Tony Avella and Bill Thompson. Photo: Daily News.

Thompson got started with a restrained, "I think you bring your own team to the table." Then Avella took the first rip at the city's new bike lanes and public plazas.

"There has to be community involvement," he said. "You can't just dictate from the top: 'Hey, tomorrow, here's a bike lane, here we're gonna close off the street,' without having communication with the elected officials, the community boards, and the neighborhoods, and that's why she should be fired."

This prompted an escalation from Thompson: "I favor bicycle lanes, however, you are hearing the complaint all over the city of New York, because the communities have not been consulted. They've been ignored. Bicycle lanes have been dropped upon them and there has been no discussion. That's wrong and that shouldn't continue."

Avella and Thompson don't seem to have a very good grasp of the facts on this issue. DOT's plaza program is entirely opt-in. They won't build a plaza in your community unless someone from the neighborhood asks for it. New Yorkers are basically competing with each other to get these public spaces added to their streets. Oh, and attacking the new plazas on Broadway is kind of like pledging to pave Bryant Park at this point.

When it comes to bike lanes, DOT, if anything, has rather timidly avoided going against the grain of community board votes. The Grand Street bike lane? Approved by Manhattan CB 2. Eighth Avenue cycle track? Approved by Manhattan CB 4 and CB 2. The Kent Avenue bike lane? Approved by Brooklyn CB 1. Meanwhile, DOT has not striped a bike lane on Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard because CB 10 has yet to approve it. They added a bike lane to Empire Boulevard only after Brooklyn CB 9 explicitly asked for one.

Are there exceptions? Thankfully, yes. Otherwise even more power over transportation policy would be vested in people like Vinicio Donato, the chair of Queens CB 1 since 1975. Last year Donato's board wrote a letter to DOT opposing the Vernon Boulevard bike lane. Streets are safer because the DOT went ahead and striped the bike lane anyway.

So when these candidates moan about the lack of community input, they're basically pledging to halt any progress toward making New York City's streets less car-centric. Why make streets safer and less clogged with cars when you can cater to a minority of self-interested motorists? I suppose we'll see soon enough whether, after 16 years in exile, New York City Dems can ride that message back to City Hall.

This week's Observer is running a profile of DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. It focuses on the speed with which many of DOT's Sustainable Streets projects are moving ahead and seems to suggest either:

a) Improving conditions for New York City's pedestrians, cyclists and bus riders is a Communist plot. Or,
b) The change that Sadik-Khan is bringing to New York City's streets is akin to the Russian Revolution.

You be the judge:

On the ideological scale of transportation planning, her policies err far closer to Trotsky than Reagan. She is decidedly pro-bike and pro-pedestrian, and thus inherently anti-automobile, earning her constant praise from the normally critical transit advocates.

This raises some obvious questions. If Sadik-Khan is Leon Trotsky does that mean suburban Westchester Assemblyman and congestion pricing foe Richard Brodsky is Josef Stalin? Will Sadik-Khan be exiled to an upstate gulag when Bloomberg is term-limited out of office?

All fun and games aside, as we gird ourselves for the Tony Avellafication of the 2009 mayoral race, the last two paragraphs of the article are worth discussing:

With many of Ms. Sadik-Khan’s key initiatives, there is a potential lack of permanency. The same features that allow the DOT’s projects to get in the ground swiftly could also seal their fate in a future administration: The city has claimed lanes of Broadway as open space with some epoxy, sand, paint, plants and tables, yet a future administration could just as easily pack up those tables and put lane markers right back down on the roadway.

This prospect seemed almost incomprehensible to Ms. Sadik-Khan, who seemed to think that public resistance to it would prove too great, the ease of removal notwithstanding. “People are very protective about their public space,” she said. “I think it would be very hard to take these spaces back to the state that they were in before.”

• City Council Member Tony Avella: "[Avella is] an obscure pol, and attacking CP allowed him to grab attention while promoting his anti-tax agenda. But he may have gone around the bend, ranting about routine horse-trading for council members’ votes."
• Comptroller Bill Thompson: "The city comptroller has been mildly supportive of congestion pricing, though he’s always been careful to attach caveats ... Why take a bold stance on something that might never happen?"
• City Council Speaker Christine Quinn: "[S]he used last week’s vote to demonstrate leadership on a contentious issue ... Plus, wrapping her arms so tightly around CP also earned Quinn a big chit with Bloomberg..."
• Congressman Anthony Weiner: "[I]n the campaign, he’ll cast congestion pricing as Manhattan-centric and elitist, like Quinn. Weiner was thrilled to see her so far out front."

And don't forget Marty Markowitz, whose most notable contribution to the congestion pricing discussion has probably been his vehement opposition to new bridge tolls. 

On a related note, the Daily Politics reports that Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey issued a not-so-subtle warning on the radio this morning that state pols will be judged on where they come down, and could be supported or opposed accordingly in future races.

Whether or not the plan passes in Albany, how will congestion pricing influence your vote for the next mayor?

If Tony Avella and David Weprin and other Queens City Council members succeed in killing congestion pricing, at least Queens residents who lose out on transit improvements could take comfort in knowing that their representatives will have escaped the wrath of the Queens Civic Congress. Check out this (unedited) warning from the QCC [PDF]:

Queens Civic Congress puts all elected officials and would be ones on notice that the communities are closely following what people say and how they will vote. The Civic community expect the City Council to vote a strong thums down to the congestion tax." stated Jim Trent, Transportation Chair for the Queens Civic Congress, a the borough-wide coalition of civic and condo, cooperative, tenant and other community organizations. "Anyone who supports the unfair tax and/ or votes for it stands to lose any chance of being 'awarded" the coveted five unispheres rating; it could costs them as they look ahead to the next election.

Photo: K. B./Flickr

We've received several reports that Friday's anti-pricing rally on the Queens side of the 59th Street Bridge, spearheaded by City Council Member Tony Avella, was a bust.

According to our sources, of the council members slated to attend -- Avella, Leroy Comrie, Melinda Katz, David Weprin "and other possible members of the Queens Delegation" -- only Avella and Weprin showed up. Pro-pricing folks who came to either counter-protest or just express support for pricing, including those from Queens, were reportedly yelled at and accused of being "undemocratic" by Avella. Environmental Defense was on hand to measure air quality and found that "contaminants were sky high."

Notably absent from the proceedings was Councilman Eric Gioia, who represents the district where the rally took place. Here are a few possible reasons why, as enumerated in testimony to council members by DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.

• Without congestion pricing, western Queens will not see a 39% reduction in its most severe traffic jams, and a 6.1% reduction in total traffic.
  
• Without congestion pricing, western Queens will not receive new bus routes from Middle Village to South Ferry in Lower Manhattan, and from Jackson Heights to Penn Station.
  
• Without congestion pricing, western Queens will not get improved service on the Q60 bus route.
  
• Without congestion pricing, western Queens will lose 46 new subway cars that would increase service frequency on the E and F trains.
  
• Without congestion pricing, western Queens may lose state-of-the-art train control on the #7 line, that would allow trains to operate at higher speeds and run closer together, for better, more frequent service.
  

This is what Avella, Weprin and other hard-working council members are trying to take away from Gioia's constituents today. Will Gioia himself be among them?

Tony Avella

Notably, Eric Gioia (right), who represents the traffic-burdened district where the rally will be taking place, is not listed as a participant. Perhaps he realizes that standing in front of a backdrop of rush hour traffic, yelling, "We need to keep this as is!" isn't going to play all that well with his constituents.

But who knows. Maybe he'll show up. Despite the clear benefit to his district (only 3.2% of his constituents regularly commute by car into the pricing zone), Gioia has yet to come out in support of congestion pricing. You can be sure that the car commuting Council members to his east are happy about that. For them, Gioia's district is little more than a highway on-ramp that helps them avoid the toll at the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.

Foes of congestion pricing marshalled by the Queens Chamber of Commerce held a press conference yesterday at which several politicians from the borough took a stand against the mayor's plan. According to a press release provided by the chamber, City Council Finance Chair David Weprin called the proposal unnecessary: "I don't think City Hall understands that another unfair tax which would hurt working class people is not only uncalled for, but also unnecessary to reduce traffic. Before we tax people more we should first consider trying some simple traffic mitigation alternatives to reduce congestion."

The release also quoted Councilmember Tony Avella: "Until the City provides adequate mass transportation services, congestion pricing is just another tax on working and middle class families and small business. Everyone agrees that we need to address traffic congestion problems throughout the city, but the first step has to be improving mass transit."

Of course, Bloomberg himself, in the Sunday speech the Queens Chamber was protesting, said that mass transit in the outer boroughs would have to be improved before congestion pricing went into effect. In that speech, he clearly stated: "We know that service to many areas is not what it should be. That's why, before implementing congestion pricing we'll implement a range of mass transit improvements to our least-served neighborhoods."

The Queens Chamber has been in the forefront of the anti-congestion-pricing battle for some time now, releasing a study in March 2006 called "A Cure Worse than the Disease? How London's 'Congestion Pricing' System Could Hurt New York City's Economy." A group called the Citywide Coalition for Traffic Relief, including the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign, Transportation Alternatives and the Citizens Committee for New York City, has released "Debunking the Attack on Congestion Pricing," an analysis of the Queens Chamber's report that refutes its major points (download it here):

The attempt to disregard congestion pricing as a potentially viable traffic mitigation measure is based on a study commissioned last year by the Queens Chamber of Commerce, performed by Appleseed Consulting. Even a cursory examination of this study finds it to be biased and deeply flawed.

The Queens Chamber of Commerce study erects a draconian "straw man" congestion charging scenario that is neither based on London's system nor on any scenario that has been proposed for New York City.... In supporting its spurious claim that congestion pricing will result in a net negative impact on the City's economy, the study relies, among other things, on assumptions about how this policy will impact vehicle and person trips into the relevant parts of Manhattan.

Here are the basic points in the Coalition's dissection of the study:

• The most fundamental assertion in the study -- that 1 in 7 people who would not drive under congestion pricing would choose not to visit New York City at all -- is unfounded.
  
• The study's fundamental figures are misleading and incorrect.
• The study is allegedly based on London's experience, but the numbers it uses are inaccurate.
  
• The study erroneously assumes a congestion fee is imposed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
• The study ignores the fact that 30% of all vehicle traffic in the CBD is through traffic, which has no economic benefit to the CBD.
• The study assumes that business and leisure travelers -- who currently spend hundreds of dollars on each visit -- are deterred by a congestion charge that is less than the cost of one hour of parking in most Manhattan garages.
• The study considers reduced spending on tolls, parking and other activities as losses to the economy without considering the economic benefit of what the congestion charge could be used for (i.e., transit improvements).
• The study relies on national averages, without correction for local conditions.
• The study tallies benefits of congestion pricing even less effectively than costs.

Photo: latca/Flickr

Mr. Avella said his colleagues are following Ms. Quinn's wishes because her support is essential when trying to introduce legislation or secure funding for projects in a member's district. "The power of the speaker is incredible when used in this type of situation," he said. "And that's a situation that really has to change. We talk about three men in a room in Albany. Well, the City Council is getting just as bad."

Of course political blackmail among elected officials is nothing new. What's noteworthy here is that, according to the Sun:

A lobbyist at Bolton-St. Johns, Inc, a group hired by the Committee for Taxi Safety to lobby the council, Emily Giske, is considered by many to be close to the speaker. She and Ms. Quinn lived, and may still live, in the same apartment building on West 24th Street, according to a recent address listing.

After Ms. Quinn, who is a lesbian, gave her first speech as speaker last year, Ms. Giske told a weekly newspaper of Lower Manhattan, Downtown Express: "As a lesbian and as a Democrat, I've never been more proud of anything in my life."

Regardless of any possible personal link between Quinn and Giske, pedicab industry founder and spokesman George Bliss suspects the speaker's motives are patently political.

"She wants to be mayor, she needs their money," Mr. Bliss said, referring to Ms. Quinn. "It is clear there is a quid pro quo between the speaker and the taxi lobby."

Could Quinn, a Democrat, be short-sighted enough to lobby against clean transportation for New York City at a time when the Republican she hopes to succeed is speaking -- if not always acting -- on reducing emissions? Not according to a Quinn spokeswoman, who claims that no one on the council "was urged or pressured to vote one way or another on the pedicab bill."

For his part, David Pollack, executive director of the Committee for Taxi Safety ("Helping NYC's Safest Drivers"), says pedicab regulations would "keep the bicycle taxis from clogging midtown Manhattan." Pollack receives "daily complaints about reckless pedicab drivers," the article says.

A vote on the pedicab regs is set for April 23.

Photo: nycbone via Flickr