Congestion Fee

As I sit in a house in Los Angeles for a week away from New York, I know that New York City is unique among all of this country’s urban areas. The Big Apple does not need cars to survive. The Big Apple lives and dies on its public transportation network.

Last night was a sad one for the City as the cars ruled and the public transportation network, facing a financial crisis, received what could become its death blow. In a day that could be worse for New York City than when Robert Moses and his short-sighted, automobile-centric, neighborhood-destroying ego came to power, Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion fee plan died in Albany tonight.

It died in the arms of people who think they know what’s best for New York City and people who are beholden to special interests. It died in the arms of residents of the Outer Boroughs who live far beyond the subway in Eastern Queens. It died in the arms of suburban residents who travel into the city every day, polluting with their cars and not giving back to the city in the form of taxes or other fees. It died in the arms of those who feel a sense of entitlement because they ride around in cars that affect our environment while they go back to their whitewashed suburbs with cleaner air and more trees.

The Times gives us the bleak details:

Lawmakers on Monday shelved Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to charge a fee to drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan, dealing a setback to the mayor as he tries to raise his national profile and promote his environmental initiatives.

The State Senate, which had convened in a special session, adjourned without taking up the plan after it became apparent that the votes for passage were not there.

Meanwhile, the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, proposed sending the issue to a study commission that would also consider other ways to reduce traffic, and giving the Legislature until next March to act.

While Bloomberg’s plan, one that would guarantee a steady source of income for the MTA to provide for better public transportation options, has been rejected by the apparently All-Knowing Sheldon Silver, the fate of the $576 million grant that the federal government had planned to award New York City is unknown. The State Assembly is attempting to set up some bureaucratic commission to further study the long-term social, environmental, health and economics effects of the congestion fee plan an in effort to secure the money the city would have received had Bloomberg’s plan passed.

So now, we in New York City stand neglected. Those of us who live in subway-accessible areas and rely on subways and buses for our transportation could face a bleak future thanks to a bunch of suburban people too impressed with themselves to ride mass transit and residents in faraway Queens and the Bronx who don’t realize that the congestion fee would bring them more reliable and faster public transportation.

Today is a sad day for New York politics. It is a sad message sent to the City. Get a car, the pols tell us. Well, I say, New York was built by the subways. Where the subways ran, people followed. No one likes to drive in New York, and no one should drive in New York. Commuter rail, subway lines and buses could get more people all over the city with fewer environmental consequences than cars do now. This isn’t hard to understand if you live in the city. But apparently our Albany overlords, many of whom live in areas that we as New Yorkers wouldn’t even recognize as New York, think they know what’s right.

Today, I’m bitter. I’m bitter that New York won’t follow London’s lead and become a model for a more efficient approach to traffic problems in the 21st century. I’m bitter that our wonderful public transportation network could be facing an uphill battle to maintain even its current levels of service. I’m bitter that politicians couldn’t get this deal finished.

Tomorrow, we’ll move on. We’ll go back to the drawing board and attempt to get this plan back on track. Tomorrow, we’ll pick up the wacky stories and ongoing subplots of the MTA’s coping with its second hundred years. But today, we can be mad that the congestion fee did not pass and hope that we can drop a “yet” into this sentence too. Today, we can mourn a bold idea turned away and complain about people from “upstate.” Today we can think of what could have been and hope that one day it still might be.

There is still no word yet on the future of the congestion fee in New York or on that $500 million boon from the federal government. I’ll have more tonight if news breaks. In the meantime, Sewell Chan at The New York Times has numerous updates (with more still to come) at this post on the Cityroom blog. There’s hope yet.

Five hundred million dollars. Roll that number around your head. This whole thing, this weekend of congestion pricing battles, it’s really all about the $500 million, and today, we will find out the future of that large sum the federal government is dangling in front of New York City.

For the last week, I’ve been silent on the issue of the congestion fee, but over the last few months, I’ve been an outspoken advocate of the congestion fee plan. Any plan that reduces traffic in New York City while finding money for our cash-strapped public transportation system will get my blessing.

Now, things are coming to a head. The federal government has seemingly set a July 16th deadline for New York to pass the congestion pricing fee if the city is to be awarded a $500-million grant to implement this groundbreaking plan. Furthermore, Mayor Bloomberg’s political future is seemingly entwined with the success or failure of the plan. His Independent star will rise with a victory and fall with a defeat.

It’s been, in other words, a very active weekend on the congestion fee plan. So let’s see where this plan — one that would benefit all New Yorkers, drivers and non-drivers alike — stands as we enter the 11th Hour in Albany.

Graphic courtesy of The New York Times. Edited by me. For the original, click here.

As the debate over the congestion fee rages, New York City Transit decided to release a report this week that came as a surprise to, well, exactly no one. The subways are very crowded, the MTA announced. In fact, the subways may even be too crowded.

To which, I say, “Duh.”

New York City Transit has studied its train lines, looking for on-time performance during rush hour and trains in which each passage gets three square feet of space. In other words, everyone gets their own 20-inch square tile on which they can stand. In a city in which three square feet can cost a lot of money, this valuable subway real estate is hard to come by. The New York Times summarizes:

What is revealed is both predictable and eye-opening. Many subway lines are simply maxed out, meaning there is no room on the tracks they use to add trains that could carry the swelling numbers of riders. And that has implications that range from day-to-day decisions about how trains travel through the system to long-term planning on how to best move people around a growing city…

[NYCT President Howard] Roberts said that on many subway lines, especially the heavily used numbered lines, there is little or no room to accommodate more riders.

The Daily News picked up on the story with an interesting twist. They claim that there is no room for the boost that may come due to the congestion pricing. As those numbers amount to several hundred thousand new riders out of an estimated 7 million per day, I find this conclusion hard to believe and so does the MTA.

Let’s think about this: First, we have to consider the Second Ave. subway. One of the goals of the congestion fee is to properly fund this new subway line. Considering that three of the most overcrowded subway lines are the 4, 5 and 6 trains and the Second Ave. subway is designed to alleviate just this overcrowding on the East Side IRT, well, then we’ve solved one problem.

Second, I believe that the congestion fee won’t affect the IRT subway lines as much as anyone thinks. First, nearly everyone commuting from northern Manhattan and the Bronx along the IRT lines already takes the subway. If commuters choose to drive from north of 86th St. to anywhere in the so-called Central Business District, they do so because they can, by and large, afford to do so. The people on the Upper West Side and Upper East Side will continue to pay $500-$600 a month to park their cars in garages, and they will pay the $8 congestion fee.

Relatedly, the lines that will see the most growth are those out in Queens. While the E is already overcrowded, I think the F and V trains from Queens to Manhattan will see a large increase in passengers. I think the Bay Ridge and southern Brooklyn trains will see a large increase in passengers. For those people, driving is simply quicker than taking slow subways (and isn’t that why we need express service along the F tracks?). Some will continue to drive; others won’t.

But in reality, the transit lines that should see the greatest increases in ridership numbers are Metro-North, the LIRR, New Jersey Transit and PATH trains. Commuters who, for some reason, aren’t using commuter rail lines will turn to those trains as a way to avoid the congestion fee if the economics make sense.

So, yes, the subways are very crowded. Anyone who rides the train on a daily basis can attest to that fact. But it won’t be worse after the congestion fee, and in the long run, the congestion fee is designed, through funding the Second Ave. subway, to make life better for straphangers. The City’s quality of life — from traffic to noise to the environment — will improve and so will subway service, crowded trains or not.

With apologies to Monty Python…

Monday dawned a new week, and with it, a whole slew of news on the in-limbo congestion fee plan set for by Mayor Bloomberg in his PLANYC2030 package. The coverage, by and large, is falls favorably on the side of those of us arguing in favor of the plan, and it gave me hope that the state legislature will strike a deal for the plan when they reconvene in the middle of July.

The day of congestion articles started out with a strident editorial in The New York Times. Picking up on my themes from yesterday’s post (linked above), The Times called for the state legislature to pass the congestion fee plan before the City and state misses out on the $500 million the Bush Administration is dangling in front of us. The Grey Lady opined:

New Yorkers, and anyone else who rides public transportation in and around the city, should mark July 16 on their calendars. By that date, if state lawmakers do their jobs, they will have paved the way to ensuring billions of dollars of new cash to maintain and expand mass transit. If not, the current $2 fare for a bus or subway ride can be expected to increase at least 20 percent and maybe as much as 50 percent. The choice is that stark, and riders, who will pay the price if legislators fail, will know exactly where to direct their pique.

New York is a candidate for as much as $500 million in federal money to help pay for Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan for congestion pricing, which would charge a fee to drivers on Manhattan’s busiest streets. The federal Department of Transportation has said New York is unlikely to qualify if it misses the deadline to authorize a plan.

The Times, echoing what commenter Todd noted last night, bemoans New York City’s limited home rule and its reliance on Albany. This editorial also marks its most strident position on the congestion fee in the last few months. Take heed, Albany. We know what’s best for us down here; you better listen.

Meanwhile, as The Daily News reports, Mayor Mike is optimistic that the congestion plan will pass next month. He’s becoming buddy-buddy with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and knows that his political legacy and future are riding on this proposal.

Finally, in a sign that portends well for congestion fee proponents, opponents of the plan aren’t too optimistic that their recent victory will be a long-term one. While those against the plan — mainly residents who live far from the subway in Queens — know that tens of thousands would suffer from the congestion fee, they also recognize, as Metro points out, that literally millions would benefit from the money funneled from the congestion fee to the MTA.

Increased subway service and better surface transportation is a win for everyone in New York City. Make no mistake about it.

Albany gridlock, long the bane of New York politics, is killing Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion fee plan for now. With the end of the legislative session arriving last week, a battle of political wills between Gov. Eliot Spitzer and State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno left the fate of the congestion fee plan up in the air until the middle of July.

Early last week, it seemed as though Bruno and Spitzer would come to an agreement on a whole slew of legislative issues. But Spitzer’s refusal to budge on the issues of campaign finance reform, Bloomberg’s refusal to amend his plan (rightfully so), and Bruno’s unwillingness to bend resulted in a deadlock at the end of the State Senate’s current session expired.

The Daily News has more:

When Mayor Bloomberg first announced his congestion pricing plan on Earth Day, I came out in favor of it. I knew at the time that many New York politicians, beholden to auto and oil companies and car-addicted denizens of the outer boroughs, wouldn’t sign on to a plan even though that plan would help the city’s environment and the fiscal state of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. That’s just too much common sense for the New York legislative bodies to stomach.

But Bloomberg enjoys the benefit of public support. When told of the benefits of the congestion pricing plan, a whopping 81 percent of New York residents support Bloomberg’s proposal. The New York State Assembly, however, led by Sheldon Silver (pictured at right), have different ideas, and these ideas are among the worst out there in terms of their impact on our beloved subway system.

Marcia Kramer, CBS’s lead political and investigative correspondent, covered the story today. She breaks down the other proposals set forth by the Assembly:

The first idea would involve dropping the price to ride the bus or subway during rush hour from $2 to 50 cents.

The second idea is to increase bridge and tunnel tolls to $6 between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., as well as 3 p.m. through 7 p.m. Under that plan, tolls would be reduced to just $2 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

These plans are disasters. Let’s start with the one at the top: Reducing the subway fare to $.50 at rush hour is a terrible mistake.

Right now, the MTA draws in on average $1.31 per ride for those who use the Unlimted MetroCard (45 percent), $1.67 per ride for those who use pay-per-ride (45 percent) and $2.00 per ride from the rest. So the average that the MTA takes in per ride is $1.54 more or less. Since ridership is highest at rush hour, the MTA obviously takes in more money at rush hour than it does at other times during the day.

As the point of the congestion fee is to discourage driving while taking in money to improve the city’s infrastructure, it doesn’t make any sense to cut the fare by, in effect, 67 percent at peak times. The MTA would have to triple its ridership just to meet its current fare revenues. And tripling the ridership, besides being impossible, would overwhelm the subway system well beyond the point of collapse.

The toll plan suffers from the same lack of foresight. Tolls are already pretty expensive; a bump to $6 wouldn’t do much. But the rebound — $2 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. — would simply push more people to drive when tolls are dirt cheap. I’m not even going to mention the even/odd license plate proposal. That solves no problems, and good luck enforcing it.

In the end, none of these proposals approach the subtlety and thoroughness of Mayor Bloomberg’s original idea. With Bloomberg’s $8-per-car or $21-per-truck plan, the millions the city projects to take in would go toward the MTA’s infrastructure. We would enjoy more frequent and reliable subway service, nicer stations and new subway lines fulfilling the promise of a system 100 years in the making. Additionally, with more people riding the subway each day at the current fares, the MTA’s coffers would continue to expand not only through congestion pricing revenue but through fares as well. It’s a win-win situation for the environment and our public transportation system.

With so many people supporting the congestion pricing, the New York Assembly should do the right thing and pass this legislation. Anything else would be a detrimental cope out that would affect the city for generations to come.

As Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s congestion fee plan gains traction and attention around the nation, news reports, such as this one featured in The Times today, act as though PLANYC2030 is reaching a tipping point.

While in the city, public transportation advocates and officials have thrown their support behind the plan, now, Gov. Eliot Spitzer is pledging to make the congestion fee a reality. In fact, even the Bush Administration is urging the state legislature to adopt the plan. The Times reports:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to reduce traffic by charging people who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan received significant support on Thursday as Gov. Eliot Spitzer endorsed the idea and the Bush administration indicated that New York stood to gain hundreds of millions of dollars if the plan were enacted…

Mr. Spitzer appeared alongside the United States transportation secretary, Mary E. Peters, who announced that New York City was one of nine finalists for a share of $1.1 billion in federal aid to fight urban traffic. Ms. Peters warned, however, that the city’s potential share could be endangered if the mayor’s plan did not have state approval by August.

None of this support, the articles notes, guarantees passage for the congestion fee, and State Assembly and Senate members will delve deep into their list of concerns being giving the go-ahead to this ambition traffic-curbing plan. But with the big guns aligning behind the legislation, we can start to consider the reality of a congestion fee in New York City.

According to Bloomberg, the plan could be in place within 18 months of approval. At that point, commuters will be charged hefty amounts to drive into the city’s central business district south of 86th St., and the money, Sewell Chan wrote on the Empire Zone blog, will help alleviate the MTA’s potential financial woes.

Now, all of this got me thinking: The MTA will have more money. But no one knows yet how that money will be spent. For the most part, everyone believes that windfall from the congestion fee will fund the Second Ave. subway, the 7 line extension and other capital construction projects designed to improve mass transit in the city.

But what about the increase in ridership sure to come as a result of the congestion fee? Earlier this week, The Queens Gazette noted that subway ridership numbers have increased along with the New York City economy. What is going to happen if, as the city draws in more money from the congestion fee, the economy improves and many commuters head to the subway to avoid the wallet-aches of driving?

As I see it, the MTA will face a crush of people once the fee is in place. The subways, already filled to capacity on many lines, will witness a dramatic increase in ridership, and I don’t think the MTA has the infrastructure in place to keep up. So while the city is trying to build the Second Ave. subway — a project for which I clearly am in favor — the Authority will have to find a way to modernize the system to allow for more frequent and more efficient trains.

And thus the congestion fee becomes a double-edged sword. As the city draws in more money from the fee, this money will end up invested in the subways. But at the same time, ridership and demands on the infrastructure will increase as well. While the federal government is now dangling the promise of money in front of the city and state, these funds probably won’t cover the amount the MTA needs to prepare the system for a record-shattering onslaught of straphangers.

The debates over the congestion fee this summer will focus around these issues of preparedness. Maybe this is the push the MTA needs to begin a serious overhaul of infrastructure that is 100 years old and signal technology that dates from the 1930s in most places. No matter what, it’s about time for an upgrade.