Last Monday, the New York State legislature declined to vote on congestion pricing and let the deadline for $354 million in federal transit funds run out. The grant may be gone, but the challenges of unhealthy air, poorly funded mass transit and traffic-choked streets remain very much with us. Thankfully, they are now front and center in the public debate about the future of New York City.
Yes, charging people to drive in Manhattan is controversial. However, as a solution to our immense traffic and transit problems, congestion pricing is also effective and fair. It is the only solution that will both cut traffic and expand transit. That's why I believe that our leaders will return to it on its merits.
In fact, congestion pricing has come a long way in a remarkably short time. A year ago, it was scarcely on the political radar at all. Today, there is a specific proposal, put forward by a commission organized in collaboration by state and city government and vetted in dozens of public hearings.
And there's extraordinary public support. Two out of three (67 percent) of New Yorkers, including a majority in every borough, support congestion pricing when the revenue is dedicated to transit improvement. The City Council, in a strong act of leadership, voted 30 to 20 in favor. Labor, community, environmental justice, public health and business leaders stepped forward in support. Small businesses spoke in favor of less traffic, less wasted fuel and being able to reach more customers faster.
The debate has moved this far because we all know that less traffic and better transit are keys to New York City's economic growth and air quality. In the next 25 years, New York will grow by about a million more people. To be ready to serve this population, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority must have a well-financed capital plan immediately.
Our children must be also able to grow up in this city without being exposed to high levels of traffic pollution. The effects on asthma attacks, brain development, lung function and heart disease are just too strong to ignore. A recent study shows that the exposure to high levels of vehicle pollution can have a similar impact on children's IQs as exposure to lead or their mother smoking during pregnancy. How can we not act?
The congestion pricing proposal itself improved over the last year. The commission modified the mayor's original proposal: The northern border moved to 60th Street; the number of cameras was slashed from 300 to around 25; operating costs were cut close to $100 million; detailed environmental review was spelled out. The State Senate bill added relief for low-income drivers and demanded that New Jersey pay its fair share. Finally, individual legislators raised ideas that could easily have become amendments, including, for example, a three-year pilot program; expanded environmental review during the pilot; and exemptions for cancer patients needing to drive to medical care. Unfortunately, these proposals were never incorporated into an amended bill, and state legislators never got a chance to vote on them.
It is not surprising that asking people to pay more to bring a car into the central business district at peak business hours will be controversial. Every city that has tried congestion pricing, including London, Singapore and Stockholm, faced similar controversy. In each city, as people begin to see the benefits of congestion pricing, public support grows. Better transit. Less traffic. Cleaner air. Faster commutes. It is no wonder that public support in New York City is so high and that the City Council voted "yes."
On April 7, we learned that Albany was not ready to vote yet. As a result, New York City missed out on a federal grant that would have brought expanded subway, bus and ferry service to every borough this year. We missed out on a 39 percent drop in gridlock in western Queens, a 22 percent drop in gridlock in northwest Brooklyn and a 20 percent drop in gridlock in Harlem. We missed out on $500 million in net annual revenues from the fees that would have delivered bus rapid transit, improved subway service and faster commutes.
We must continue to work together to find innovative solutions. There are important steps that can be taken now, including:
* Better traffic management. Slashing abuse of placards, the permits that allow many city employees to park for free. (Last week's crackdown in lower Manhattan is encouraging.) Better enforcement of traffic laws. Less double-parking. These simple steps can be taken with limited resources. However, they are not enough. Without congestion pricing, their benefits may not be long lasting, as freeing up more road space inevitably attracts more cars. We should take these steps but not stop there.
* Focus on transit that can be improved quickly. Bus-rapid-transit lines (especially for neighborhoods that lack subway access now). More ferries. Extra subway cars and buses. The lost federal grant would have paid for exactly these kinds of improvements. Now we will have to find the money elsewhere -- not easy, in a time of declining state and city revenues.
* Encourage clean vehicle technology. Diesel filters for the dirtiest trucks and buses, incentives to switch taxis and livery cars to hybrids, clean fuels for ferries -- these are all important. But with traffic volume on the rise, technology alone won't unclog our streets or speed commutes.
Many large-scale infrastructure solutions face uncertain financial futures. For example, Environmental Defense Fund has long supported the rail-freight tunnel and the full Second Avenue Subway, but there has never been enough federal, state or city money to get them built. In a time of declining state and federal revenues, where will the resources come from? Ideas for new income taxes, like the millionaires' tax, may well gain traction. But with state revenues declining, it may well be easier to dedicate a congestion charge to the MTA "lockbox" than to fight off competing demands on general tax revenue.
Congestion pricing is an idea that makes sense for New York, and we're tantalizingly close to a version that fits New York City's needs. New York City should have the chance to try congestion pricing.
Andrew H. Darrell is the New York regional director of Environmental Defense Fund and a former member of the New York Traffic Mitigation Commission. EDF works on economics-based solutions to environmental problems and has been active on congestion pricing both here and in other cities for many years.Â
"If they want to come here with their engineers and bulldozers, we'll be at the barricades with balaclavas," said Sean Sweeny, director of the SoHo Alliance. For Sweeney and his supporters, the Department of Transportation's plan to close Prince Street in between Lafayette Street and West Broadway to automobile traffic from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. for 14 consecutive summer Sundays constitutes an assault on their neighborhood.
Last month, when the department presented the plan to Manhattan Community Board 2's Traffic and Transportation Committee, some people let the agency know as much. "The whole room erupted in boos. It turned riotous," Sweeney said. "I've been on the Community Board for 18 years and it was one of the most cacophonous, riotous, calamitous meetings I've ever been part of. SoHo has been ruined in the last 10 years with commercialism. This would have been the nail in the coffin. The meeting was our Little Big Horn, our last stand. We're not becoming a mall."
But other SoHo residents, like Ian Dutton and the rest of Community Board 2's Traffic and Transportation Committee disagree. "If you think that closing Prince Street on a couple of Sundays will turn it into a mall, you haven't walked in SoHo in 10 years," said Dutton. "What you have now is a very uncomfortable pedestrian experience for everyone ( the people who live here and the tourists) so why not see what can be done to make it better. There is no point in cutting off our nose to spite our face."
And so the battle lines were drawn.
Despite the almost immediate acerbic reactions to the plan (the Streetsblog.org post that broke the story received 75 comments , 10 of which were, to put it mildly, vehemently opposed). The Department of Transportation did not propose a temporary closure on Prince Street simply to flex its muscles. The idea probably had root in London's highly successful temporary street closures, called "Very Important Pedestrian days," on Regent and Oxford streets, two of the West End's premiere shopping corridors. The work of world renowned urban planner Jan Gehl, who conducted pedestrian counts and street life surveys for the city along Prince Street in 2007 may have also encouraged the proposal, along with a 2006 Transportation Alternatives's study conducted by Bruce Schaller, now a deputy commissioner at the transportation department.
All of these efforts point to a way of creating districts where pedestrians greatly outnumber vehicles. In some locations, the reasoning goes, a street has more value as a place for pedestrians than solely as a means of automobile transportation. This kind of thinking no doubt guided the transportation department, along with a desire to create a more pedestrian friendly city, an explicit aim of both Mayor Michael Bloomberg's PlaNYC2030 and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan
Of course, temporary street closures are nothing new. New York City has a long history of them, most far less contentious than the recent Prince Street hullabaloo. In 1970, Mayor John Lindsay decreed that portions of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street be closed to cars in honor of Earth Day. The plan was so popular that Fifth Avenue was made car-free four times that July. A Department of Commerce and Industry survey concluded that 77 percent of the visitors stopped to shop on car-free days. "Suddenly the avenue was full of baby carriages, bicyclists, street musicians, smiling couples, all reveling in the car-free quiet and safety of what had become wall to wall sidewalk," Time magazine reported later that summer.
For five years in the early 1990s then-Bronx Borough president Fernando Ferrer closed the Grand Concourse from 161st Street to 198th Street every Sunday from July to November. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani put an end to that, but in 2005 Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr. brought Car-Free Sundays back to the Grand Concourse where they remain a summer attraction.
Even small-scale temporary street closures, like the one on Sundays on the Lower East Side's Orchard Street, which has been happening since the mid-1960s, have proved popular over time and largely without a deleterious impact on area traffic. "Disappearing Traffic? The Story So Far," a paper by Sally Cairns and others, examined over 70 road closures and surveyed more than 200 transportation professionals on the subject. It found that "predictions of traffic problems are often unnecessarily alarmist, and that, given appropriate local circumstances, significant reductions in overall traffic levels can occur."
Still, when the idea of closing a street, even temporarily, is first proposed, many local businesses and residents object. "Communities tend to be resistant to any city-sponsored street closing. They claim that it's people in cars who are shoppers," said "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz, president and CEO of Sam Schwartz PLLC and a former first deputy commissioner at the city Department of Transportation. "It's kind of like a Yogi Berra-ism, trying to convince people that 'nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded."
Few would argue that Prince Street isn't already crowded. There are narrow sidewalks, scores of vendors, cars, bikes and subway entrances between Lafayette Street and West Broadway. According to the transportation department's "Prince Street Pedestrian Project" presentation, about 4,500 people per hour walk on Prince Street's sidewalks on Saturday and Sundays between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., while 200 cars per hour use the street during the same time period.
Those in favor of the plan see it as a sensible and proportionate allocation of street space, a precious commodity in downtown Manhattan. They emphasize that a trial closure one day a week will determine whether creating more room for people will make the street safer, the vending less intrusive and easier to regulate, and the neighborhood a more pleasant place to live, work and shop. They point to Schaller's study of Prince Street, which showed only 8 percent of people surveyed arrive there in a private car and 80 percent perceive the street as being overcrowded.
The Schaller Consulting study also found that "by a ratio of five-to-one, expanding pedestrian space would attract people to come to Prince Street more often, even if that meant taking away space to park. Results are almost identical for visitors and those who work or live in the area."
Many of the SoHo residents who oppose the Prince Street pilot program object for precisely that reason. They do not want more were people on their neighborhood streets. Many point to what Sweeney describes as the "garbage, traffic congestion and crowds of strolling tourists who think they own the street and stare at the residents in their windows like they are curiosities" brought annually by the Feast of San Gennaro, which runs for 11 days on neighboring Mulberry Street. "We don't like tourists," Sweeney said.
For its part, the transportation department has insisted that the temporary closure will not turn Prince Street into a permanent street fair. Representatives showed a slide at the Community Board meeting emphasizing "no stalls, no food kiosks, games or rides," and promised to address concerns about the street vendors by increasing enforcement. Many at the meeting, though, remained skeptical.
Ethan Kent, a vice president at the Project for Public Spaces, a non-profit group that works with cities all over the world to create engaging streets and public spaces that serve communities, said, "If I thought that temporary closures meant a street fair every Sunday, I wouldn't want it either, but that's just not the case. There are ways to make streets work for everyone, but you have to plan and manage. The best way to prevent a neighborhood from changing for the worse is planning for the best."
Kent, who has consulted on pedestrian projects from Hong Kong to Poughkeepsie, emphasized the importance of involving all the stakeholders as early as possible in any planning project. "Maybe if the DOT had gotten some businesses on board and partnered them with the supportive residents and then asked, 'what can make this street work better for you?' there would have been a different outcome. I'm sure all the naysayers weren't in favor of speeding cars and honking horns and exhaust fumes, but were afraid of a plan they had no part in," he said in response to the controversy in SoHo
"Planning" and "community involvement" have become buzzwords in the wake of all that has happened in SoHo. On both sides of the debate, people point to the need for community involvement in the planning of any temporary street closure. Shirley Secunda, a retired urban planner and chair of Community Board 2's Traffic and Transportation Committee, who supports the street closing plan said, of the administration "they came before us with a fully developed program ( before people had a chance to give input and even if it's a good plan ( that's a limitation right there. If they gave us more time we could have worked with them to make sure it was as good as it could be for everyone."
Sweeney, more colorfully concurred saying, "The process was so skewed and plutocratic and autocratic. The DOT tried to bulldoze SoHo."
And so despite their differences, the two camps of SoHo residents fighting over 14 summer Sundays on Prince Street agreed on the need for an open process. Community Board 2, at the behest of many area residents, eventually passed a resolution declining the transportation department's proposal that reflects as much. It reads: "CB2 also appreciates DOT's willingness to monitor and modify this test project based on community criteria and input and to sunset it if not affirmatively reviewed, but regrets the absence in this case of a true community-based process in which the neighborhood has been consulted from the start about its problems, concerns and improvement ideas."
For now the future of the Prince Street plan is murky. Now that the Communty Board has come out against it, the transportation department seems disinclined to go ahead with it in its current form. But the idea of street closings remains very much alive. Some people in SoHo would still like to see pedestrian imporvements in the area, and the department, without specifying any locations, confirmed that it is looking at similar proposals in different neighborhoods around the city.
Its statement about Prince Street implies that the department has learned a bit from what happened: "We have listened to the concerns voiced by SoHo residents and will find ways to address our shared concerns about traffic, street vendors, and congestion," said department spokesman Seth Solomonow. For their sake, and for the future of temporary street closures, that seems like a sensible course of action.
Graham Beck is the managing editor of StreetBeat, the biweekly newsletter of Transportation Alternatives and a writer. He lives in Brooklyn.Â
This article was revised on March 27 to reflect recent developments.
In the 11 months since Mayor Michael Bloomberg put forth a plan to charge people to drive in Manhattan on weekdays, the proposal has been caught in government's equivalent of rush hour on Canal Street. With time running out for a final decision, will the plan reach its destination? Or will its opponents bring it sputtering into the junkyard of failed public policy initiatives?
The past days have seen a flurry of activity around the issue. Gov. David Paterson's announced on March 21 that he supported the idea and had submitted a bill for consideration by the State Legislature. On the following Monday, as the City Council held hearings on congestion pricing, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno introduced the bill in the Senate. And on March 26, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver introduced the bill in the Assembly -- without giving it his support
With the April 7 deadline for enacting the bill -- and getting $354 million of federal money -- fast approaching , the issue promises to be the subject of intense lobbying and debate in the days to come. As an indication, the City Council hearings were packed and went on from 11 a.m. until well into the evening. To kick things off, City Council has scheduled a full day of hearings on it for today (March 24). Testimony from people on all sides confronted the many issues that have swirled around this since last spring, particularly whether charging people to use city streets is fair and whether it can both cut air pollution and provide money for mass transit.
In its current incarnation, the congestion pricing proposal would charge cars $8 a day to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.
The mayor's plan for congestion pricing -- which has seen changes over the past months -- was part of his PlaNYC2030 for an environmentally sustainable city announced on Earth Day 2007. (For more coverage of the plan, see Gotham Gazette's new Sustainability Watch.) The idea was to charge people to drive into or around the Manhattan business district during the workweek and use that money to fund mass transit improvements.
Proponents viewed it as both a solution to New York's persistent traffic congestion and air pollution problems and the constant shortage of funds for subways and buses. Opponents questioned whether the plan really would reduce noxious emissions and charged that it could pose a hardship to lower income New Yorkers who have to drive to Manhattan for business, medical appointments and the like.
As is so frequently the case with schemes from the city, the plan stalled in Albany. Bloomberg originally anticipated bypassing the City Council entirely so congestion pricing would just need state approval. It won support from Majority Leader Bruno and then Gov. Eliot Spitzer but ran into opposition from the Democratic-controlled Assembly. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver kept his opinions on this issue -- whatever they might be -- to himself.
As reporters wrote the obituary for the driving fees, the governor, majority leader and speaker -- the three men in a room, joined for this round by Bloomberg -- drafted a compromise. A commission would be appointed to study proposals to reduce traffic and issue recommendations. Its plan would then go to the City Council, the legislature and the governor for approval.
Hanging in the balance was some $354 million in federal Department of Transportation Funds. To get the money, New York had to enact a traffic mitigation plan including fees by March 31.
With congestion pricing proponents in the majority, the commission issued its report, calling for a modified version of Bloomberg's original plan, on Jan. 31. And then it sat. And sat.
As of March 19, no bill had been drafted in either the legislature or City Council. No one had stepped forward to sponsor the needed legislation. The new governor had not expressed an opinion on the concept nor had Silver. Meanwhile, a New York Times story indicated support eroding on the council. Frustrated at seeing the plan falter, Bloomberg lashed out at opponents,
"Our children deserve better from us than an inheritance of excuses bequeathed by business as usual," he said in a speech Wednesday." This isn't just a test of our policies. It's a test of our character."
Then Paterson not only said he would back congestion pricing, but put forward a bill with specifics, including the size of the congestion zone, how the revenues would be spent, what vehicles would be exempt and so on. Calling the governor's actions "tremendously helpful," Michael O'Loughlin, director of the Campaign for New York City's Future, a coalition backing congestion pricing, said the bill "gives people something to work with."
In a written statement, Paterson said he had come to this decision because "congestion pricing addresses two urgent concerns of the residents of New York City and its suburbs: the need to reduce congestion on our streets and roads, and thereby reduce pollution and global warming; and the need to raise significant revenue for mass transit improvements."
Opponents expressed dismay. "Even Governor Paterson's good name on Good Friday cannot resurrect this flawed and unfair tax legislation called congestion pricing," said a statement from Walter McCaffrey of Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free.
Paterson's support does not guarantee passage. The City Council still needs to put forth a bill, although that measure, rather than being a detailed proposal, could simply urge the legislature to back the fees. Even though this council has proved reluctant to defy Bloomberg and Speaker Christine Quinn, who supports congestion pricing, many opponents remain and a close vote is anticipated (see related story) Quinn has said she expects the council to back the pricing plan.
The council recessed rather than adjourned its regularly scheduled March 26 meeting, leaving the door open to convene an unplanned meeting to consider the issue. Quinn has denied widespread speculation that the council will vote on the pricing plan on Monday, March 31.
Up in Albany, Silver continues to be less than enthusiastic. He was quoted as saying "we still have a long road to go" before the Assembly passes congestion pricing. The Daily News quoted Democratic legislators as saying that Silver's announcement of the bill was greeted with boos at a closed door meeting.
Not unexpectedly, the measure again could become ensnared in Albany politics and package deals. The Times reported that Silver could let congestion pricing move ahead-- in return for support from Paterson and others for some kind of tax on New Yorkers making more than $1 million. That idea, unlike congestion pricing, seems to have wide support among Democratic members of the Assembly. It's unlikely, though, to win approval from the Senate Republicans who have backed congestion pricing.
And polls show many New Yorkers oppose the idea. A Quinnipiac University survey taken in January found opponents outnumbered supporters almost two-to-one.
Supporters, though, expressed optimism. "I don't see how it can't work out," said Noah Budnick, deputy director of Transportation Alternatives. "We can't fit more cars in New York City and we can't move people around by car in the city. So we need to discourage driving and at the same time fund mass transit." Congestion pricing, in the eyes of its supporters, does all that.
In the months since its original proposal, the specifics of congestion pricing have changed. The governor's bill incorporates the revisions put forth by the Traffic Mitigation Commission in January and includes a few changes made since then.
The zone: The Paterson bill adopts the zone set forth in the commission report and so would charge people simply to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street. Bloomberg's original plan would have set the boundary at 86th Street, would have exempted some peripheral highways, such as the FDR Drive, and would also have charged people to drive within the zone during the work week.
The fees: Under both the commission's recommendations and the governor's bill, the base fee for cars entering the area would be $8. Trucks would pay $21. But many drivers would end up paying far less since the system subtracts tolls used to enter Manhattan -- as long as the driver used E-ZPass to cross one of the rivers. So while someone using the toll-free Brooklyn Bridge would be charged an $8 congestion fee, a person who used the Queens Midtown Tunnel, which has a $4.50 toll, would pay that and a $3.50 congestion fee for a maximum charge of $8.
Residential parking: Many New Yorkers who live outside Manhattan but near subway stations objected not so much to the fee itself but to what people in neighborhoods without good subway or express bus access might do to avoid the fee. They feared their neighborhoods would become giant parking lots for commuters wanting to get closer to Manhattan and still avoid the fee.
In March, Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan proposed a residential parking permit program that would, Bloomberg said, "specifically be aimed at discouraging park-and-ride activity" and at areas with large facilities like sports arenas. Individual communities would decide whether to enact the program and would set regulations for it.
The Paterson bill also calls for a residential permit parking program.
The money: New Yorkers, like most Americans, tend to be skeptical of what the government will do with their money. Some opponents of congestion pricing see it as just another tax. Many people express skepticism over whether the money really will go to transit as promised.
“I’m not going to believe for a moment the lock box can’t be broken,” said Councilmember Lew Fidler of Brooklyn, who opposes congestion pricing, at the March 24 hearing.
For now, the commission and the governor are saying it will not be. The $8 fees are expected to generate enough money to operate the program and another approximately $490 million for transit improvements. Most of that will go to support the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's five-year capital plan that by some counts could add up to $30 billion.
Critics contend that that means revenue from congestion pricing would be barely more than a drop in the bucket -- about 15 percent according to a calculation by the Times. Critics, such as Assemblymember Richard Brodsky, have charged that the fees have been “oversold” as a financing mechanism. "Congestion pricing was sold as a panacea, and what this [capital] plan admits for the first time is that it’s not,” Brodsky told the Times.
Supporters of the fees say city officials and the transportation authority have to meet their commitments. “The big problem people have is they don’t trust the MTA and even city government for following through and using the money effectively,” John Liu of Queens, chair of the transportation committee, said.
If the city and state approve congestion pricing, the city will get about $354 million in federal funds designed to promote plans to ease congestion. The substantial federal payment has spawned its own set of controversies. Last summer, Bloomberg said the city would lose the funds if the state didn't approve the proposal by July 16, 2007. It didn't - but the action the state took kept the city in the running for the money. Now Bloomberg has said the deadline is March 31. Most people think that, because of a technicality, April 7 is more like it.
Then last week U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, a candidate for mayor in 2009 and a congestion pricing foe, said that a congestion pricing plan might not bring in more federal money after all. Instead, Weiner said, the Bush administration might reason that since New York was taxing itself to fund transit improvements it did not need Washington's help. Bloomberg countered that Weiner's statement was "one of the stupider things I’ve ever heard said."
Whatever the specifics, proponents believe the prospect of federal funding helps their position. "It's a tough year to turn down $354 million," McLoughlin said.
Monitoring the plan: Will it work? Proponents expect the fees to cut traffic in the zone by about 6.5 percent during peak hours, resulting in "a 13 percent reduction in congestion," according to a report by the Campaign for New York City's Future. "That's the difference between a busy autumn rush hour and mid-summer when commuters are on vacation," it said. And in turn, proponents say, an easing of traffic jams will reduce pollutants, particularly those that cause asthma and the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Opponents counter that the plan's backers underestimate the costs and overestimate the benefits. In a report, the anti-congestion pricing group concluded congestion pricing would reduce citywide traffic by only 2 percent. And because cars and trucks are not the city's chief source of greenhouse gas emissions -- buildings are -- they say, "Even if the system is as effective as its proponents claim, it will reduce emissions by only 0.4 percent."
To address the claims and counterclaims, the governor's statement says his bill will require the city to "oversee a monitoring program for traffic, air quality, noise, parking and other environmental impacts and release annual reports" as well as a preliminary report six months after the program begins.
Even among supporters of congestions pricing, two key issues remain unresolved. One is what some call the "Jersey inequity."
Because the plan subtracts bridge and tunnel tolls from the congestion charge, people crossing the Hudson River -- in other words -- those coming from New Jersey would not pay any more than they do now.
In a letter to Bloomberg last month, some 20 members of the City Council, most supportive of congestion pricing, laid out some concerns. One was the need for residential parking permits. The other was the question of the Jersey drivers. As it is now, said Tim Roberts, policy director for Councilmember David Yassky, who spearheaded the letter, "There's no disincentive for New Jersey suburbanites to drive in."
The council members then asked Bloomberg to fix the problem "either by amending the plan to require commuters from outside New York City to pay a congestion fee in addition to bridge and tunnel tolls, or by forcing the Port Authority to agree to devote a significant portion of their revenue from Hudson River crossings to funding mass transit in New York City."
While Bloomberg has not yet endorsed either of these ideas, he did leave the door open to compromise. In his response to Paterson's support Friday, Bloomberg issued a statement saying, "We will work with the governor and our partners in the State Legislature and the City Council to address outstanding issues - including reducing the impact on lower income drivers, and concerns about commuters who use Port Authority crossings contributing to the MTA Capital plan."
At the City Council hearing, transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan seemed to back-pedal, telling council members it might be illegal for the city to have one fee for people coming from, say, Queens and another for people crossing the Hudson. Rit Aggarwala, director of the mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning, indicated the law might not be the only sticking point. “The other is a policy question of whether any special treatment is a good idea,” he said.
Regardless of its merits, the New Jersey issue is an important one, said Rich Kassel, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "There is a large block on the council and probably of Assembly members for whom this is a threshold issue and it will have to be dealt with," he said.
Roberts said Yassky wanted the changes, but would support congestion pricing anyway because whatever the plan's failings "it's better than nothing."
And what about those low-income drivers? Proponents of congestion pricing question how many there really are. For example, in a look at Paterson's old State Senate district in Harlem, the Tri State Transportation Campaign found that about 80 percent of the residents, with an average household income of about $38,000 a year, did not even own a car. The 20 percent who did own a car had an average household income of more than $89,000.
Opponents of the charges, though, say those numbers are misleading. With spotty transit service in outlying areas of the city, many people of modest incomes do rely on cars to bring them to Manhattan. In particular, they cite an elderly person who has to come to Manhattan for medical care.
Further the plan heavily favors people who pay tolls with electronic E-ZPasses. Under the plan, users of the pass pay a congestion fee of $8, while those without them would pay $9. And while the E-ZPass users have the fee deducted from the money in their accounts, those without the passes will have to figure out how to pay — and pay quickly The bill carries a $65 fine for anyone who does not pay a congestion charge within 48 hours of incurring it.
The city wants to encourage E-ZPass use. But the preferential treatment given those who have them raises concerns about equity since occasional and low-income drivers may be less likely to have the electronic tags than more affluent drivers.
There does seem to be movement toward providing a tax credit for lower income people who must drive into the city. The New York Post reported that officials could offer a break to motorists who pay the $8 and qualify for the earned-income credit, $35,241 a year for a family of three in annual income.
"It'll cost something like $10 million" out of the $500 million expected to be raised, the source told the Post adding, "We're not talking about a lot of money."
Even so, it would serve to blunt one of the more powerful arguments the opponents have at their disposal.
No one argues that New York City does not have a traffic problem. Over the past year, a number of plans have been put forth to address it. Some have called for putting tolls on the East River bridges, which the commission considered and ultimately rejected. Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free put out a multifacted plan to reduce traffic, including charging more for curbside parking, reducing the number of free parking permits for city employees, changing the toll system on the Verrazano Bridge.
In the days to come, people on both sides will press their representatives. Advocates will seek to convey the message that "this is an opportunity for elected officials to make a huge impact to improve things here," said Budnick of Transportation Alternatives.
But given the political volatility of the idea, and a complicated election calculus spawned by legislative elections this year and many term-limited council members casting about for their next post, no one expects it to be easy. Members of the legislature and the council seem to be eyeing each other warily, wondering who will blink.
"No one knows who moves first," said Kassel. But, he said, "I am seeing a lot of people not ready to vote for it but who recognize that congestion pricing is coming" and that we need to fund the transit system.
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