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M.T.A. Says Mayor's Plan to Ease Traffic Will Cost $767 Million to Accomplish
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to ease traffic congestion by charging motorists who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan would cost hundreds of millions of dollars for new bus and subway services and mass transit improvements to accommodate tens of thousands of new riders, transportation officials say.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in a report to a commission created to evaluate the mayor's plan, estimated that expanded transit service and capital improvements for city and suburban riders who would give up their cars to get into Manhattan over the next five years would cost $767 million.
The total, the authority said, comprised $284 million in 2008 and 2009 for 367 new city and suburban buses, 46 new subway cars and many station renovations and service enhancements; $163 million for other subway and bus improvements from 2010 to 2012, and $320 million for two new bus terminals in Queens and Staten Island.
Dispatches
Tollbooths and Traffic: The Talk of 86th Street
By JAKE MOONEY
ANYONE who spends much time in the vicinity of East 86th Street, on the Upper East Side, is well acquainted with congestion. The street is one of the main two-way routes between the East River and Central Park, and on any given day it is home to a glut of vendors' tables and vans, to city buses, to delivery trucks, to commuters rushing to and from the subway past gaudy store displays - and to residents.
For all these people, it might seem that a sweeping plan to tame the traffic, like the mayor's congestion pricing plan currently being discussed by the state's New York City Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, would be a hit. But on this particular street, the plan has been a tough sell. The street represents the northern boundary of the zone that drivers would have to pay to enter during business hours on weekdays, and some people in the area fear that the fees will make life in the border zone even more chaotic.
Elaine Walsh, president of the East 86th Street Merchants and Residents Association, has a list of questions: Will residents who park in the area and drive to work outside the zone have to pay to leave? What about people who pass in and out of the zone while looking for parking spots? Will businesses just inside the line suffer?
Panel Starts Debate on Congestion Pricing
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
The commission created to come up with a plan to ease traffic in New York City met for the first time yesterday and began its debate on whether Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to charge motorists who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan is the best way to proceed.
The 17 members of the group, which met at Baruch College in Lower Manhattan, include transportation officials, politicians and civic leaders. Most of them are thought to be in favor of the mayor's idea, but whatever plan they agree upon must be approved by the State Legislature and the City Council.
Members Named for Panel Studying Traffic-Cutting Plan
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
A commission heavy with advocates of congestion pricing was named yesterday to study Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's contentious traffic-cutting proposal and present a recommendation to state and city lawmakers.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer nominated Marc V. Shaw, a former deputy mayor under Mr. Bloomberg, as head of the 17-member commission, which must make its recommendation by Jan. 31 on whether to impose an $8 daily charge on drivers entering Manhattan below 86th Street. The charge for trucks would be $21.
The commission includes two other members appointed by the governor, who has endorsed the mayor's proposal, three members appointed by Mayor Bloomberg and three appointed by City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, who has also supported the plan.
It would appear from those appointments that the mayor can count on a majority of commission members to back his plan. The commission was created by a law passed during a special legislative session in July as a compromise between supporters and opponents of the congestion pricing plan.
The federal Transportation Department said last week that it would give New York $354 million if it went ahead with the mayor's congestion plan. The money would go mostly to improve bus service for drivers who switch to mass transit.
When Parallel Parking
Was New and Meters
Seemed Un-American
July 30, 2007; Page B1
Parking on city streets today is a cinch compared with the 1930s, when free, unlimited parking was considered every American's constitutional right.
Just as their grandparents had tied their horses to the general store's rail, American drivers expected handy curb space for their cars when they went to town. By the 1930s, however, there were too many cars and too few curbs.
The result was chaos. Employees of downtown businesses hogged spaces for whole days; some merchants deliberately parked their cars in front of competitors' stores. Other drivers circled the narrow streets waiting for a rare free space. Trucks loading or unloading double-parked. In most cities, there were no marks on curbs to delineate spaces. In the few timed spaces, enforcement by chalking the tires was easy to beat. And the art of parallel parking was in its infancy.
"None of our cities were designed for motor traffic, and only in the West were they young enough when the automobile arrived en masse to adapt themselves to the new traffic medium," wrote Arthur Pound in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1938.
For drivers, downtown bottlenecks were maddening, but for retail businesses that depended on customer turnover, they were ruinous. Some large cities tried banning all parking on a few major thoroughfares, but many shoppers wouldn't walk even a few blocks from their car to a store. They took their business to the periphery of the city.
In 1932, the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce decided it had to do something about the city's downtown parking problem. A local newspaper editor, Carl Magee, was charged with finding a solution. Mr. Magee invented the park-o-meter.
Op-Ed Contributor
Clear Up the Congestion-Pricing Gridlock
By KEN LIVINGSTONE
London
THE New York State Assembly ended its session on June 22 without reaching a consensus on Manhattan's congestion pricing proposal - a delay that may cost New York City some $500 million in federal transportation money. Assembly members have voiced concerns about the economic impact of the program, the effect on traffic outside Manhattan and even the effectiveness of the idea itself.
Four years ago, London was engaged in a very similar debate. We now have the luxury of hindsight. While the two cities' situations are not identical, they certainly have analogies and therefore, perhaps, the success of London's program can shed light on the current debate in New York.
At that time, London's business district was undergoing rapid growth, but it was at capacity in terms of traffic. Efforts to channel more cars into the city center simply led to ever lower traffic speeds, which in turn led to business losses and a decrease in quality of life. Simultaneously, carbon emissions were mounting because of the inefficiency of engine use.
In 2003, London put in place a £5 (about $9) a day congestion charge for all cars that entered the center city (the charge is now £8). This led to an immediate drop of 70,000 cars a day in the affected zone. Traffic congestion fell by almost 20 percent. Emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide were cut by more than 15 percent.
Manhattanites Face Driving Fee on the Way Out
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
In promoting his sweeping traffic reduction plan, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his aides have stressed one provision: drivers who enter Manhattan below 86th Street would be charged an $8 fee.
But what has not been widely mentioned is a measure that could startle some Manhattanites: those who live within the zone would have to pay $8 to drive out.
The congestion pricing program was devised to cut traffic, chiefly by persuading people from the other boroughs and beyond to leave their cars behind and take public transit into Manhattan. But planners say that those who live inside the congestion pricing zone also contribute to traffic when they drive out, and should pay their share, too.
That means a man from Greenwich Village who drives to visit his grandmother in Queens would pay the fee. So would a C.E.O. who has a reverse commute, driving from the East Side to Stamford, Conn., each morning, and an Upper Eastsider who likes to drive to the Fairway supermarket in Harlem.
It might seem that anyone taking a car out of the congestion zone ought to be rewarded instead of penalized, but officials disagreed.
"We're not trying to get people to leave the zone in their cars," said Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, who played a leading role in fashioning the plan. "Overall what we're trying to do is get people to use their cars less."
City Traffic Pricing Wins U.S. and Spitzer's Favor
By DANNY HAKIM and RAY RIVERA
ALBANY, June 7 - Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to reduce traffic by charging people who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan received significant support on Thursday as Gov. Eliot Spitzer endorsed the idea and the Bush administration indicated that New York stood to gain hundreds of millions of dollars if the plan were enacted.
If the measure is approved by the Legislature, New York will become the first city in the United States to impose a broad system of congestion pricing, which was introduced in London in 2003 and has been credited with reducing traffic there.
Governor Spitzer said he would work to ensure passage of the plan, which is a major part of the mayor's blueprint for improving air quality and traffic flow for the next several decades. The Bloomberg administration has estimated that it could put the program into effect within 18 months of legislative approval.
"This is a necessary investment for the future of New York City, which is to a great extent the economic engine of New York State," the governor said. "And so this is not really a question of whether, it's a question of how, it's a question of making sure that we do it properly."
Mr. Spitzer appeared alongside the United States transportation secretary, Mary E. Peters, who announced that New York City was one of nine finalists for a share of $1.1 billion in federal aid to fight urban traffic. Ms. Peters warned, however, that the city's potential share could be endangered if the mayor's plan did not have state approval by August.
Heavy New York Traffic Puts Health at Risk
Mayor's groundbreaking plan to make New York the world's cleanest, healthiest city is welcome
Posted on: 04/19/2007
Hi-res jpg image of ad
Mayor's Sustainabilty Plan
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg wants the city to have "the cleanest air of any big city in America" by 2030.
Just after Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his bold "greenprint" for New York City, Environmental Defense called for people to share stories about traffic. Arturo, a resident of Long Island City, Queens, New York, responded. He describes the perils of living on a busy high-speed thoroughfare:
"Trucks, buses, cars whiz by at high speeds. The green [light for drivers] is at least 90 seconds, perhaps longer, so vehicles are inclined to drive very fast. .... I play a game of chicken every time I cross. And during rush hours, other pedestrians like me are forced to jaywalk," he writes. (Share your story, too. How does traffic affect you? Does your child go to school or play near a busy road?)
The City
Unlocking Gridlock
Washington is poised to offer a helping hand, as well as significant money, to assist Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his efforts to solve New York's traffic gridlock. But there is one bump in the road - Albany, which must approve the city's proposed remedy before any money can begin to flow. And some legislators are balking.
The federal Department of Transportation plans to make available $1.2 billion in grants, loans and other financing to metropolitan areas across the country to help them test strategies to relieve traffic congestion.
The Mayor's Ode to Earth Day
Published: April 23, 2007
Mayor Michael Bloomberg likes to talk about the big picture, even if it might not be pretty. Yesterday, he warned New Yorkers how their city could suffer by 2030 without his plans for the future. With a million new people coming into town, housing needs would soar. The sky could be as gray and toxic as London in the '50s. Every road into Manhattan would be above capacity - a gridlock nightmare that would make today's traffic jams look tame.
April 22, 2007
Mayor Proposes a Fee for Driving Into Manhattan
By MARIA NEWMAN
Saying that he would not spend his final term in office "pretending that all is fine," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made a series of Earth Day proposals this afternoon to improve the environment of New York City, including charging a new congestion fee to drivers who come into parts of Manhattan during peak hours during weekdays.
The $8 congestion fee was one of 127 initiatives included in a sweeping plan by the mayor to help the city of currently 8.2 million people cope with an expected surge in population that he said is sure to put a strain on its transportation, housing and energy systems.
"Let's face up to the fact that our population growth is putting our city on a collision course with the environment, which itself is growing more unstable and uncertain," the mayor said.
A key objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030, by which time the population is projected to grow by at least a million people, he said.
The proposal that is sure to attract the most attention, and possibly objections, is one to impose the $8 fee on car drivers, and $21 for truck operators, to drive in Manhattan south of 86th Street.
Bloomberg: ‘It's Called Capitalism'
By Ray Rivera
On his weekly radio appearance on WABC this morning [listen], Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spoke hypothetically about the congestion pricing proposal he is all but assured to announce on Sunday. One plan under consideration would charge drivers $8 to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan during the workweek as a way to reduce traffic and air pollution.
Mr. Bloomberg said he expected a fight in Albany to impose the plan. "I've always thought, it's a difficult political lift," he said, "but it's getting to the point of, what do you want? You can't have it both ways."
The mayor also said the charge would not be onerous, considering the costly price of parking in Manhattan, and that most, though not all, people who commute by car tend to be "people who can afford it." Asked if it was a new tax, he described it as a reasonable cost for a service the city provides. He compared the cost to the $12 people pay to attend a movie. Of course, few go to the movies daily.
Bloomberg to Unveil Long-Term Vision for City
By DIANE CARDWELL and CHARLES V. BAGLI
With New York's population expected to grow by one million in two decades, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will call on Sunday for a raft of ambitious and sometimes contentious proposals that are intended to ease traffic congestion, reduce air pollution, build housing, improve mass transit and develop abandoned industrial land.
The speech, which mayoral aides have described as the centerpiece of his final 32 months in office, will outline his vision for the city over the next quarter century, setting priorities for refurbishing the city's aging bridges, water mains, transit system, power plants and building codes. And in the talk on Sunday - Earth Day - the mayor will propose doing so in a way that reduces the strain on natural resources like water, clean air and land.
Toward that end, Mr. Bloomberg is expected to advocate more than 100 proposals, including charging drivers to enter the busiest sections of Manhattan, and using zoning and tax incentives to encourage the construction of 250,000 homes.
Congestion Pricing Could Be Used To Help Sustain City
BY ANNIE KARNI
Mayor Bloomberg this Sunday will unveil a wide-ranging plan intended to make the city healthier and cleaner as it prepares for an expected influx of 1 million new residents by 2030.
The sustainability plan, 18 months in the making, is likely to include more than 100 specific initiatives addressing the city's energy and infrastructure goals, including: creating incentives for green development, implementing caps on building emissions, and charging drivers a fee to use the city's most congested streets, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the initiative.
The mayor's Earth Day announcement is expected to include some form of congestion pricing, charging drivers a fee for using the city's most crowded roads during peak hours. If approved, the fees could bring in up to $500 million annually to fund mass transit infrastructure expansion and improvements, according to multiple sources. They said the road-pricing initiative that is likely to be implemented would be similar but "more moderate" than London's model of congestion pricing, instituted in 2003.
One possibility being tossed around is that drivers entering Manhattan's central business district below 86th Street would pay $8 during peak hours, which would be offset by any tolls paid to enter.
‘Biking Is the New Golf!'
By: Matthew Schuerman
Date: 2/5/2007
"I notice when I am riding that I run a lot of red lights," the 6-foot-2 Paul Steely White shouted over his shoulder. "The way I think of it, it is more important to watch out for pedestrians than lights, because there are a lot of jaywalkers in New York."
Mr. White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a pedestrian and bike advocacy group, was loping down Mott Street in Soho in a cold January drizzle on a single-speed 1971 Schwinn, weaving in between cars trying to find their way onto the Williamsburg Bridge-a bakery van pulling suddenly over to the curb, a truck snorting forth.
...
Once the domain of traffic nerds, congestion pricing has taken hold here recently like never before. Both the Partnership for New York City, a prominent group of business executives, and the Manhattan Institute, the conservative think tank, endorsed or re-endorsed it in December, joining a list of longstanding proponents such as the Regional Plan Association.
The Answer for U.S. Congestion?
January 18, 2007
Crammed roadways and rush-hour traffic once were only problems in major U.S. cities such as New York and Los Angeles, but traffic snarls are becoming a growing problem for more cities. The number of metro areas where rush-hour travelers spend more than 20 hours per year stewing in traffic grew from a mere five in 1982 to 51 in 2003, according to the most recent report from the Texas Transportation Institute.
Traffic policies have long focused on road building. But some now argue that opening toll-based express lanes or instituting extra fees for rush-hour drivers -- as London did in 2003 -- may drive people toward public transportation and make commutes more efficient. Are there unintended consequences of such policies? And how big a problem is congestion if -- in the end -- commuters still are willing brave the morning rush?
The Online Journal asked economists Peter Gordon, of the University of Southern California, and Matthew Kahn, of the University of California, Los Angeles, to discuss the costs of traffic congestion, the problem it poses -- or doesn't pose -- for cities and how policy options such as London's traffic congestion charges might play on this side of the pond.
Will a toll booth at the corner of 60th and Fifth solve midtown's traffic nightmare?
by Jarrett Murphy
January 2nd, 2007 12:08 PM
Congestion Pricing And The Future Of NYC: Addressing The Objections
by Bruce Schaller
13 Dec 2006
In his much-anticipated speech on long-term planning for New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out “10 aggressive but achievable goals” to meet the “three major challenges” of the future. One of the major challenges, he said, will be an expected explosion in population growth; one of the goals within that challenge will be to make sure traffic congestion “doesn’t bring our economy grinding to a halt.” And what would assure this? In his speech, the mayor talked about “adding to the capacity of our regional mass transit system, so that travel times stay the same – or get better.” But members of the panel discussion immediately afterwards specifically touched on whether congestion pricing – charging a fee to use congested streets or highways – should be used to provide traffic relief.
by Tom Angotti
December, 2006
New York has been trying to fix its traffic problems for decades. How those big ideas keep getting stuck behind slow-moving politicians.
By Aaron Naparstek
Nearly 45% of city residents surveyed by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign said it would be a good idea to charge drivers to enter Manhattan below 60th St. because it would get them into trains and buses.
...
Of those surveyed, an equal percentage - 45% - voiced opposition to charging to go below 60th St. on top of existing tolls at such places as the Lincoln and Holland tunnels.
Other findings of the survey include:
# Only 18% were familiar with the concept of congestion pricing, which also entails charging drivers more for peak-hour travel.
# Nearly 80% believe traffic jams are a problem, and 53% say congestion is a major problem.
# Strong dissatisfaction with Mayor Bloomberg's efforts in addressing traffic: 59% give him a negative rating.
# 77% agree that congestion pricing will reduce noise and air pollution in the city. Almost all of those believe it will speed emergency response.
# 65% of workers take mass transit, while 24% drive their own cars.
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: November 24, 2006
Congestion pricing, the idea of charging drivers for bringing vehicles into the busiest parts of Manhattan, has become a kind of holy grail for transportation advocates and urban planners in New York - a coveted prize that has remained out of reach.
A year ago, officials from a prominent civic group floated a proposal to reduce traffic by levying a $7 fee on cars and trucks driving below 60th Street, but they found themselves treated not like visionary crusaders but like bird flu patients when policy makers at City Hall said very firmly that such a change was not on the mayor's agenda for his second term.
By ANNIE KARNI
Special to the Sun
November 20, 2006
While Mayor Bloomberg publicly maintains that the city is not interested in charging drivers a fee to enter Midtown Manhattan's business district during its busiest hours, four independent groups are quietly conducting studies to determine how imposing such a charge could reduce city traffic and benefit the economy.
The studies, set to be released within the next few months, could renew pressure on the mayor to consider instating the fees known as congestion pricing.
Congestion pricing creates a financial incentive to reduce the number of cars on the city's most overcrowded streets and encourages the use of mass transit. Opponents say they don't like the idea of New Yorkers paying to use their own city.