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Upper West Side
At Peak Times, a Hungrier Meter?
By ALEX MINDLIN
PARKING spaces on the Upper West Side are precious resources, to be hoarded like coal in wartime. The familiar street-cleaning shuffle requires paramilitary levels of vigilance and guile. So it is no surprise that the city is eyeing the neighborhood as a place to test a new program that would raise and lower the price of parking to match demand.
The system, known as performance-based pricing, was pioneered by Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at University of California, Los Angeles. Under the system, which is in use in Pasadena, Calif. and part of Washington, D.C., the price of parking fluctuates over the course of the day.
In peak periods, like the early evening, prices are kept high enough to dissuade some drivers from parking, with the goal of having two spots per block unoccupied at any time. Advocates of the system say it eases congestion and lowers emissions by sparing drivers the usual "cruise" in search of parking.
Over the last year, officials of the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District have told the city they are willing to try out the new system, in return for street improvements like bike racks, benches, curb extensions and bike lanes. The city never formally agreed to such an arrangement, but Barbara Adler, executive director of the business district, said she learned a few weeks ago that performance-based pricing might be in the works for the avenue.
SEPTA Plans Service Upgrades
By: Dan Hirschhorn, The Bulletin
03/27/2008
Philadelphia - SEPTA riders can expect significant service upgrades in the fall, with the transit agency planning to spend more than $10 million increasing the frequency and capacity of buses and trains.
The planned improvements come as SEPTA is enjoying its first dedicated funding stream in a decade and ridership is increasing across the transit system, the country's sixth-largest.
SEPTA officials announced the plans for increasing service at a press conference yesterday, where they unveiled the agency's proposed operational budget for fiscal year 2009. The budget still needs to go through public hearings over the next couple weeks.
"All of these service initiatives are part of SEPTA's commitment to improve service and convenience for our customers around the five counties of Southeastern Pennsylvania," SEPTA's chief service planner Charles Webb said.
The proposed budget of $1.08 billion represents a spending increase of about 5.6 percent over the previous year. But SEPTA remains cautious about increasing spending, and is spending significantly less than it could. Even though a landmark transportation funding law enacted last summer is proving the transit agency significantly more in state subsidy than it has budgeted for, SEPTA is not using that money to improve service.
I-80 toll plans moving forward
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will take over operation of I-80 and turn the freeway into a toll road under terms of a 50-year lease signed late Monday.The lease with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was signed just before a midnight deadline set by the legislature. Tolls could be in place by 2010 if permission is obtained from the Federal Highway Administration.
The state's two highway agencies made formal application for that approval on Saturday. In the application, the turnpike agency said it planned to double the money available for I-80 repairs and upgrades over the next decade to $2 billion.
The state's plan envisions as many as 10 toll booths between New Jersey and Ohio, with an initial cost of about $25 for motorists to drive the entire 311-mile highway.
The I-80 tolls would be set at the turnpike's rate, which is anticipated to be about 8 cents per mile in three years, for cars. That would represent a 33 percent increase from the current turnpike toll rate, which now averages about 6 cents per mile. (Tolls would be 23 cents per mile for trucks weighing 30,001 to 45,000 pounds.)
Tolls on I-80 are part of a plan created last July by the legislature to raise about $965 million more per year over the next 10 years for highways, bridges and mass transit. The new law, Act 44, has been under fire from northern Pennsylvanians along the I-80 corridor who fear it will hurt the economy of the region.
Tolling the open road
Massachusetts considers charging by the mile for highway drivers
By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff | October 7, 2007
The monthly invoice could look something like an electricity bill or a cellphone statement. But instead of kilowatt hours or roaming minutes, it would itemize how many miles you drive - with surcharges for traveling during peak hours, premiums for using so-called Lexus lanes that bypass rush-hour snarls, and discounts for sitting through traffic jams.
The free and open road, regarded by many Americans as a birthright, could become a relic under a plan being discussed in Massachusetts and in several other states, transforming highway use from a service available to all into a utility paid for on a per-mile basis.
This philosophical shift is the cornerstone of a landmark report, released last month by the Commonwealth's Transportation Finance Commission, which was tasked with finding the estimated $15 billion to $19 billion needed to fix the state's crumbling roads and bridges over the next two decades.
Under the commission's plan, a 5-cents-per-mile fee on major roads would replace, or minimize, gas taxes and fundamentally change a central aspect of everyday life.
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.
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, October 5, 2007
Regional officials are taking a close look at trying to increase the Bay Area's gasoline tax by as much as 10 cents a gallon and believe voters might agree to it as a way to help combat global warming, The Chronicle learned Thursday.
Although the regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission has been able to ask voters for a higher gas tax since 1997, a decade of polls indicated there was little chance such an unpopular idea would ever secure the necessary two-thirds approval in the nine Bay Area counties.
Now, however, with public concern building over climate change, the electorate might not be so opposed to a new gas tax as long as voters see it as a way to help the environment, officials said.
A 10-cent-a-gallon increase in the Bay Area could generate an estimated $300 million a year or more to pay for transportation-related projects. Although the money could be used for roads, the emphasis probably would be on public transit and efforts to reduce auto pollution.
"People will kill their puppies to stop global warming these days," said Dave Snyder with a smile. Snyder is transportation policy director at the San Francisco Policy and Urban Planning Association, a think tank.
FROM one straphanger to another, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s executive director, Elliot G. Sander, consciously straddling the fence between polished bureaucrat (his upwardly mobile career) and put-upon proletarian (his roots in Jamaica, Queens), confides that the pending — read inevitable — bus and subway fare increase to $2.25 from $2 a trip is not his preference. But.
“I would prefer not to have a fare increase, and I want to keep the cost of transportation as far down as I can, but I am calling on our customers to basically keep up with the cost of living,” he said. “My objective is for the M.T.A. not to go into a death spiral, go where it was in the ’70s and ’80s when you had derailments, breakdowns, graffiti, track fires, you name it. This authority has been a high-wire act for the last 20 years.” Without a safety net.
The fare hikes, which SEPTA says it needs because a court case stopped it from eliminating 60-cent paper transfers, saddle riders with higher fares less than three months after other fare hikes.
As part of its fare hike resolution approved this afternoon, the SEPTA board agreed to review today's fare hikes if it wins a court appeal and is allowed to scrap the paper transfers.
The new fares, effective Monday, increase the price of a token to $1.45 from the current $1.30 and the price of a transfer to 75 cents from the current 60 cents. The cash fare would remain $2 - one of the nation's highest.
Riders, still smarting from SEPTA's July fare hikes, are outraged.
Money - Grant-givers say people-hauling efficiency is their primary goal, not urban revitalization
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
DYLAN RIVERA
The Oregonian
In the Bush White House, the political appointees who set the nation's mass transit policies view Portland's streetcar system as an extravagance: A sweet way for a relatively few privileged urbanites to move about a city that prides itself on dense downtown development. Rapid bus lines, in the administration's view, would move more people from place to place at less expense.
That thinking could cost Portland, which is hoping to expand its streetcar line and become the first in the nation to be built with substantial federal money. The city has spent years building political and neighborhood consensus about the new route, which would cross the Broadway Bridge and go south to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, nearly completing a streetcar loop of the city's core.
But the project now navigates a political battlefield. Think tanks, Democrats in Congress and the White House are fighting over whether the federal government should help cities use streetcars to promote urban revitalization, or simply fund buses that move the most people over the greatest distances for the least amount of upfront money.
Title: Financing transportation networks / David M. Levinson.
Publisher: Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA, USA : E. Elgar Pub., c2002.
Description: Book
vii, 232 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
LC Subject(s): Toll roads.
Roads --Finance.
Series: Transport economics, management, and policy
Location: Lippincott Library
Call Number: HE336.T64 L48 2002
High fares and long walks to stations have combined to hold down ridership. An extension to the airport is pushed.
By Kimi Yoshino
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 14, 2007
LAS VEGAS - -- Can the Las Vegas Monorail double down to avoid going bust?
Three years after beginning operations, the four-mile, $650-million private rail line that stretches from behind the MGM Grand to the Sahara hotel-casino is attracting about 22,285 riders a day -- far below the 54,000 predicted when the project was launched. This summer, Fitch Ratings downgraded the monorail's bond rating, already in junk status, and said financial default appeared probable.
"Things are continuing to deteriorate," said Chad Lewis, an associate director at Fitch Ratings. "Right now, they're running about 50% of the [ridership] forecast, so clearly a significant increase in revenues is needed."
But Monorail officials say what they need to boost ridership and generate profit is a $500-million extension to McCarran International Airport.
Foes raise stakes on I-80 tolls
By Paul Nussbaum
CLARION, Pa. - Brent Olson, the balding and soft-spoken general manager of a modular-home factory, is an unlikely Paul Revere.
But here he is, part of a growing revolt across northern Pennsylvania, sounding the alarm: The tolls are coming, the tolls are coming.
"We're really upset. This is going to have a drastic impact on our economy," said Olson, general manager for Commodore Homes, walking across a vast production floor where a small army of carpenters, welders, plumbers, roofers and electricians completes a home every 40 minutes. "I have a sickening feeling about it. We all do."
TxDOT plan would convert some interstates to toll roads
Plan includes buying interstates and charging drivers a toll
By POLLY ROSS HUGHES
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - The Texas Department of Transportation is pushing Congress to pass a federal law allowing the state to "buy back" parts of existing interstate highways and turn them into toll roads.
The 24-page plan, outlined in a "Forward Momentum" report that escaped widespread attention when published in February, drew prompt objections Thursday from state lawmakers and activists fighting the spread of privately run toll roads.
"I think it's a dreadful recommendation on the part of the transportation commissioners here in Texas," said Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas.
"I feel confident that legislators in Austin would overwhelmingly be opposed to such an idea," he said. "The simple fact is that taxpayers have already paid for those roadways. To ask taxpayers to pay for them twice is untenable."
The Folly Of Higher Gas Taxes
By Mary E. Peters
Saturday, August 25, 2007; Page A15
America was stunned on Aug. 1 when the Interstate 35 West bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed in a tangle of vehicles, concrete and steel. My department is working closely with the National Transportation Safety Board to determine why the bridge failed, and in the aftermath of this tragedy, a necessary national conversation has begun concerning the state of the nation's bridges and highways and the financial model used to build, maintain and operate them.
Many, including The Post [" Paying the Price," editorial, Aug. 21], are taking this opportunity to call for gasoline tax increases and a larger federal presence in transportation investment decisions. For a variety of reasons, a response of this sort would exacerbate our transportation system failures, not alleviate them.
A far better question than whether gas taxes are high enough is what taxpayers get if we expand our dependence on the gasoline tax. The answer is almost certainly higher gas prices, more congestion and stagnating quality of life, which is why The Post's call for a substantial increase in the nation's gas tax is ill-advised.
Our system is failing because federal gasoline taxes are deposited into a centralized trust fund and allocated based on political will. Major spending decisions often have nothing to do with underlying economics, engineering realities or consumer needs. New programs and pet project earmarks have proliferated in recent years. The 2005 transportation funding bill, for example, included more than 6,000 politically driven earmarks reported to cost some $24 billion. That's a staggering figure. The true price however is unfortunately much higher because earmarks typically represent only a fraction of project costs.
Pennsylvania Political War Over Planned Tolls on I-80
By SEAN D. HAMILL
BROOKVILLE, Pa., Aug. 23 - Anthony Foote spends a lot of time driving his Kenworth T-600 truck on Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania. He prefers it to the state's other east-west highway, the Interstate 76 turnpike, which can cost him $140 in tolls.
So the news that the state plans to impose tolls on I-80 was as upsetting to Mr. Foote as finding an ugly scratch in the purple paint on his rig.
"I hate paying tolls," he said. "It eats up my profit. If this goes through, you'll have a lot of truckers avoiding Pennsylvania - including me."
Pennsylvania officials plan to build up to 10 toll areas along the 311-mile stretch of Interstate 80 in the next three years to help pay for road, bridge and mass transit projects and subsidies.
The move has sparked a political war between the bipartisan coalition of state legislators who approved the plan and two Republican congressmen who say it is a "shell game," taking revenue from rural Pennsylvania to bail out the state's urban areas.
"It's absolutely horrendous for my district," said one of them, Representative John E. Peterson, whose Fifth Congressional District covers about half of I-80 in north central Pennsylvania. "Every major bill like this should be measured by whether this will make people less likely to come here. And if this stays active, we'll never get another distribution center or similar business again in my district."
Paying for new roads with tolls, or adding tolls to sections of older urban roads, is common across the country. But experts say that imposing tolls on an entire interstate highway that had been free may be unprecedented, in part because the federal government typically bans tolls on highways paid for with federal money, as I-80 was.
DOI: 10.1177/1473095207075162
© 2007 SAGE Publications
Analysis of Rail Transit Project Selection Bias With an Incentive Approach
Wenling Chen
The World Bank,Washington, DC, USA
Rail transit investments have been widely supported by the local planning agencies and government financing resources for their perceived environmental and social benefits, as well as the compact development patterns rail corridors support. Despite the widespread expectations, the sustainability of rail transit projects is often found questionable, as are the actual benefits rail investments can bring about in practice. One of the reasons for rail investments' tendency to perform less well than expected has been identified as a prevailing bias of local officials toward high-capital rail transit investments that are underwritten by the transit financing mechanism (Johnston et al., 1988; Kain, 1990; Pickrell, 1992; Richmond, 1999; Flyvbjerg et al., 2003, 2004, 2005). This article examines the funding mechanism problem underlying the rail transit project selection bias and hypothesizes this problem to be a principal-agent problem. Incentive theory is introduced as an analytical tool to model the problem, to better understand the nature and causes of the problem, and to suggest solutions to it. By applying incentive theory to analyze the project development process of the US New Starts program, it is suggested that the funding mechanism problem associated with the bias toward capital-intensive rail investments can be viewed as a principal-agent problem between the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) (the principal) and local project sponsors (the agent). The incentive approach proposed in this article provides insights for analyzing the relation between central government and local agencies in the planning and decision-making process of rail transit investment, and for addressing political problems, primarily rent-seeking behaviors, associated with central government earmark funding.
Key Words: incentive theory • light rail transit • principal-agent problem • project selection bias
Is That Finally the Sound of a 2nd Ave. Subway?
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
The neckties are wide and the sideburns long, the pickaxes gleam in the sunlight. The governor thanks the president for providing money. The mayor jokes that "whatever is said about this project in the years to come, certainly no one can say that the city acted rashly or without due deliberation."
The governor swings his pickax, but the pavement is too hard. A jackhammer is brought in to loosen things up. Now the governor and the mayor lay to with gusto.
The Second Avenue subway is born.
Or so it seemed at the time.
The sideburns were long and the neckties wide because it was 1972. The president was Nixon. The governor was Rockefeller. The mayor was Lindsay. And nearly 35 years later, no trains have ever run under Second Avenue.
But the line has had at least three groundbreakings.
On Thursday it will get another one.
NYTimes
April 4, 2007
Editorial
Stay on Track
Americans made 10.1 billion trips on public transportation last year, the highest that ridership has risen in nearly half a century. That's good for congestion on the roads as well as the pollution that goes with it. But any mass-transit renaissance will come to a grinding halt unless a commensurate investment is made in upkeep and expansion.
As Libby Sander reported recently in The Times, Chicago's elevated train system, known as the El, appears to be near a breaking point. The second-largest public transit system in America after New York's is suffering from rising commute times as the century-old system deteriorates.
Public transit systems are financed through a combination of federal and local money, so parochial priorities play a big role in underinvestment. For instance, the Chicago Transit Authority's financing formula hasn't changed since 1983. But at the same time, the federal gas tax - which contributes money for public transportation systems as well as highways - hasn't changed since 1993. That means it hasn't even kept up with inflation in maintenance and construction costs, much less rising demand.
Bush official promotes Rendell's push to lease Pa. Turnpike
By Marc Levy
Associated Press
HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell enlisted the Bush administration yesterday in his push to get wary legislators to agree to privatize the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Rendell, a Democrat, appeared with U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters to extol the benefits of a proposal to lease the turnpike, an arrangement Rendell hopes will provide nearly $1 billion a year for the state's highway network.
"This partnership," Peters said at a news conference in the state Capitol's rotunda, "could generate billions of dollars that could be used to repair deteriorating roads and bridges, and free up money for construction and keep the state moving both now and into the future."
Agency Might Replace Bridge and Tunnel Tollbooths With Cashless System
By KEN BELSON
The backup at the tunnel - a phrase as familiar to New York and New Jersey drivers as rubbernecking delays - will never go away. But it may be used less frequently if the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has its way.
The head of the agency, which operates six tunnels and bridges that empty more than 125 million cars, trucks and buses into New York City each year, said yesterday that in a few weeks it would consider financing a study to look at removing tollbooths and at the impact that would have on traffic and pricing.
By going cashless and asking all drivers to use an electronic E-ZPass, said Anthony E. Shorris, the executive director of the Port Authority, the agency hopes to introduce what it calls "dynamic pricing," charging higher tolls during peak periods and lower tolls when traffic is lighter.
Mr. Shorris also said that going entirely electronic would improve air quality because cars and trucks would spend less time idling at toll barriers.
They're both en route in Pa., N.J.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Would you pay $34 to drive the Pennsylvania Turnpike? How about $11 for the New Jersey Turnpike? Or $8 for the Garden State Parkway?
Those are the billion-dollar questions for private companies interested in leasing the toll roads.
In figuring out the price tag for a turnpike, nothing is as important to a private bidder as future tolls. If drivers will pay more - and not divert in droves to other roads - companies will offer more for the toll road.
Morgan Stanley & Co., hired by Gov. Rendell to advise his administration on leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike, is expected to publicly release its recommendations later this month.
"It all depends on the tolls," said one banker who asked not to be identified because his company is involved in the bidding for the Pennsylvania Turnpike. "You want an equitable toll rate, one that isn't so high that people don't want to take the road or so low that you get a lot of congestion."
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.
The agency vowed to appeal the ruling in a suit brought by Philadelphia
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
The transfers live.
A Common Pleas Court judge ruled yesterday that SEPTA must not eliminate the paper transfers that permit bus and subway riders to change vehicles for 60 cents.
The transit agency said it would appeal Judge Gary F. DiVito Jr.'s decision.
SEPTA had wanted passengers to pay full fares ($2 with cash or $1.30 with tokens) whenever changing from one bus to another. The city sued, saying that poor and minority passengers would be especially hard-hit by the elimination of the transfers.
In ordering the board to reinstate the transfers, DiVito called the SEPTA decision "capricious and . . . a manifest and flagrant abuse of discretion."
"What the evidence demonstrates," DiVito wrote, "is that SEPTA's board (1) voted to eliminate paper transfers (2) to mollify the legislature in hopes of ensuring funding (3) without any study of the impact on those who would be most adversely affected (4) without any semblance of a 'modernization plan' ready (5) with no agreement with the school board in place when (6) they could have designed a plan with an equitable impact on all of its riders."
Mixed Signals: Driving to Work as a Tax Break
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
They have made it a priority at the United States Department of Transportation: Get people out of their cars.
This week, the department announced $848 million in grants to help cities discourage people from driving, in many cases by imposing new tolls or fees.
But at the same time, another arm of the federal government seems to be sending a very different message. Congress provides a tax break to many of those same drivers to help them shoulder the costs of taking their cars to work.
Close to 400,000 commuters nationwide - about half of them in the New York City area - take advantage of a provision in the federal tax code that allows them to use up to $215 a month in pre-tax wages to pay for their parking at work, according to executives at corporate benefits firms that specialize in administering the tax break.
While some drivers use it to pay for parking at commuter rail stations or bus stops, most take advantage of it to pay for parking near their workplace, mostly in city centers, the executives said.
The tax savings can equal about $1,000 a year for some drivers. And the effect makes driving to work more desirable.
"It is perverse," said Jeffrey M. Zupan, a senior fellow for transportation at the Regional Plan Association in New York. "If you're going to institute pricing measures that are intended to reduce the amount of driving, you don't want to keep in place other measures that encourage people to drive. What you want is a set of policies that work together."
The federal government said on Tuesday that it would provide $354 million for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s broad plan to reduce traffic, but left it to the city to come up with more than $200 million needed for the most controversial part of the plan: a system to charge people who drive into Manhattan.
In addition, under the agreement outlined by the United States secretary of transportation, Mary E. Peters, the release of the funds is contingent upon the City Council’s and the State Legislature’s approving the plan, including the new fee on drivers, by next March.
The announcement was mixed news for Mr. Bloomberg, who is trying to establish the first broad-based congestion pricing program in the country, and to raise his national profile on environmental issues. While the federal support helps to advance his initiative, it is now up to the mayor to find the money — through borrowing, appropriation, or perhaps from a private corporation — for what has been seen as the centerpiece of the plan, the new charge on drivers.
In its federal application, the city estimated that it would cost $223 million to install a computerized system to monitor traffic and impose the fee on cars entering the busiest parts of Manhattan, and asked the United States to cover $179 million of that. But the Department of Transportation said it would contribute only $10 million to that initiative. Most of what the department agreed to provide on Tuesday is designated for the construction of bus depots and other mass transit improvements.
By Steve Hymon
Times Staff Writer
August 6, 2007
In November 2004, voters in the Denver metro region went to the polls and, much to the surprise of some political observers, decided to tax themselves to begin the nation's largest ongoing expansion of mass transit.
If all goes as planned, the Denver region is expected to build 119 miles of light rail and commuter rail by 2016. Among the projects are six new lines from Denver to the suburbs, including one to the airport, the extension of two other light-rail lines and a new rapid transit bus line.
It's a relatively unusual approach. Constrained by a lack of money, most cities build one or maybe two lines at a time. In Denver, they're betting the entire system can be built at once.
As with any massive public works project, there are reasons for skepticism. The projected cost of the program — called FasTracks — has grown from $4.7 billion to $6.2 billion because of rising construction costs, before construction has started. Transit officials and politicians continue to insist that each of the new lines will be built, but cuts will have to be made, perhaps in the form of smaller stations or lines that have only one track.
For Parking Space, the Price Is Right at $225,000
By VIVIAN S. TOY
In Houston, $225,000 will buy a three-bedroom house with a game room, den, in-ground pool and hot tub.
In Manhattan, it will buy a parking space. No windows, no view. No walls.
While real estate in much of the country languishes, property in Manhattan continues to escalate in price, and that includes parking spaces. Some buyers do not even own cars, but grab the spaces as investments, renting them out to cover their costs.
Spaces are in such demand that there are waiting lists of buyers. Eight people are hoping for the chance to buy one of five private parking spaces for $225,000 in the basement of 246 West 17th Street, a 34-unit condo development scheduled for completion next January. The developer, meanwhile, is seeking city approval to add four more spots.
Parking in new developments is selling for twice what it was five years ago, said Jonathan Miller, an appraiser and president of Miller Samuel.
Although spaces in prime sections of Manhattan are the most expensive, even those in open lots and in garages in Brooklyn, Queens, Riverdale and Harlem are close to $50,000, although at least one new Brooklyn development is asking $125,000.
Editorial
Global Warming and Your Wallet
At long last, Congress is showing a willingness to confront global warming. The Senate's recent approval of higher fuel economy standards is a constructive step and key lawmakers are promising comprehensive legislation this year that will, for the first time, limit the emission of greenhouse gases.
But for all the talk about warming, leading politicians have yet to educate their constituents (and their colleagues) about an unpleasant and inescapable truth: any serious effort to fight warming will require everyone to pay more for energy. According to most scientists, the long-term costs of doing nothing - flooding, famine, drought - would be even higher than the costs of acting now. But unless Americans understand and accept the trade-off - higher prices today to avoid calamity later - the requisite public support for real change is unlikely to build.
Energy is currently underpriced in part because its cost does not reflect the damage inflicted by fossil fuels. Underpricing leads to overconsumption. Worse, it leads to underinvestment in alternatives. As long as today's energy is relatively cheap, there is little incentive for private firms to develop new fuels and technologies.
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.
By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 2, 2007; A01
Metro's new general manager wants to get rid of the carpet in trains, brighten the lighting in stations and increase advertising in stations, trains and buses.
In many places, such mundane changes would be met with a shrug.
But this is the Washington area Metro, which has long prided itself on a dignified ambiance that is supposed to make it better than the average commuter system.
The changes are intended to help make the nation's second-busiest subway more modern and functional. As the system struggles to keep pace with growing demand, Metro's new top executive, John B. Catoe Jr., wants to focus the agency's limited resources toward moving people to and from work and away from some costly features that gave the subway a distinctive, first-class feel when it opened 31 years ago.
With ridership continuing to swell, the debate over those trade-offs is sharpening.
By DAN GERINGER
Cash-strapped SEPTA's board of directors is expected to approve two drastically different survival plans tomorrow: one a modest 11 percent fare increase for existing service, the other a "doomsday" plan - raising fares 24 percent while cutting service 20 percent, which could devastate low-income workers, fixed-income seniors, the physically disabled and students.
If the state Legislature comes up with $100 million this summer to fill the chronically underfunded transit agency's budget hole, then the "doomsday" plan will be ditched, and only the 11 percent fare hike will go through.
But if the Legislature fails, riders will be forced to foot the bill by enduring longer waits for fewer buses and trains, and by paying much more for service:
SEPTA's base cash fare would rise from $2 to $2.50, tokens from $1.30 to $1.80, a TransPass from $18.75 to $25 weekly and from $70 to $95 monthly, and one-way Regional Rail fares would rise by as much as $1 during peak times and $2.50 off-peak.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Imagine the new slogan on license plates: "Pennsylvania, Land of Tolls."
The state legislature is increasingly enchanted by the notion of converting free interstates into toll roads as a way to raise money for highway maintenance and mass transit operations.
When the state House reconvenes Monday to tackle transportation funding, there are likely to be new calls for new toll roads. I-80 across northern Pennsylvania. I-81 in eastern Pennsylvania. I-79 in western Pennsylvania. Even Philadelphia's two main interstates, the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76) and I-95.
But there are serious federal barriers to widespread tolling on existing interstates that could burst the bubble in Harrisburg.
The state leaves it little leeway for a local, dedicated source of revenue.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
When Pennsylvania legislators complain that SEPTA already gets more state funding and less local funding than most transit agencies in the United States, they're right.
But whose fault is that?
In Pennsylvania, the state prevents regional transit agencies and local governments from raising money in many of the ways used by their counterparts elsewhere.
Colorado and Georgia provide none of the money to operate Denver's and Atlanta's mass transit. Instead, they authorize local sales taxes, approved by local voters. New York, Michigan, Illinois and Ohio are among the states where local property taxes are earmarked for mass transit. Los Angeles County uses a 1 percent sales tax, approved by county voters.
Thirty-three states have authorized local or regional sales taxes specifically for transportation.
Not Pennsylvania.
The Show Me state is spending half a billion dollars to rebuild a 10-mile stretch of I-64 in the heart of St. Louis. The project's so big it's causing some businesses to take their own detours. Tom Weber reports.
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, June 6 - It is no secret that campaign contributions sometimes lead to lucrative official favors. Rarely, though, are the tradeoffs quite as obvious as in the twisted case of Coconut Road.
The road, a stretch of pavement near Fort Myers, Fla., that touches five golf clubs on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, is the target of a $10 million earmark that appeared mysteriously in a 2006 transportation bill written by Representative Don Young, Republican of Alaska.
Mr. Young, who last year steered more than $200 million to a so-called bridge to nowhere reaching 80 people on Gravina Island, Alaska, has no constituents in Florida.
The Price of Inaction: An Analysis of Economic Impacts Associated with SEPTA's FY 2008 Operating Budget "Plan B" Alternative
Executive Summary
As of May 2007, SEPTA has a budget shortfall of $129.6 million. Without a source of funding that can balance the transit organization's budget this summer, SEPTA would be forced to implement "Plan B," which would cut service by 20 percent and increase fares by 31 percent.
The Economy League worked with Econsult Corporation to analyze the economic impacts of Plan B on individuals, businesses, governments and the region's overall competitiveness. The analysis builds upon generally accepted data sets and research models including SEPTA's ridership figures, Delaware Valley Planning Commission congestion modeling, Philadelphia Tax Reform Commission work, and U.S. Census data.
Cool Reception for Plan to Let Elderly Ride Free
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN
STAMFORD, Conn, May 11 - To many commuters in Connecticut, the state's overworked mass transit system would be vastly improved by an infusion of new rail cars providing more seats and new bus routes to cover more ground.
But to Senator Donald E. Williams Jr., the system would also benefit from the infusion of something old, namely more residents 65 and older. Lots of them.
Posted on Fri, May. 11, 2007
Friends of SEPTA hop aboard a statewide effort to aid transit
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Mayor Street and other political, business and labor leaders rallied yesterday for more state funding for public transportation, but they acknowledged they don't have a specific plan to support.
By Mark Ginocchio
Staff Writer
Published March 21 2007
WESTPORT - Federal Highway Administration officials yesterday urged state lawmakers to install highway tolls that charge motorists different rates based on peak and off-peak hours.
The tolling method, called congestion or value pricing, helps reduce traffic during rush hour while providing the state with cash for transportation improvements, said Patrick DeCorla-Souza, program manager for the administration's congestion pricing initiative.
Other cities worldwide use the method successfully, and other transportation systems, such as airlines and railroads, already charge varying rates based on peak hours, DeCorla-Souza said at a meeting at Westport Police Department headquarters organized by the South Western Regional Planning Agency.
"People understand that at certain times during the year, certain goods and services are more valuable," DeCorla-Souza said at the event, attended by about 30 municipal leaders and legislators from Fairfield County. "The idea now is to help them understand it in the transportation arena."
By Mark Bowden
Once more, SEPTA is on the ropes. It faces a $130 million budget deficit in the coming fiscal year, and unless the state finds a way to plug the hole, services will be cut and fares increased.
In other words, business as usual. Mass transit gets short shrift most places in this country, but nowhere is the political deck stacked against it more deliberately than in Philadelphia. This despite the fact that the city is blessed with a transit infrastructure that would be prohibitively expensive to build today, is being used by about a third of the city's commuters (a percentage that is inching up), and is . . . you guessed it, gradually rotting away.
Trains (and Patience) Stretched Thin in Chicago
By LIBBY SANDER
CHICAGO, March 25 - The century-old elevated train system here is as much a city fixture as the towering skyline and the piercing blue waters of Lake Michigan.
But deteriorating tracks and trains, chronic budget shortfalls and a region ever more dependent on rail service are forcing Chicagoans to confront the possibility that the system, commonly known as the El or the L, may be at a breaking point.
"We're living on borrowed time," said Frank Kruesi, the president of the Chicago Transit Authority, which runs the rail service. "The fact is, there's no magic wand when we're looking at modernizing a system that's 100 years old in a very dense urban environment."
The El, with its 1,190 rail cars and 222 miles of track, is the rail component of the transit authority, the second-largest public transit system in the country after New York's. The C.T.A.'s trains and buses serve the city and 40 suburbs, logging 1.55 million rides daily. The El alone accounted for more than 195 million rides last year.
A benchmarking study of transportation funding and policy in Pennsylvania and similar states.
Executive Summary (PDF Format)
Full Report (PDF Format)
date: 2006 (October)
partner(s): Allegheny Conference on Community Development and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council
funder(s): 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, Associated Pennsylvania Constructors, CEO Council for Growth, and the William Penn Foundation
"It's sink-or-swim time," the transportation secretary told legislators. The agency faces a $130 million deficit.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
HARRISBURG - As SEPTA heads toward another financial crisis, the Rendell administration said yesterday that it would not provide the stopgap financial aid used in recent years.
The administration won't divert federal highway funding to SEPTA or other transit agencies, Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler told the House Appropriations Committee.
"It's sink-or-swim time," Biehler said. He said the use of federal highway funding "was putting a patch" on the problem. "Now it's time to do something about it."
Non-Carpool Drivers Could Pay Up to $1.60 a Mile on I-95/395
By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 3, 2007; Page A01
Drivers in express toll lanes planned for Interstates 95 and 395 would pay as much as a dollar a mile in some spots along the 36-mile route during peak times, the highest rate for a commute in the country, officials from the companies building the new-style highway said as they filed a detailed proposal yesterday.
But regional transportation planners estimate that the cost for a rush-hour ride on the optional lanes probably will be far steeper: as much as $1.60 a mile in crowded segments. They estimate that a 21-mile, rush-hour trip from the Pentagon to Prince William Parkway would cost as much as $22.28. A round-trip during peak hours could cost $41.46.
Manville, on Why We Don't Use Congestion Pricing
Guest post by Michael Manville, UCLA.
Along with David King and Donald Shoup, I recently completed an article on the politics of congestion pricing, and Dave, Don and I are beginning another project on the same topic. Congestion pricing is getting a lot of press of late, and moving closer to reality, but politically it still has a long way to go. Rather than rehash our article here, I'll discuss some of the broader issues about pricing's political viability that I've been thinking about, some of which made it into our paper and some of which did not. I make no claims to completeness and only minor claims to originality. I also don't want to implicate my coauthors in any of this, as they may disagree with some of it (although most of the good points are probably theirs). As a means of organizing the discussion, I'll pose the simple planning research question that I think dominates this topic: if congestion pricing is so great, why don't we do more of it?
I'll put forward four possible explanations, none mutually exclusive but each with different research implications, and then end with a more general research question about the effect pricing's political costs might have on the larger urban transportation system.
Eliminating subway and bus fares could put local mass transit on the road to success.
By D. Malcolm Carson, D. MALCOLM CARSON, an attorney and urban planner in private practice, is a member of the Los Angeles Board of Transportation Commissioners.
February 25, 2007
CLOSE TO HALF the travel time on most L.A. bus routes is spent at the curb. Bus riders know the frustration of waiting to board while someone coaxes a floppy dollar bill into the fare box. Likewise, plenty of irritated local drivers have been stuck behind that bus in the right-turn lane. Oh, and the despair of the train rider left struggling with an uncooperative ticket vending machine as the train pulls away.
So what would happen if, instead of hiking MTA fares as is currently under consideration, we made all the buses and subways free?
Eliminating transit fares is the logical flip side to the anti-congestion pricing schemes so favored by economists. London, for instance, charges a daily fee equal to about $15.60 to drive in the traffic-chocked central city between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays. Just as such fees on cars supposedly discourage driving, eliminating fares could encourage public transit use.
New Idea for the Turnpike: Let the Pension Fund Run It
By DAVID W. CHEN and KEN BELSON
TRENTON, Feb. 27 - With legislators lining up against the possibility of leasing the New Jersey Turnpike to a private company, New Jersey lawmakers are now considering another option: having the state pension fund run the Turnpike Authority's operation.
Legislators said Tuesday that they had had discussions with Gov. Jon S. Corzine and other officials about the unorthodox solution to the state's financial difficulties, but they said the idea was only in a preliminary stage.
Brian Taylor
"When Finance Leads Planning: The Influence of Public Finance on Transportation Planning and Policy in California"
Rising Costs Put New York Transit Projects at Risk of Delay
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority faces surging costs that could force it to eliminate or postpone badly needed projects less than halfway through a five-year, $21 billion program to expand and improve its transit system. By one estimate, the program is now $1.4 billion over budget.
Among the projects in that program are renovations to subway and commuter train stations, maintenance of antiquated signal systems, and the purchase of hundreds of buses and subway cars, and many of the projects may be affected, officials indicated.
Much of the problem has been caused by a rapid increase in the cost of construction in New York City, as a result of rising prices for materials and the large number of new projects, which gives contractors the leverage to charge more. In many cases, fewer companies are bidding on projects and offers are coming in much higher than expected.
Another problem is the weak dollar, which appears likely to raise the cost of a contract for subway cars with French and Japanese companies.