."

Millman, whose district is, literally, the tip of Long Island's traffic funnel into Lower Manhattan, crushed on a daily basis by regional through-traffic, went on to say that buildings, not vehicles were the true culprits of air pollution.

Instead of the current congestion pricing plan, politicians demanded better bus routes, more water taxis, advancements in the hybrid car, HOV lanes and a harbor freight tunnel for trucks. The need for improved subway service was a common lament, summed up by Council member Tish James, "For the record: The G train sucks."

Specific funding for these ventures was left mostly ambiguous, or as Council member Vincent Gentile put it: "The State legislature can find some options."

Unlike Commission members Vivian Cook and Denny Farrell, Richard Robbins' daughter was at the hearing.

Councilmember Bill de Blasio, like Millman, represents a district heavily burdened by regional traffic congestion. But he has his sights set on Brooklyn Borough Hall these days. So, after complimenting fellow Brooklyn Council member Lew Fidler's "bold" plan to raise payroll taxes, build three new tunnels, and wait for General Motors to sell hydrogen cars, De Blasio noted that Bloomberg's plan lacked guarantees and was executed in the last throes of its administration. "I appreciate the goals of congestion pricing, but there are too many unanswerable questions to move forward," De Blasio said.

As a departure from the Brooklyn party line, David Yassky pledged his support for the Bloomberg plan, but on the condition that improvements to mass transit be implemented beforehand.

Long Island Assembly member Michelle Schimel was a surprising voice in favor of congestion pricing and more livable streets. "New York must be more human, more walkable, more bikeable," she said. Schimel added that she took the LIRR and subway to reach the hearing.

The most persuasive plea for congestion pricing came from a group of young people with the United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park (UPROSE), a community group who say that the Gowanus Expressway is poisoning the neighborhood. Jennifer Casamayor, 21, who works for UPROSE and lives in Manhattan, said, "many children are currently suffering from respiratory issues as their bodies are still developing."

A member of UPROSE watches testimony along with members of the Commission.

Another member of UPROSE, Joaquin Brito, 16, of Bayridge, delivered the best line of the night, "If you can afford the $8 for a tall latte and cookie from Starbucks you can afford congestion pricing."

Other residents took the pulpit to advocate for congestion pricing. Many cited the problems of air quality and the opportunity New York City has to be a leader against global warming.

Richard Robbins, who works for AT&T and lives in Manhattan, held his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter as he spoke at the podium (he insists she wasn't a prop, Mom was merely working late). "The system is broke," he said. "When she grows up they'll be a better system in place, we have the opportunity to do that now."

This was the second to last of seven public hearings on the issue. The crowd at Brooklyn's New York City Tech numbered at around a 100, leaving plenty of room in the Klitgord Auditorium.

Reporting by Spencer Wilking. Photos by Aaron Naparstek. 

One of the most oft-repeated slams against congestion pricing we heard at this week's Congestion Mitigation Committee hearings is that congestion pricing would be a "regressive tax," an unfair burden to poorer New Yorkers.

Is congestion pricing regressive? The data suggests otherwise.

As the chart above shows, even in Brooklyn Council member Lew Fidler's heavily auto-dependent district, households with a car earn more than twice the income than households without. Meanwhile, only 5.3% of workers living in Fidler's distrit drive to work in Manhattan south of 86th Street (unfortunately, Fidler is probably one of them). Fact sheets for Richard Brodsky, Vivian Cook, Denny Farrell, Jeffrey Dinowitz and other congestion pricing opponents' districts are equally revealing and very much worth a download. Cook, for example, represents a Queens district where only 3.5% of workers drive into the proposed charging zone for work.

In testimony before the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign argued the point. From this week's Mobilizing the Region:

Some anti-pricing politicians seem to have dressed up for Halloween as populists defending “working stiffs” from a “regressive tax” on driving. But an analysis of Census data by TSTC and the Pratt Center for Community Development shows that, in all but one State Assembly district in NYC, vehicle-owning households are 50% wealthier than households without a vehicle; in nearly half of districts, average income is twice as high.

Furthermore, only a small minority of commuters drive alone to the proposed congestion pricing zone (CPZ); this is true not only in Manhattan but in the outer boroughs and the surrounding suburban counties. For example, only 5.1% of workers from Rockland County drive alone to the proposed CPZ. In Westchester, 3.4% of workers drive alone to the CPZ. In Nassau and Suffolk Counties, the percentages are even lower.

Fact sheets containing a breakdown of commuting patterns by mode and destination, vehicle ownership statistics, and the average incomes of vehicle-owning households and non-vehicle-owning households are available online. The fact sheets cover counties and City Council, state Assembly, state Senate, and U.S. Congressional districts in the New York metropolitan area.

Subject: Plan to be Revealed to go up against Mayor's Congestion Pricing

A major announcement will soon be made that will reveal a whole new plan for how NYC will handle traffic congestion, mass transit, air pollution and land re-development.  A plan so bold that it would not only give Mayor Bloomberg a run for his money, but change the pecking order of NYC's "forgotten boroughs." This supposed nine-point plan is said to be making its debut as soon as next week and is already creating a buzz within City Hall.

Well, the "plan so bold" has arrived just in time for tonight's Traffic Mitigation Commission hearing in Brooklyn and Daily Politics reports that it belongs to Council member Lewis Fidler. He is calling it the 9 CARAT STONE Plan, an acronym for, Clean Our Air, Reduce All Traffic, and Support Transportation Operations in New York's Environs. Download it here.

Fidler's ambitious plan hinges on the construction of three, massive, decades-long, multi-billion dollar transportation tunnels, "forcing the issue" of hydrogen fuel-cell miracle cars, a politically poisonous regional payroll tax hike, and a series of small-bore improvements in enforcement and street management policy. He also wants to compel all city agency employees to drive to work at far-flung offices outside the central and outer borough business districts.  

If nothing else, it's great to see everyone engaged in discussion and debate about transportation policy and traffic mitigation. And the "9 CARAT STONE Plan" goes down as one of the all-time great acronyms in New York City bureaucratic history. Now, pardon me, I need to get crackin' on the Trans-Narrow Tunnel. Here are Fidler's nine points:

1. Construct 3 Critical Tunnels: a. The Cross Harbor Tunnel. b. The Trans-Narrows Tunnel.  c. The Gowanus Expressway Tunnel.
2. Force the Issue of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles
   
3. Paying for it: A .033% one-third of one percent Regional Payroll Tax
4. Increase the number of metered parking spaces in the central business district and the cost of parking.
5. Increase the number of taxi stands in the CBD.
6. Getting Unloading Trucks off the Street: More loading zones and more off-street loading docks.
7. Increase enforcement and fines for violators.
8. No one way tolls for trucks.
9. Move City agencies out of the CBD and not to downtown districts in the outer boroughs.