Second Ave. Sagas

Category: Congestion Fee

  • After a long wait, US DOT OKs an Environmental Assessment for congestion pricing

    After nearly two years of political delays under the Trump Administration, New York City’s congestion pricing plan is one step closer to becoming a reality, as the Biden Administration’s DOT finally gave the MTA approvals to move forward with the environmental review process. As expected, the MTA will have to prepare only an Environmental Assessment rather than a full-fledged Environmental Impact Statement, and a long and pointless logjam put in place by a president trying to punish states that didn’t vote for him has been cleared, just two months after Biden’s inauguration.

    The decision was a long time coming. Following the March 17th MTA Board meeting, I asked Pat Foye, the agency chief, if New York had received any word on the environmental review required for New York’s nascent congestion pricing proposal. While the Biden team had telegraphed a quick response, after nearly two months into the new administration, the MTA was still waiting for an answer, and Foye told me that two months simply “wasn’t that long a time” in the world of federal transportation policy.

    Well, the wait ended on Tuesday as the Federal Administration, as anticipated, informed the MTA, NYS DOT and NYC DOT that a shorter Environmental Assessment will be sufficient to gain approval for congestion pricing, rather than a full-fledged Environmental Impact Statement. The decision means the MTA could complete the environmental review process this year with congestion pricing suddenly on the horizon for 2022, if the political stars align just right.

    “The FHWA looks forward to assisting New York so we can arrive at a prompt and informed NEPA determination on this important and precedent-setting project,” Acting Federal Highway Administrator Stephanie Pollack said in a statement. “This approach will ensure that the public participates as local and state leaders explore new possibilities for reducing congestion, improving air quality and investing in transit to increase ridership.”

    The FHWA announced the decision via press release and shed some light on the hold-up. The feds had determined that New York must join the FHWA’s Value Pricing Pilot Program (VPPP) to be able to implement congestion pricing and doing so would trigger a review under the National Environmental Policy Act. The MTA had hoped to avoid the costly and time-consuming EIS process which could have taken up to two years and had requested approvals to move forward with the Environmental Assessment instead. The MTA has maintained that it could complete an EA in three months, as Streetsblog’s Dave Colon reminded the world on Tuesday, but I would anticipate a slightly longer review process.

    As the MTA and state and local DOTs commence the EA, the statutorily-required Traffic Mobility Review Board should convene to develop the pricing proposals, thus expediting the timeline to get congestion pricing off the ground. After all, the state’s politicians still want the transit-funding, congestion-busting policy to be implemented, right?

    With Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, their traffic-limiting bona fides are ripe for questioning. The two have long self-identified as motorists first with a love-hate (or just hate-hate) relationship with transit. Still, they both expressed thanks to the FHWA and reiterated their support for the traffic pricing scheme. Cuomo’s statement was verbose:

    “Congestion pricing is an internationally proven method to reduce traffic congestion, enhance the availability and reliability of public transportation, and improve our air quality, and it will play a critical role as New York and the nation begin to recover from the pandemic and build back stronger and better than before. This advancement is also another step forward in generating the $15 billion the state needs to fund the MTA’s five-year $51.5 billion capital plan, which will transform the accessibility, reliability and convenience of the system for users of all ages and abilities.

    “We thank President Biden and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for advancing this important program, and we look forward to continuing to work together to further advance our nation-leading $306 billion infrastructure plan, which is preparing the State to be globally competitive for generations to come. This announcement…demonstrates once again the commitment of our new partners in Washington to support our efforts to move New York in the right direction.”

    The mayor’s was terse. “Mass transit is the present and future of this city, and this day is long overdue,” de Blasio said. “I thank President Biden, Secretary Buttigieg, my fellow elected officials, and every advocate who called for a smarter approach to congestion and more reliable funding for our city’s subways and buses. New York City stands ready to get this program started and build a recovery for all of us.”

    Advocates celebrated the news but with some concern as they called on the Governor to prioritize established a functional congestion pricing. Many in New York’s transit community are skeptical Cuomo will see through congestion pricing plan and have long believed Cuomo was satisfied that Trump had put a hold on congestion pricing approvals. Without Trump, Cuomo had no political foil, and the feds’ delaying a congestion pricing plan the governor never truly embraced played into Cuomo’s wheelhouse. Now, plagued by scandal, Cuomo may just push on to curry favor with some of his more vocal and skeptical transportation critics.

    “Riders welcome the Biden administration’s prompt decision to order an environmental assessment of congestion pricing. This accelerated public review will expedite essential new revenue to make New York’s subway system reliable and accessible,” Riders Alliance Executive Director Betsy Plum said. “Governor Cuomo must now complete the assessment as quickly as possible so the MTA can start congestion pricing with no new special interest exemptions in 2022.”

    Now, though, with congestion pricing even more of a reality, the real jockeying beings. As I wrote for Curbed New York nearly three years ago, congestion pricing is a progressive solution to transit funding and even more so in the aftermath of a pandemic that saw New Yorkers who could afford to flock to their cars. Despite some complaints from drivers that the pandemic has made congestion pricing moot, the increased volume of cars heading to Manhattan at a time when offices remain empty and entertainment venues shutters underscores the need to stop crippling congestion before it starts while restoring faith in the transit system that powers NYC and fully funding ambitious expansion efforts. Make no mistake about it: It will be a fight to craft a proper congestion pricing plan with few carve-outs for drivers.

    Tuesday was a good day for NYC, but that fight is just beginning. Another piece I wrote a few years ago for Curbed — this one on the need to avoid congestion pricing exemptions — still rings true two years later. A successful plan will include few or no exemptions, and Manhattan’s drivers will just have to learn with that reality. MTA funding and the need to limit congestion on the island demand it. Still, this week was a momentous one. Nearly 13 years after Michael Bloomberg first proposed pricing access to New York’s crowded streets, relief is finally on the way. Even with a battle ahead to ensure implementation is quick and proper, simply getting this determination from DOT was a big victory for the MTA, for transit advocates and for New York City.

    “It’s more important than ever that our region has a strong and robust MTA to help power the economic recovery from this unprecedented crisis, and as traffic returns to pre-pandemic levels we must tackle congestion,” Foye said on Tuesday. “With this guidance on an environmental assessment now in hand, the MTA is ready to hit the ground running to implement the Central Business District Tolling Program. We are already working on preliminary design for the roadway toll system and infrastructure, and we look forward to working with our colleagues at the Federal Highway Administration to conduct the review and broad public outreach so that we can move forward with the remainder of the program as soon as possible.”

  • Thoughts on congestion pricing exemptions and the reaction from New Jersey

    New Jersey politicians are arguing for exemptions to congestion pricing, a call that should be resisted by the Traffic Mobility Review Board. (Photo via flickr user Elvert Barnes)

    In the week following Albany’s approval of congestion pricing, I wrote a piece for Curbed New York warning against an exemption-laden plan. The argument is a simple one: Small carve-outs can have a big impact on the effectiveness of both the revenue generation and traffic reduction pieces of congestion pricing, and the Traffic Mobility Review Board tasked with formulating the fees and structure of the plan should resist the political pressure and lobbying over fee exemptions as it works to formulate a plan throughout the next eighteen months.

    Already, we’re seeing this lobbying unfold in predictable ways. Unions representing police officers have laughably called for a blanket exemption for all personal vehicles of any NYPD personnel stationed within the congestion pricing zone. Considering cops are the biggest offenders and non-enforcers of NYC’s traffic and parking laws, this demand hardly comes as a surprise, but it should be resisted at every turn. We’ve also seen New York politicians undercut the goals of congestion pricing by securing legislatively-mandated toll rebates for certain constitutions, and I’ll come back to that shortly. I instead want to focus on the reaction from New Jersey and how it underscores the way in which local politicians treat transit riders as second class citizens even when they far outnumber drivers.

    What New Jersey Wants

    New Jersey leaders have been making noises about congestion pricing for the past three weeks. We first heard Gov. Phil Murphy complaint reported by The Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago. The Garden State governor is worried — worried! — that congestion pricing will cause New Jersey commuters to abandon their cars and use transit (which is of course the point), and he’s also worried congestion pricing will make traffic worse. “The solution cannot be one with the unintended consequences of making traffic worse and increasing reliance on the regional rail partners without their receiving additional support,” he said a few weeks ago.

    At first, Murphy’s comments seemed to strike the right balance between concern for an overburdened and underfunded New Jersey transit network, but in recent days, he and other New Jersey politicians have shifted their focus back to drivers. In an eye-opening piece in The Times, Emma Fitzsimmons took a deep dive into these complaints and the “revenge” politicians in New Jersey want to enact on New Yorkers:

    The mayor of Jersey City suggested that New Jerseyans should toll New Yorkers entering their state. A congressman is calling for federal legislation to guarantee that drivers — who already pay tolls to cross between the states — are not charged twice. Others believe a lawsuit could be filed to stop the tolls. “We are a little confounded about why suddenly New York would turn around and take a two-by-four to New Jersey,” said Representative Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat who represents a slice of New Jersey suburbs near Manhattan and plans to introduce a bill he hopes will pressure New York to give his state’s drivers a break.

    Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat, said he would fight any effort to double toll drivers using the George Washington Bridge, the world’s busiest span. “I won’t stand for it,” he told reporters, though he stopped short of summoning what he called a full “Jersey attitude” like other leaders seeking payback…

    Drivers already pay as much as $15 to use the Lincoln and Holland tunnels or the George Washington Bridge to enter Manhattan. Some might switch to New Jersey Transit, the state’s commuter railroad and bus network. But the system is often no more reliable than the subway and also suffers from years of neglect. For that reason, some New Jersey leaders, including Loretta Weinberg, the Senate majority leader, argue that it would only be fair for New Jersey Transit to get a cut of the revenue from congestion pricing…

    [Gottenheimer] plans to introduce a bill this week that could cut federal funding to New York or the transportation authority if New Jersey drivers are forced to pay two tolls for one trip into Manhattan. “I don’t look at it as retaliation,” Mr. Gottheimer said. “I look at it as encouraging continued cooperation.”

    Fitzsimmons also tracked down some New Jersey-based Facebook commenters who have “threatened” not to drive into New York City any longer (which is, of course, the point). In a way, it’s quite the tempter tantrum from our neighbors to the west, but it also underscores how politicians view their constituents primarily as drivers and then secondarily, if that, as transit riders. In each case, these politicians object to an additional fee being levied on drivers and seem to focus on transit investment as an after-thought. That’s not the right way to look at things.

    Each year, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council releases a hub-bound travel report, counting the number of people who enter New York City’s Central Business District and breaking it down by modality. This is convenient for us now because it overlaps 1:1 with the congestion pricing zone. Here are the latest numbers from 2017, and you’ll see that far more people from New Jersey rely on transit to reach Manhattan than on cars. The columns are, from left to right, “Entering,” “Leaving” and “Total.”

    Considering these numbers, why are New Jersey politicians being so blind to the benefits of congestion pricing? By limiting the number of cars that enter Manhattan, the hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents who rely on buses will have shorter trips into the city, and the surrounding communities will see less pollution due to fewer cars, say, on the Lincoln Tunnel helix or jammed throughout the streets of Weehawken. Plus, most of these New Jersey residents then have to use New York City’s streets and its transit network once they arrive in Manhattan, and these commuters and visitors will continue to enjoy the benefits of increased New York City transit funding and fewer cars on city streets. These people count, and they are more of them. New Jersey politicians would do well to remember that as they fight against a rational congestion pricing.

    What New Jersey Can Do

    Ultimately, New York City does not exist as a place for New Jersey drivers to have unfettered free access to limited city streets. New York City and New York State can determine its own transportation and transit future, and if drivers form Missouri have to pay, so too must drivers from New Jersey who make the choice to drive into Manhattan. But that doesn’t mean New Jersey can’t do anything.

    I’m somewhat sympathetic to the claim that New Jersey’s own transit system may not be able to handle increased passenger loads due to mode shift following implementation of congestion pricing in early 2021, but that’s also a good 20 or 21 months away. New Jersey has plenty of time to get its house in order. It can reconfigure lanes heading into the Lincoln Tunnel to ensure buses have more space and priority. It can also begin the process of building out its PATH service and tackling the problems with New Jersey Transit. But it must focus on bolstering transit and not being overly protective of drivers.

    For years, regional transit wonks have tried to raise alarms over New Jersey’s approach to spending transportation dollars. When governor, Chris Christie shifted millions away from rail and New Jersey Transit to widen the turnpike and engage in other road-related work. It’s not New York’s responsibility now to fund New Jersey’s transit deficits, and if the Garden State politicians are concerned about capacity and reliability constraints, they need to start working on these issues today while congestion pricing is in the planning stages. Ultimately, if NJ Transit fails to meet demand in a post-congestion pricing world, that blame will fall squarely on the shoulders of politicians who aren’t listening when there’s still time to act. Threatening federal action or imposing higher user fees on New Jersey roads as revenge seems laughable, but at the least the latter could be a rational step toward funding New York’s transit investments.

    Unfortunately, our own governor seems amenable to negotiating with New Jersey on some limits on the impact of the fee, and New Jersey’s State Senate President Steve Sweeney appeared to back that up in a statement. “After conferring with Governor Cuomo on the MTA’s efforts to implement Manhattan’s central business district tolling, I am confident that we will have a voice in the process that will allow us to protect the interests of New Jersey’s motorists. We will work in a coordinated way with the MTA, New York State, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and with other jurisdictions to develop a fair tolling system,” he said.

    Whether it’s an elimination of a potential double-tolling scenario for drivers using the George Washington Bridge and heading south or a waiver related to tunnel usage, exemptions should be resisted. If New Jersey drivers want to use New York City streets, they can pay to do so. That is, after all, the entire point of congestion pricing.

    It’s Not Just New Jersey

    While New Jersey is raising the biggest stink right now, they’re not the only ones making moves to limit the impact of traffic-reduction fees. Assembly rep. Jeffrey Dinowitz announced a full rebate of all Henry Hudson Bridge tolls for any Bronx resident regardless of whether the final destination is within the congestion pricing zone or not. This is a mistake, and it’s designed to encourage more driving at a time when New York City needs to limit auto usage for both environmental and productivity reasons. Certain Queens drivers are getting toll breaks as well, and politicians are pushing for exemptions for motorcycles, so-called “green” cars, Staten Island drivers and Queens residents (as I explored in my Curbed piece).

    Congestion pricing and crafting the proper plan was always going to devolve into a tough political fight, and we’re seeing the contours of it take shape. It would serve politicians well to remember that even if a few people have to pay the fee, the benefits — and the number of people who enjoy those benefits — far outweigh this new cost. As the climate changes around us, we don’t have time as a society to waste arguing over the edges of a congestion pricing fee, and as a city stuck in a transportation rut, we need to clear streets of cars and repurpose them for a higher and better use while funding transit. That’s what congestion pricing does, and exemptions should be resisted.

  • Second Ave. Sagas Podcast, Ep. 2: Congestion Pricing with John Raskin of the Riders Alliance

    Welcome back to another installment of the Second Ave. Sagas podcast. Joining me for Episode 2 is John Raskin, executive director of the Riders Alliance, a grassroots advocacy group pushing for better transit. The Riders Alliance was a key member of the #FixTheSubway coalition pushing Albany to approve congestion pricing, and the group celebrated a big victory last week when congestion pricing finally earned legislative approval.

    In this week’s episode, Raskin talks about his group’s role in lobbying for transit funding and what comes next as the fight over a traffic fee shifts from passage to proposal. Attention will shift to the six-member Traffic Mobility Review Board, tasked with formulating the fee structure and assessing whether any exemptions should be granted. As Raskin discusses, the advocates’ work is far from over, and ensuring a robust pricing plan that delivers on its promises to limit congestion in New York City while funding the work needed to improve the transit network is a job far from over. You can listen to this week’s episode via the player below and the popular spots — iTunes, Google Play, Pocket Casts and your favorite podcast app — should update by Wednesday morning.

    If you’re enjoying the podcasts, leave a review on your favorite podcast site, and please consider joining the Second Ave. Sagas Patreon. This site runs entirely on reader contributions, and I can keep the podcast going only with your help. A big thank you as well to Joe Jakubowski for his production work on the podcast.

  • Congestion pricing approved for NYC as Albany passes Cuomo’s MTA ‘reform’ package

    The New Yorker featured a cover last week by Bruce McCall that seemed to portend this weekend’s approval of congestion pricing. (Via The New Yorker)

    Revenue from traffic fee will bolster MTA capital spending

    More than a decade after a backroom deal in Albany shelved Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing, New York City will finally be able to price private automobile access to Manhattan south of 60th Street as the Senate and Assembly passed a budget early Sunday morning that includes authorization for congestion pricing to fund the MTA. The vote makes New York City the first in the nation to implement traffic pricing, and the move should help clear up Manhattan’s congested streets while funding Andy Byford’s Fast Forward plan to modernize the subway system.

    According to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who does deserve credit in pushing this plan through, the congestion pricing revenue will allow the MTA to bond out $15 billion for its capital plan, and the money will be supplemented by a mansion tax on the sale of properties at $25 million or more and an internet sales tax. “This budget,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said in a statement, “delivers on our promise to develop sustainable funding for the MTA and addresses critical transportation needs throughout the state.”

    MTA officials too sang its praises. Pat Foye, current agency president and soon-to-be chairman, thanked Albany for supporting the traffic fee. “Today will long be viewed as a historic day for the transit system, the environment and the livability of the New York region. Central Business District Tolling is a transformative initiative that will improve our transit system, reduce air pollution, increase mobility, bolster the economy and, put simply, better the lives of all New Yorkers,” he said. “With the leadership of Governor Cuomo, who resurrected this plan and led the way to making it a reality, New York is taking a critical step towards providing MTA customers with the modern, reliable, robust system they want and deserve, while creating tens of thousands of jobs across the entire state.”

    Transit advocates have been working on a congestion pricing push for months and took a deserved celebratory lap on Sunday. “This state budget is great news for subway and bus riders who have been advocating for fair and sustainable sources of funding to fix our ailing transit systems. The billions of dollars raised through congestion pricing and other new revenue sources will help modernize the MTA with new train signals, new subway cars, and faster and more reliable bus service,” John Raskin, Executive Director of the Riders Alliance, said. “In the coming months, we look forward to working with the TBTA and the new Traffic Mobility Review Board to ensure that the final congestion pricing plan is is robust and comprehensive, and that new funding translates into a faster and more reliable commute for millions of daily riders.”

    Nick Sifuentes, Executive Director of Tri-State Transportation Campaign, echoed those sentiments: “At long last, we’ll start to get our city moving again and make both crippling traffic congestion and constant subway breakdowns a thing of the past.

    Yet, while advocates have worked tirelessly to push this weekend’s approval across the finish line, the hard work has only just begun as the devil will be in the details. The budget legislation that approved congestion pricing did not provide details of the plan. Rather, it mandates the aforementioned Traffic Mobility Review Board, a new six-member board under the auspices of the Tri-Borough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, develop the pricing plan, and already politicians are angling for exemptions and carve-outs that would water down the effectiveness of it all.

    Mayor Bill de Blasio conditioned his approval, infuriatingly enough, on the amorphous guarantee that the pricing plan would include carve-outs. In press appearances and conversations with Brian Lehrer, the mayor has constantly pushed for the idea of exemptions for various people he feels must drive into Manhattan, and while access to the East Side hospitals should be a consideration, congestion pricing will live or die on the limited scope of the carve-outs and the rigorousness with which they are enforced.

    In this age of parking placard corruption, spearheaded by lax NYPD enforcement and constant NYPD abuse, though, anyone questioning de Blasio’s blind adherence to carve-outs is right to do so. After all, far more New Yorkers heading to doctors in Manhattan take transit than drive, a favorite de Blasio talking point. Still, the arrival of congestion pricing in New York City should be a celebrated one among transit enthusiasts and urbanists alike. (I’ve written at length as to why congestion pricing is a progressive solution to NYC’s transportation woes, and I urge you to revisit my Curbed piece from last August.)

    Yet, despite this great victory, I too share some of the reticence recently expressed by Nicole Gelinas in The Post over the haste and lack of details in the current congestion pricing push. As she wrote, the MTA has never provided a definite cost-breakdown for all elements of the Fast Forward plan, and the state hasn’t actually given the MTA most of the $8 billion Cuomo committed a few years ago. “As it is, the MTA struggles to spend the money it already has when it comes to long-term physical assets, she noted. “The MTA is nearing the end of a regular five-year infrastructure-upgrade program, money to be invested in projects between 2015 and 2019, and to cost $33.3 billion. But it only has spent $10.9 billion of that money.”

    I’ve expressed concerns about the overall framing of this congestion pricing push and have cautioned against treating congestion pricing as a solution to traffic and transit together. We need congestion pricing. It will help clear up our roads, but it must come with a pre-implementation guarantee of additional transit service in areas without robust subway access. I worry that treating it as a fix-all for transit funding and for the subways is overpromising on much needed benefits. Furthermore, as Gelinas pointed out on Sunday, the Traffic Mobility Review Board seems primed to hand over significant control of local New York City streets to suburban legislatures, a potentially damaging mistake that could harm the successful of comprehensive congestion pricing.

    Despite this skepticism, though, I’ve spoken with numerous advocates who have urged me and others to celebrate this win, and environmental groups and transit advocates alike are looking forward to clearing the city streets. Plus, the budget finally includes a dedicated lockbox that Cuomo claims he will enforce to “ensure that 100% of this revenue goes to the MTA capital budget and prohibits the use of these revenues for non-capital spending.” (Whether this is an ultimate good remains to be seen. Some congestion pricing revenue should go to increased operations spending to ensure the transit system can withstand the boost in ridership a properly crafted traffic pricing plan should create.)

    Other MTA reforms raise eyebrows

    But — and when it comes to Andrew Cuomo and transit, there’s always a “but” involved — the legislature also passed Cuomo’s (and de Blasio’s) MTA faux-reform package. I wrote at length about this reform package a few weeks ago when it was first announced, and it’s worth revising the details here. Some of the key reforms are as follows:

    • An MTA reorganization plan issued by the agency by June, which is off to an auspicious start as the MTA recently gave away the deal to a contractor in a no-bid $2 million contract.
    • A long-awaited forensic audit and efficiency review.
    • The Cornell and Columbia professors who have limited expertise in MTA capital construction will review major projects.
    • A 20-year capital needs assessment beginning in 2023. For what it’s worth, the MTA usually issued a 20-year needs proposal every five years to coincide with the capital budget, but we have yet to see one this year.
    • Increasing the competitive procurement threshold to $1 million (from $100,000) to speed up the contracting process.
    • MTA Board appointees that are coterminous with the tenure of the official appointing the board member, a move that favors the term limit-free governor over the term-limited mayor.
    • A requirement that any Capital Program Review Board member who does not approve of the MTA capital plan issue a written explanation for their veto, and provide the MTA the opportunity to respond and revise the plan so the member may withdraw their veto.

    All told, these measures give the governor, who already controls the MTA even more power and siphons more say in the future of its transit network away from New York City. If anything, this should lead to more dialogue around Corey Johnson’s proposal to bring the subways and buses back under city control, a topic I plan to revisit soon.)

    Ands I mentioned, good governance groups are not happy with these proposals. Reinvent Albany dissected the plan in February and aired additional criticism over the weekend after the MTA reforms were essentially approved, debate-free, during a late-night budgeting session.

    That’s an inauspicious start for MTA reform if ever there was one, and the good governance group wasn’t the one party voicing its concerns. Allen Cappelli, a former MTA Board member who was effectively pushed out over disagreements with the governor, told The Post, doing away with independent staggered appointments was “the wrong thing to do.” Cappelli added, “Cuomo has been the problem, not the solution. He’s been reluctant to fund the MTA properly. He’s deflecting.”

    Cuomo loyalist named to head MTA; donor picked for Board

    And just how is Cuomo exercising this new control? Well, we caught a glimpse of it late last week when he nominated Pat Foye to head the MTA and named a big-time donor to the board. Foye’s nomination came after Joe Lhota left abruptly last fall, and it’s a very Andrew Cuomo pick. Foye worked for Cuomo in 2011, served as Executive Director of the Port Authority (and president of the PATH train) from 2011 to 2017 and has been President of the MTA — a new position — since August 2017. He had the following to say about being named Chairman:

    “As a lifelong rider – and a daily customer – of the MTA, I can think of no higher honor or more important challenge than serving at the helm of an agency that connects millions of people each day to their jobs, schools, families, and friends. There is no question that we have a great deal of work ahead of us, to bring truly innovative and meaningful reform to the agency and provide the service and system New Yorkers deserve.

    I want to thank Governor Cuomo for this honor and opportunity. I have been honored to serve the Governor and the people of the State of New York. I know the new leadership team we have in place is up to this challenge, and I want to thank my colleagues for their hard work and commitment to making the MTA a more efficient and effective place. I especially want to thank our union member partners, who work tirelessly every day to keep this region moving. And I’m grateful to both Acting Chair Fernando Ferrer and our former Chairman Joe Lhota for their past guidance and leadership. I look forward to working with our customers, elected officials, the MTA Board and advocates as we continue to improve and build a transit system that truly works for all New Yorkers.”

    On its own, Foye’s appointment isn’t a bad one, but it’s a very inside-the-box, Cuomo-loyalist approach to the MTA. Foye knows who he answers to, and he knows what Cuomo wants. He likely will give Byford enough leeway to implement the most substantive pieces of the Fast Forward plan, but this is an appointment designed to indicate to Byford and others inside the agency that Cuomo is very much in control. As Reinvent Albany’s John Kaehny said to Politco New York, “He’s an experienced technocrat and knows the transportation lay of the land and he’s trusted by the governor and he’s been reasonably accessible to the public, or certainly was when he was at the Port Authority. I would say it’s the conservative choice and the expected choice.”

    New names fill MTA Board

    Cuomo’s other MTA Board appointments are in a similar vein. Cuomo named Haeda B. Mihaltses, currently the Mets’ Vice President of External Affairs, to the Board. Mihaltses spent 12 years in the Bloomberg administration and worked for Peter Vallone before that. She replaces Peter Ward, a 2016 Cuomo appointee, and will be a fine Board member. But I chuckled at another Cuomo appointee named last week.

    The governor tabbed Michael Lynton, the one-time CEO of Sony Entertainment, to the Board as well. While you would never know it from the governor’s press release, Lynton earned headlines a few years back during the Sony email leak when his extensive fundraising ties to the governor were laid bare for the public to see. We know full well where Lynton’s sympathies lie, and we can see exactly how Cuomo uses his own people to enhance and underscore his control of the MTA. (Lynton replaces Charles Moerdler, an eight-year board vet who was nominated by David Paterson in 2010 and whose appointment had expired in 2016. Moerdler had recently raised eyebrows with his aggressive calls to criminalize all subway and bus fare evasion.)

    Also joining the MTA Board will be a new representative from Suffolk County as holdover Mitch Pally has been replaced by Kevin Law, president of the Long Island Association. Pally was a 14-year vet whose last term expired in 2016 as well and had pushed the MTA to avoid its upcoming fare hike. David Mack and and Sarah Feinberg, a Federal Railroad Administration official during President Obama’s tenure, joined the Board in recent weeks as well. Mack, who has a history with Cuomo and the MTA. fills Nassau County’s empty seat while Feinberg replaces Schott Rechler. Rhonda Herman was named as Westchester County’s rep which may bounce Andrew Saul from the Board. With the recent departure of Carl Weisbrod, I believe that gives the mayor the chance to suggest a new board member as well.

    Ultimately, this was a good week for New York City and a good week for MTA funding. We wasted a decade spinning our wheels on congestion pricing and still have to push through a properly limited plan to ensure it isn’t captured by special interests, but New York City’s streets will finally be priced. Congestion pricing can only improve from here. Where things stand with MTA reform and governance is an open question. Gov. Andre Cuomo, barely a friend of transit, continues to assert his control, as is his right, but it seems unlikely his plans will actually fix the MTA or its inefficient cost and construction problems. For that, we may just need a better governor, a more forceful mayor and a new way to approach transit governance that does not rely so heavily on loyalists and donors.

  • Pricing for for-hire vehicles trips, but not congestion, as Cuomo punts again

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    With congestion pricing off the table, no one came to fix NYC this year.

    A long time ago in a city not so far away, “wait ’til next year” became the mantra for die-hard Brooklyn Dodger fans who kept watching their crosstown-rival Yankees win World Series championships. This year, as New York State budget negotiations came to a head this past weekend, “wait ’til next year” will have to be the rallying cry for congestion pricing opponents who were, once again, let down by Albany inaction.

    When his FixNYC panel unveiled a proposal for a comprehensive traffic pricing plan and Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced congestion pricing would factor into the 2018 New York State budget negotiations, many transit advocates raised a skeptical eyebrow and held their collective breaths. Cuomo never presented his own plan and didn’t seem keen to lobby the legislature (or work the backroom deals) to see congestion pricing through this year, and when the dust settled at the end of last week, we seemed to get a surcharge on for-hire vehicles and a vague promise of a phased-in approach to congestion pricing that may or may not accumulate in a real plan next year. As city streets remain choked with traffic and surface transit reliability crashing, it was, yet again, a disappointing outcome from the governor who loves to parade his love of cars around New York State.

    In The New York Times this weekend, Winnie Hu wrote about the 2018 decline and fall of congestion pricing and the new surcharge on for-hire vehicle trips. She writes:

    Governor Andrew M. Cuomo set the stage for an ambitious congestion pricing plan when he declared that it was “an idea whose time has come.”

    But that time is not now.

    There was little about congestion pricing in the state budget negotiated Friday by Mr. Cuomo and state lawmakers despite months of lobbying by advocates, a six-figure media campaign, and rallies by transit riders. The most significant development was a new surcharge that will be tacked on to every ride in for-hire vehicles in Manhattan south of 96th Street: $2.50 for yellow taxis; $2.75 for other for-hire vehicles, including Ubers and Lyfts; and 75 cents for car pool rides such as Via and UberPool.

    Notably missing was the congestion zone that was the centerpiece of a congestion pricing plan, laid out by a state task force to reduce gridlock on the streets and raise money for the city’s struggling subway, which is operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Under that plan, unveiled in January, drivers could have been charged a daily fee — $11.52 for passenger cars, $25.34 for trucks — to enter a congestion zone in Manhattan, from 60th Street south to the Battery, at busy times.

    A coalition of transit advocates was quick to express their displeasure. Transportation Alternatives, the Straphangers Campaign, Riders Alliance, and StreetsPAC released a joint statement on Saturday:

    Our transit system is on life support. Fixing our transit system should have been Albany’s first priority this year; unfortunately, the final budget does not offer a credible plan to modernize the MTA, nor provide a sufficient revenue stream to make it possible. The crisis in our subways and on our streets will continue, and New Yorkers will continue to demand action from Governor Cuomo and state lawmakers.

    If the governor is serious about alleviating the crisis, he must ensure that the initial steps laid out in this budget — for-hire vehicle surcharges, bus lane expansion and enforcement — be the catalyst for meaningful reform. First, Governor Cuomo must use a portion of the new revenue to help implement comprehensive congestion pricing, by constructing cordon infrastructure and addressing needs in transit deserts around the city. Then, the governor must establish, and commit to, a timeline to make congestion pricing a reality in New York.

    New York’s transit and traffic problems may seem intractable, but with bold leadership, reform is possible. New Yorkers deserve better than broken subways, unsafe streets, and crippling gridlock, and it’s time for our representatives to deliver.

    David Weprin, an Assembly Democrat of Queens, has long fought against congestion pricing despite the fact that only 4.2% of his constituents would pay a fee while a majority rely on public transit. He declared a temporary victory in the fight this weekend. “I haven’t won the war yet on congestion pricing, but I did win this battle — it’s not getting in the budget,” Weprin said to The Times. With short-sighted politicians like this representing us, Gov. Cuomo’s support was even more important, and he did not, as Gotham Gazette detailed last week in a must-read piece, come close to delivering. The bait-and-switch Cuomo pulled will enable Weprin in the future at the expensive of his own constituents and the rest of the city.

    Meanwhile, the for-hire vehicle surcharge could be a first step toward comprehensive congestion pricing, if Cuomo wants it to be, and it’s worth exploring what this means for Manhattan’s crowded streets. In a tweet last week, Charles Komanoff detailed the benefits and I’ll summarize. The FHV-only surcharge will eventually speed up Manhattan traffic by around 6.7 percent but not until transit investments have significantly shifted mode-share. The charge will generate approximately $650 million per year with 64.6% borne by Manhattanites, 18.8 percent by those in the other four boroughs, and only 16.6 percent by those outside of New York City. (A full-fledged plan would have resulted in a 20 percent increase in speeds, $1.8 billion in annual revenue and a more equitable split of costs with Manhattanites picking up 32.4 percent, 36.9 percent borne by the boroughs and 30. percent carried by those outside of NYC.)

    As constructed, the FHV surcharge moves the needle but has the perverse outcome of penalizing Manhattan residents while giving suburban drivers another year of a free pass. To the extent the FHV surcharge increases the costs of ride-hailing services ideally designed to eliminate private automobile trips, this FHV-only fee incentivizes private single-occupancy auto trips, thus countering one potential impact of a congestion pricing plan. A real plan has to disincentivize these discretionary trips while improving traffic flow (including, vitally, for buses) and generating money for transit expansion.

    On a theoretical basis, congestion pricing polling numbers are, as they always are, middling, and congestion pricing plans that have been enacted throughout the world enjoy much more support after the plans are in place and the benefits tangible. As Justin Davidson detailed last week, the arguments against a pricing plan for New York City are not supported by data and facts. It almost seems like a fait acompli that NYC be the beneficiary of a congestion pricing plan, but it will, once again, have to wait as Andrew Cuomo and Albany failed to come through. The transit crisis, I guess, will have to wait another year for a real solution.

  • Initial questions as Cuomo’s FIX NYC traffic pricing plan comes into view

    The FIX NYC panel released its full report, today recommended a series of measures to reduce Manhattan congestion.
    Update: The Fix NYC advisory panel released its full report on Friday morning. You can read it right here as a PDF. My questions below are still relevant, and I had some initial reactions via a thread on Twitter.

    The Governor issued a statement on the panel’s report but hedged on the way forward:

    “I have received the report from Fix NYC and will review it carefully. I thank the panel for their hard work and effort. I will discuss the alternatives with the legislature over the next several months. There is no doubt that we must finally address the undeniable, growing problem of traffic congestion in Manhattan’s central business district and present a real, feasible plan that will pass the legislature to raise money for MTA improvements, without raising rider fares.

    A uniform pricing model for FHVs that discourages continuing presence in the central business district and incentivizes trucks to deliver on off peak hours is a necessary component. Tolls must be more fair. Trips to and from New Jersey can be less expensive than trips from New York City’s outer boroughs. Tolls vary widely, and they must be rationalized so costs are fair to all.

    The report accurately points out that the objective is not to raise tolls entering the borough of Manhattan, but more specifically those trips adding to the congestion in a defined central business district. But, as a born and raised Queens boy, I have outer borough blood in my veins, and it is my priority that we keep costs down for hard working New Yorkers, and encourage use of mass transit. We must also find a way to reduce the costs for outer borough bridges in any plan ultimately passed.

    I still wonder if this is a real plan he intends to champion or something he will use for cover to claim he tried to fix NYC’s traffic problems but could not overcome Albany resistance. My original post follows.

    * * *

    With Governor Cuomo’s Fix NYC task force set to release its report on Friday afternoon, Jim Dwyer and Winnie Hu of The Times have a first glimpse at the traffic pricing plan behind which Cuomo may line up to bring relief to New York streets and money for transit. Here’s what we know so far:

    Driving a car into the busiest parts of Manhattan could cost $11.52 under a major proposal prepared for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that would make New York the first city in the United States with a pay-to-drive plan…

    Trucks would pay $25.34, and taxis and for-hire vehicles could see surcharges of $2 to $5 per ride. The pricing zone would cover Manhattan south of 60th Street. In a key change from past efforts, drivers would not have to pay if they entered Manhattan by all but two of the city-owned East River bridges, which are now free to cross, as long as they bypassed the congestion zone.

    The proposals are part of a report by a task force, “Fix NYC,” convened by Governor Cuomo after he declared a state of emergency in the subways last June. The report says that the fees on taxis and for-hire vehicles could be put in place within a year, followed by trucks and then cars in 2020. None of those fees should be charged, the task force said, until repairs are made to the public transit system.

    “Before asking commuters to abandon their cars, we must first improve mass transit capacity and reliability,” a draft of the report says.

    This is a better plan than I expected and approximates Michael Bloomberg’s doomed proposal from 2008. That we have gone nowhere in the past decade is very telling, and that this plan doesn’t come with East River Bridge tolling parity is disappointing. But a Start is a start is a start, and if Cuomo accepts this plan, it can be a building block to something better and more complete down the road.

    In no order, though, some questions:

    • If the 59th St. and Brooklyn Bridges aren’t rolled and can be used to enter or exit the cordon zone without paying the fee, how can we protect against massive increases in traffic across those bridges?
    • What transit upgrades can be implemented by 2020 that will be sufficient enough for the panel to be comfortable with the implementation of the traffic fee? Reliability and capacity increases take years or decades to see through, and not months.
    • Can anyone really Fix NYC without MTA construction cost reforms?
    • Is this a real plan that stands a chance of passing the New York State Assembly and Senate or is this just a CYA report to bolster Cuomo’s reelection campaign? With the Cuomo-supported plan to give Senate control to the state Republicans via the breakway IDC Senators, any traffic plan faces a tough hurdle in the state legislature. Will Cuomo push for this plan so that it passes the Senate or is just supposed to make him look like he tried, but failed, to fix city streets, traffic and the MTA?
    • Will the mayor finally experience his own come-to-Jesus moment on traffic pricing or will he continue to lie, distort reality and reverse himself in discussing a plan that will impact guys like him who live in NYC for decades but are seemingly allergic to the subway?
    • Do all of the players involved realize congestion pricing is only one part of fixing the bus network and solving transit woes and that other reforms are badly needed?

    Some of these questions should be answered in Friday’s report; others may take a few weeks to unfold as we see the political forces line up behind (or against) the Fix NYC recommendations. Either way, this is a start and, while far from perfect, a good one at that.

  • Cuomo, New York City gear up for a congestion pricing reboot

    Hollywood these days is suffering from reboot fever. Spider-Man, now a part of the all-encompassing Marvel Cinematic Universe, witnessed its third stab at the webbed avenger in 15 years while the all-female Ghostbusters drew headlines last year. By some accounts, there are over 120 reboots in the works. New York, now a city to be left out of the latest trends, wants to join in, and the reboot may just be a traffic pricing plan.

    When last we left congestion pricing, so many years ago, the City Council had approved Mayor Bloomberg’s request but it died a closed-door death in the New York State Assembly when the now-disgraced Sheldon Silver killed it. This move was a blow to home rule and a blow to an effort to rationalize East River tolls and reduce the ill effects of congestion pricing. It killed a potential steady stream of income for transit investments and killed the productivity gains that would come with limited single-occupancy vehicle traffic in the busiest parts of Manhattan.

    Now, as the mayor and the governor square off over transit funding, some form of a traffic pricing plan seems to be back on the table. It’s a reboot, baby, and this time, our mayor is the villain (or perhaps just playing one).

    The story broke last week when Gov. Andrew Cuomo said congestion pricing is “an idea whose time has come.” He didn’t say too much more than that, and in the week since the story first broke, he’s been silent on details despite some back-slapping at the future Moynihan Station a few days ago. The Times had a little bit more on the lack of details and politics:

    “Congestion pricing is an idea whose time has come,” Mr. Cuomo said. He declined to provide specifics about how the plan would work and what it would charge, but said that he had been meeting with “interested parties” for months and that the plan would probably be substantially different from Mr. Bloomberg’s proposal.

    “We have been going through the problems with the old plan and trying to come up with an updated and frankly better congestion pricing plan,” Mr. Cuomo said. A key priority is making it as palatable as possible to commuters from the suburbs and boroughs outside Manhattan without undercutting the primary goals: providing a dedicated funding stream for the transit system, while reducing traffic squeezing onto some of the country’s most gridlocked streets.

    …Unlike a tax on wealthy New Yorkers, which would be limited in scope and affect a relatively small number of people, congestion pricing would have a far broader impact on people inside and outside the city. After Mr. Cuomo’s past skepticism that state lawmakers would support congestion pricing, his willingness now to support the idea may improve its fortunes in Albany.

    Without any details of what kind of plan Cuomo is supporting, it’s hard to assess this move, and it’s even tougher to see through the politics of it. Mayor de Blasio, forever willing to give up leading on key transportation issues, has repeatedly said that congestion pricing is dead on arrival in Albany, and although some transit advocates think this is a maneuver to draw Cuomo’s hand in pushing congestion pricing as an opposite reaction to de Blasio, the mayor continued to speak ill of any traffic pricing plan this week. In fact, he and I. Dankee Miller, one of the worst City Council members on progressive transit issues, spoke out against Cuomo’s idea last week. The Times’ editorial board likes it in theory but Staten Island too is skeptical. (Some villains always show up for the reboots after all.)

    As we speculate about Cuomo’s ideas for congestion pricing and what comes next, Streetsblog, in response to Mayor de Blasio’s complaints about unfairness and “penalizing” the Outer Boroughs — has written a thoughtful defense of the Move New York plan. This plan would rationalize tolls across all river crossings into Manhattan and provide money for transit upkeep while reducing congestion.

    The real wild card here though is Cuomo. We don’t know what he wants to do, and his plans have always been, well, his. He’s proposed half-baked plans for Penn Station, a backwards AirTrain for Laguardia and an overpriced Penn Station Access. He hasn’t shown a willingness to let experts help guide him to the best decisions, and everyone seems to be holding their breaths on congestion pricing. New York has an opportunity to get this right, but we can’t let it slip away. While congestion pricing won’t solve every transportation ill, it’s piece in a larger puzzle of solutions that will. It’s up to Cuomo to lead properly, and so far, he has a very mixed record on that very topic. But stay tuned. This reboot hasn’t played itself out yet, and as the 2018 gubernatorial campaign inches into view, this won’t be the last we hear of it.

  • The Move New York plan alone won’t fix the subways

    For certain reasons, The New York Times seems to bury its urban policy editorials on Saturdays, and a pro-congestion pricing missive published on May 21st continued the trend. I didn’t have an opportunity to write it up last week, but for a few reasons, it’s worth revisiting. It’s a ringing endorsement of the Move New York plan, but I worry that supporters are putting too much hope on a plan that, when judged on its merits only, is very worthwhile but isn’t the single silver bullet it is often made out to be.

    Coming in between a story on the overwhelmed subway system and a look at northeast transit infrastructure, the editorial trumpets the traffic pricing plan as the way to “save New York’s overwhelmed subways.” That’s a lofty goal considering the systemic problems with the subway and the organization running it right now. Some relevant excerpts:

    The real reason for this sorry state of affairs has been not poverty but an impoverished imagination and a dearth of political will. Enter a group of Democrats in the State Assembly with an ambitious plan, introduced in March, that could significantly improve the city’s transportation system if the rest of the Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo get behind it. Called the Move NY Fair Plan, it would collect about $1.35 billion a year in new revenue through bridge tolls, congestion pricing and a per-mile surcharge on taxi rides in Midtown and Lower Manhattan. The money would help pay for more frequent service on existing train and bus lines and new service in parts of the city that are so far from subway lines that officials and residents refer to them as “transit deserts.”

    …The biggest chunk of the money from the new tolls and fees would enable the M.T.A. to borrow money for much-needed repairs and upgrades. For example, the authority would be able to more quickly replace its aging switching and signaling system with more reliable and efficient technology. That would allow it to run more trains, since it would be able to safely reduce the distance between them. The agency would also be assured of the money needed to finish the second phase of the Second Avenue subway line up to 125th Street…

    Move NY would also give the M.T.A. the money and authority to establish new subway lines. One of the most promising proposals is for a line to connect the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn over existing rail tracks,…which supporters call the Triboro Rx…Similarly, the plan includes a proposal to turn existing Long Island Rail Road tracks between the Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn and Rosedale in Queens into a new subway line…Finally, the legislation would set aside money for transit projects in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island. It would also create new bus service and reduce fares on express buses. And it would give money to neighborhood community boards to invest in local projects like bike lanes, bus depots, public plazas and station repairs.

    Considering the MTA needs four or five years of Move New York revenue to fulfill the planned budget for Phase 2 of the Second Ave. Subway alone, that’s a lofty goal for what is, in New York City, a relatively paltry $1.35 billion a year. Of course, the MTA can bond out that money against revenue-generating projects but between all of these competing projects plus the need to expand service rapidly to make up for the demand congestion pricing will place on the transit network, that $1.35 billion won’t go nearly as far as The Times hopes.

    And that’s the key: By itself, Move New York is a very worthwhile piece of a larger transportation puzzle. It should help alleviate congestion on city streets while providing another stream of dollars for transit investment, but it’s not the silver bullet.

    In a Tweetstorm in response to The Times editorial, Yonah Freemark of The Transport Politic summed up this argument.

    The MTA needs money, and the city’s streets need to be cleared of as many cars as possible. But the MTA also needs political support, massive cost and work rule reform, a plan to build and deliver projects quickly and efficiently, and operations reform. Move New York is a start, but it’s one piece of the puzzle, not the entire puzzle itself.

  • Move NY coalition unveils Traffic Pricing 2: Electric Bugaloo

    Could this be the plan that saves the MTA's capital budget? (Source: Move NY)
    Could this be the plan that saves the MTA’s capital budget? (Source: Move NY)

    Flippant headline aside, someone — or a group of someones — is thinking creatively about the MTA’s capital funding problem. It’s been a long time coming, but Sam Schwartz and the Move NY coalition unveiled their restructured traffic pricing plan on Tuesday. If implemented properly, it could generate $1.5 billion that the group says could be bonded out to support the MTA’s capital plan. It may kick the debt can even further down the road, but it’s the most promising proposal we’ve seen at a time when Gov. Cuomo has seemingly left the MTA out to dry.

    The details of the plan — now being called the Move NY Fair Plan — contain a mixture of new revenue streams in the form of East River bridge tolls and givebacks in the form of reduced current tolls that should appease everyone. No one will be double-tolled, and all money would be collected electronically so toll gates and the alleged traffic they could cause will be a non-factor.

    The plan, in a nutshell, is simple, and I’d urge you to read Streetsblog’s primer. Essentially, tolls on current MTA bridges would drop while the currently-free East River bridge crossings would carry a charge, restoring a 104-year-old wrong. The money would go toward transit, and the corresponding drop in clogged streets would be a major boon for all New Yorkers. The plan would see a new taxi surcharge as well as congestion pricing for automobile trips south of 60th St. in Manhattan, and off-peak tolls would be cheaper than rush hour charges.

    In return, Move New York promises massive transit investments. In their report [pdf], they highlight how the MTA would have a steady revenue stream that would lead to implementation of the agency’s capital plans. The coalition believes the MTA would have the money to restore bus service cut in 2010, reduce the City Ticket fares on Metro-North and LIRR, speed up SBS and BRT implementation, and address the subway system’s technological and physical issues that come with age and the need for modernization. All in all, it sounds good.

    Interestingly, while as Dana Rubinstein astutely noted, Gov. Cuomo and the MTA were silent on the plan yesterday, it’s drawn support from unlikely sources. Mark Weprin, a City Council member who opposed then-Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan, voiced his support as did Ydanis Rodriguez, chair of the Council’s transportation committee. The prospects for a home-rule message though remain murky as the New York State Senate GOP, with no better ideas or funding solutions, has come out against the plan. Without acknowledging that no funding solution will lead to less service and drastically higher fares, a State GOP spokesman said, with a straight face, “Hardworking New Yorkers are paying enough already.” Talk about obliviousness.

    Anyway, I digress. The editorial boards for The Post and Crain’s New York, two of the tougher constituents to impress here, voiced their support, and real estate and business interests may actually line up behind this plan. Streetsblog again explored the changing political dynamics behind the Move NY Fair Plan, but as Stephen Miller noted, “The key to the plan, though, is Governor Cuomo.” If the Governor supports this idea, it will become reality; if he doesn’t, the MTA is up a $15.2 billion creek with fare hikes and service cuts as their only paddle. Make of that what you will.

  • A glimpse into the transit mindset of NYC electeds

    It’s not too often we get a direct glimpse into the minds and inner workings of a New York City politician attempting to come to grips with transit policy, but this weekend’s Daily News provided us with just that opportunity. Appearing in print at around the same time we learned of his support for a Soundview ferry, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. penned his take on Sam Schwartz’s Move NY toll plan. His critique is flawed and shows the battle anyone fighting for transit in New York City faces.

    Claiming that the Move New York plan was revealed to the public for the first time last month — technically true as the campaign launched but Schwartz, who discussed the plan at my October 2012 “Problem Solvers” session, hasn’t exactly been quiet lately — Diaz had the audacity to call it a “unfair regressive tax.” Does the Bronx Borough President know what a regressive tax is, you may wonder. I know I certainly am. Here’s Diaz’s critique in his own words:

    To make this toll plan work, supporters this time are pledging to lower the tolls on outer-borough bridges, such as the Robert F. Kennedy and Verrazano Bridges, in order to entice support from those communities that rejected this proposal in 2008. What “Move NY” has proposed is likely a Trojan horse. While the promise of lower tolls is certainly alluring, there are no guarantees that those tolls would stay low forever. In fact, given the history of this city’s bridges and their tolls, we can be certain that these so-called “lower” tolls will surge back to their original heights in short order.

    We are told that the congestion pricing system will be “fair.” I have a different definition of fairness than those proposing this scheme. It is not fair to place a regressive tax on those who can least afford it. It is not fair to imply that outer borough tolls will remain low forever…

    If revenue is required, we can raise money in other ways. For starters, we should charge drivers to register their cars based on the vehicle’s weight and level of fuel efficiency. Not only will this incentivize drivers to choose hybrid or electric cars, it will place the burden of new funding on the vehicles that cause the most congestion and pollution. We must also begin to implement new transit plans that will lower congestion by providing alternatives, and not through new bridge taxes. This includes improvements like ferry service in Williamsburg, the Rockaways and Soundview, and new Metro North service in the East Bronx.

    Just how, pricing supporters will ask, do we pay for such relatively inexpensive transit upgrades without a new pricing scheme? I would say that we have been paying all along, and that it is time for the other boroughs to be treated as “fairly” as Manhattan has been.

    Diaz goes onto bemoan the high cost of construction for the Second Ave. Subway, 7 line extension and East Side Access, not because he’s concerned about MTA spending but because he can’t see the forrest for the trees. East Side Access barely touches Manhattanites as it is more concerned with bringing suburban commuters while the Second Ave. Subway will directly benefit Diaz’s constituents as they’ll enjoy less crowding on the Lexington Ave. lines that snake through the Bronx. (He conveniently doesn’t discuss the plans to add four Metro-North stations to underserved areas in his borough.)

    But what of this claim of regressive taxation? We see this over and over again from politicians who have a very distorted view of who drives and who owns cars in New York City. As of early 2012, only 46 percent of Bronx households owned cars, and those who Diaz claims can’t afford a modest toll certainly aren’t driving into Manhattan every day. In fact, as Streetsblog eloquently argued a few months ago, the real regressive tax is the current tolling scheme. “It’s regressive that a few people in single-occupancy vehicles can clog streets and immobilize hundreds of less affluent people riding buses,” Ben Fried wrote. “It’s regressive that wealthy car owners can drive into the center of the city without paying a dime, while transit riders have no choice but to pay higher fares because the MTA capital program is backed by mountains of debt.”

    I don’t know if Schwartz’s plan is the answer to the transit funding woes, but it’s an answer. At some point, too, it will be the path of least resistance toward garnering a dedicated revenue stream for the transit system. But it’s not regressive, not by any stretch. I wouldn’t expect much more from a politician who thinks that a ferry that would serve a ridership in the low triple digits is a game-changer, but it does provide a glimpse of the mindset pervasive in the boroughs, City Hall and Albany. Misguided thinking is no way to set policies that impact millions.