Public Transit Policy

From 1986-2000, New York license plates were rather iconic in their simplicity. Featuring a white background with a red trim and Lady Liberty in the center, the state license plates screamed New York. In 2000, the state announced plans to shift to the new blue-based license plates with Niagara Falls in one corner and Manhattan’s skyline in the other. Due to both registration enforcement and the desires to represent upstate New York, the license plates had to change.

Now, just eight years after the new plates debuted, it is time once again for New Yorkers to purchase new license plates for the DMV. The new design, shown above, returns New York to its yellow and blue license plates roots, but few are happy with the requirement to spend $25 on new license plates.

According to the DMV, the current license plates were guaranteed for only five years. After half a decade, the license plates, according to state officials, begin to lose their reflectivity and show the effects of wear and tear. Meanwhile, new law enforcement technologies have come into play that rely on shiny license plates. “License plates are a fundamental tool of law enforcement that has been enhanced in recent years through a variety of technologies that improve their readability, especially under low light conditions,” State Police Superintendent Harry J. Corbitt said. “The State Police has worked cooperatively with DMV to ensure that the new plates will continue to serve the law enforcement community effectively.”

Or something like that. The real answer is, of course, one of economics. By requiring and charging for new license plates, the state can generate revenue at a time when it has none. In fact, David J. Swarts, Commissioner of Motor Vehicles and Chair of the Governor’s Traffic Safety admitted as much. “The bold colors of the new license plate reflect New York’s force and its resilience,” he said. “These new plates, in the official colors of the State of New York, will help maintain highway safety, reduce the number of unregistered and uninsured vehicles on our roads, and generate $129 million in General Fund revenue over two years, which will help address the State’s financial crisis.”

As numerous New Yorkers have been speaking out against the new license plates over the last two days, we turn then to this plan’s relationship to the MTA. On its surface, the state’s need to fill its General Fund coffers has nothing to do with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Yet, the funding plan should.

When the state levied payroll taxes and automobile registration fees on MTA counties, it did so because the MTA needed money and these counties benefit from a healthy mass transit network. Politicians and small business owners complained, and in fact, efforts to repeal the taxes are ongoing today. However, whether business owners know this or not, these counties stand to lose more economically from reduced transit service. In other words, residents outside of the city enjoy significant externalities due to the presence of public transit options whether they use Metro-North, the LIRR or New York City Transit offerings or not.

With the license plates, the state is making a pure and simple money grab. If the outrage over these new license plates isn’t at least as large as the Putnam and Dutchess County protests against the MTA, then it is not a stretch to say that the residents and politicians from these areas simply do not understand economics of access and the interplay between urban and suburban areas.

More than half of New Yorkers rely on public transportation to commute to work. More than half of New York households do not own a single car. More than one billion MetroCard swipes were counted by New York City Transit in 2008. Yet, I can’t help but feel that something is amiss with the city’s focus, or lack thereof, on transit policy issues.

According to the Furman Center’s State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods report, city-wide reliance on public transportation hit a decade-long high in 2007. That year, 56.7 percent of all New Yorkers 16 and over who do not work at home and commute to a job do so via our city’s transit. With a recession settling in last year and this, that number could approach 60 percent by decade’s end.

Comparatively, in the 2000 Census, car ownership covered less than half of the city’s households. In fact, 53.5 percent of all households city-wide do not own a car. With insurance, gas and parking as well as routine maintenance top considerations, that number should increase as well in the 2010 Census.

Yet, public transit seems to be the proverbial fifth wheel in New York City. The state legislature begrudgingly approved a bailout for the MTA that is now proving to be rather unpopular with, well, everyone. The city eschewed an opportunity for $354 million from the federal government when business and car owners, a distinct minority in this city, fought back against first congestion pricing plans and then East River bridge tolls. Free roads, they argue, are a necessity, and as our transit system limps along, these opponents to a sensible solution argue that tolls would destroy the economy. No; drastic cutbacks from the MTA would in fact destroy the city’s economy.

Finally, we have the residents of the city. Part of being a New Yorker involves complaining about the MTA. Complain about the service, the smell, the crowds, the waits, the decrepit stations, the weekend changes. Complain about the fares, the fare hikes. But then, when people — wide-eyed transit advocates — suggest radical solutions, most New Yorkers shrug it off. Think small seems to be the mantra when, in reality, the city should be thinking big.

Meanwhile, enter Michael Bloomberg and Bill Thompson. Mayor Bloomberg has put forth a strong transit platform with some great ideas, but his record of MTA support is lacking. Bill Thompson has a lackluster platform, but his public statements belie any sort of transit commitment. In fact, on the day before Election Day, Bill Thompson joined one Bed-Stuy business owner in bashing a planned bus-rapid transit lane while around the corner, scores of people waited for a packed bus to show up. This is Bedford Stuyvesant, an area of Brooklyn where 69.9 percent of the population relies on transit. Yet one car owner may lose her parking spot, and it’s a campaign issue.

Something has to give. One day, we might all wake up and realize the MTA can’t meet the demands of a international economic hub that relies on its subway and bus systems to shuttle people from one end of the city to the other. One day, we might all wake up and find that our politicians have recognized that cars are incidental to the way New York excels and that the public transportation system, and not free bridges, is the true lifeblood of the city.

For now, though, that is a dream. I’ll pull the lever later today for a candidate that I hope can do something for transit, and maybe in four years, someone will come along with a real plan for rational urban development in New York City, one that only pays lip service to transit but delivers results as well. The city can ill afford to wait much longer.

The car lobby in New York State is ramping up its rhetoric this week as driver licensing and registration fees jumped significantly on Tuesday. The hikes, passed earlier this year as part of Albany’s efforts to save the MTA, are significant — 60 percent for licensing fees and 140 percent for registration charges — and motorists aren’t happy.

Newsday’s Alfonso Castillo spoke to a few disgruntled car advocates this week who, in the words of Robert Sinclair of the AAA Auto Club of New York, bemoaned “being made scapegoats for the state’s insolvency.” He continued, “It wouldn’t be so bad if the money were going toward motorist-related issues.”

Of course, Sinclair would never admit it, but the fees are going toward motorist-related issues. The fees are going toward a mass transit system that is vital to the health of New York City. They’re going to a system that keeps the roads clearer than they would be and contributes to a healthy environment for everyone. Those are most decidedly “motorist-related issues.”

Throughout the state, politicians looking to secure votes are speaking out against the fee hikes. Politicians, of course, will always speak out against the fee hikes, but so far, none of them have taken up Gov. David Paterson’s challenge to propose another way to generate this much-needed revenue. Congestion pricing, as always, remains on the table.

Personally, though, I side with the politicians but for different reasons. Unlike Kemp Hannon, a Republican from Garden City, I do not subscribe to the believe that “the use of a car is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.” Plenty of New Yorkers — millions, in fact — do not own cars and lead very successful lives. I do think, however, that licensing fees are at the same time too steep and not steep enough.

In December, when Comptroller William Thompson issued his call for increased fees, I examined his proposal with skeptical eye. He wanted to bump driver licensing fees up from $50 every eight years to $50 every year. For a mandated form of government ID, I thought this charge to be excessive.

In the end, though, the fee hike was far less onerous. Instead of paying $50 for an eight-year renewal, drivers in the region serviced by the MTA have to pay $80.50 for an eight-year renewal. Car registration rises from $44 every two years to $105 every two years. In effect, then, my driver license costs $10.63 a year while I pay $1056 a year to ride the subway (12 Unlimited 30-Day MetroCards at $88 a piece). In that regard, the state is practically giving away driver licenses for next to nothing. Maybe Thompson’s proposal isn’t as burdensome as I thought.

The real solution is, as I mentioned, a congestion fee: Drivers should be charged for the driving they do in areas serviced by mass transit and the social and environmental costs that driving accrues. We shouldn’t pay more for our identification cards just because politicians can’t challenge the vocal car-driving minority.

One day, the MTA will rely on congestion pricing to thrive, and the City will rely on it to become a cleaner and easier-to-navigate metropolis. For now, though, we shouldn’t give AAA spokespeople a pass for their complaints about “motorist related issues.” It just doesn’t ring true.

When the federal government approved the stimulus package, the money was supposed to go to shovel-ready projects that could spur on the economy. At the same time, many local entities are relying on stimulus dollars to cover budget gaps. The MTA is no exception.

A report released late last week by the New York Building Congress accuses New York-based agencies — including the MTA — of hoarding federal stimulus dollars. While $1.57 billion have been siphoned our way and New York City Transit has secured nearly half of that for work on the Fulton St. Transit Center and the Second Ave. Subway, the money is just sitting there. In fact, according to report, New York City Transit has yet to spend a single dollar of federal stimulus funds.

Meanwhile, the NYCB report goes in depth on the spending breakdown. The Fulton St. project has received $423.4 million for the rehabilitation of the mezzanine connecting the 4/5 with the A/C platforms and for the construction of the Dey St. corridor. The Second Ave. Subway has received $276 million with $197 million going toward the construction of the station at 96th St. The rest of the federal stimulus money earmarked for New York City Transit will go toward the rehabilitation of stations in Brooklyn.

According to State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, 44 stimulus projects have been approved, but little to money money has been spent by either Transit or the NYC Department of Transportation on its projects. Building Congress President Richard Anderson expressed his dismay with this turn of events. “It has been almost six months since Congress and the Obama administration approved the stimulus package, yet close to nothing has been expended on the capital side,” he said.

“We have seen a good deal of spending on workforce programs and health and social services,” he continued. “Unfortunately, those expenditures do not provide the same bang for the stimulus buck as direct construction spending, which creates jobs and revenues while pumping money into the broader economy. It is incumbent upon our elected leaders and agency heads to get these dollars flowing directly into the projects already approved and likely to be approved in the coming months.”

The economics behind the stimulus dollars are a bit more complicated though. While the MTA is using federal stimulus dollars for their so-called shovel-ready projects, the problem is one of accounting. The MTA can’t currently spend $423.4 million on the Fulton St. project in six months’ time. They can’t take the $197 million earmarked toward the Second Ave. Subway’s 96th St. station to start construction because the project simply isn’t at that stage yet.

Instead, the agency is using stimulus dollars to keep these capital construction projects funded to completion. The jobs will be there in the future, but the level of staffing will remain fairly consistent right now. In the end, this isn’t a failing on the part of the MTA; it’s a failing on the part of those doling out federal stimulus dollars. The oversight and requirements for spending weren’t rigorous enough to ensure that public authorities use the money now instead of on the typically slow public authority time frame.

While I was away last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided to jump into the well-trodden transit fray. Bill covered Bloomberg’s 33-point plan for a better transit system in a guest post last week, but I want to offer up a few of my own thoughts on this plan. I’ll have a few more posts on the specifics of Bloomberg’s plan as this week goes on.

The main gist behind Bloomberg’s call is a desire to see mass transit improvements in and around New York City. To that end, Bloomberg’s mayoral campaign has released a comprehensive list of suggestions that aren’t too original. He wants to take on the “bloated bureaucracy” of the MTA in a “cost-effective and responsible manner.” He also wants the authority to embrace some new and some not-so-new technologies that “would reduce costs and provide better service for riders.”

Platitudes aside, Bloomberg’s plan has some concrete ideas. He wants to add F Express service to Brooklyn — a plan for which I have advocated for a few years and one that can’t be implemented until the Culver Viaduct work is finished. He wants countdown clocks on every platform, and each station in a state of good repair. He wants more bus rapid transit service, more ParaTransit service, free crosstown buses and a comprehensive bus-tracking system. The plan also includes expanded ferry routes and more high-occupancy car lanes.

From a policy perspective, Bloomberg’s plan sounds great. He is, after all, pushing many proposals I and many other transit advocates have called for over the last few years. Yet, something about it seems less than sincere. It’s a populist plan designed to tap into public sentiment over the MTA at a time when Bloomberg needs to appear to be a mayor of the people. The MTA always has made for a great whipping boy.

Politically, though, and practically, Bloomberg’s plan runs into some trouble. He controls just four of the MTA Board’s 17 seats, and most of his top-line initiatives — the administrative trimming that the MTA really needs — are out of his hands. He can’t cut the bureaucratic tape; he can’t implement the technology via any other city-run agencies; he can’t control fare policies. He can push his plan in TV spots and campaign appearances, but his hands are mostly tied.

I say “mostly tied” because Bloomberg has a few economic options at his disposal should he choose to pursue them. First, Bloomberg must recognize that many of the roadblocks his proposals face are monetary in nature. The MTA simply does not have the money to install countdown clocks at every station or implement a city-wide bus tracking system. To get these much-needed improvements back on track, the MTA needs money, and Bloomberg could deliver the bucks by upping the city’s contributions to authority. With the city strapped for cash though, I wouldn’t hold my breath here.

Second, Bloomberg could tighten the ability of cars to get around the city. He could push for congestion pricing. He can push for bridge tolls. He can push for higher on-street parking rates, higher registration fees and generally higher anything that taxes car drivers. By doing so, he would be putting a lot of indirect political pressure on the state and the MTA to provide better and more comprehensive service to the region.

As a transit advocate, I love Bloomberg’s ideas. I love seeing transit proposals dominate the mayoral race. I love seeing papers giving serious attention to transit policy and proposals. I know that it is not really feasible for Bloomberg to push his plan through, and I know he’s putting this out there for political purposes. Maybe though it’s the start we need for a comprehensive transit overhaul to arrive.

As 2009 unfolds, employers in the 12 counties serviced by the MTA — the so-called Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District — will be levied a payroll tax designed to help cover a multi-billion-dollar MTA budget gap. This tax forces everyone to pay for transit. It makes no distinction between those who use the system and those who don’t, between those who drive and intentionally eschew mass transit to the detriment of urban dwellers and those who embrace the subway as a cheap, reasonably efficient and environmentally-friendly way of commuting around New York City.

It doesn’t have to be like that. There are reasonable and feasible, if politically less palatable, solutions to the mass transit funding problem. Furthermore, these proposals help push the goals of a complex and complete mass transit network: They encourage people in transit-rich areas to leave their cars at home and use the social and environmental alternative.

As I took on some of the advocates and reporter who cover mass transit last week, I want to move on to similar topics. One of the problems with the state of mass transit advocacy is that those running the show are not always propagating other solutions. We talk about being anti-fare hike and anti-service cuts, but we also need to be pro-something. Whether that’s pro-payroll tax or pro-congestion fee, it’s important to push these other alternatives while also protesting Albany inaction and the specter of a more expensive subway ride. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore some alternatives to a payroll tax. Today, we start with on-street parking.

I live in one of the more expensive neighborhoods in Brooklyn. A quick search on Trulia reveals some pretty shocking real estate numbers with homes listed for as much as $1218 per square foot and an average price somewhere around the $700 mark. Meanwhile, to park in this neighborhood costs a grand total of $0 and the need to move the car in question once a week. That makes no sense.

From where I sit right now, I am approximately 0.5 miles away from four subway stops at four different parts of Park Slope that serve, at various times, 10 different subway lines. The Atlantic Ave./Pacific St. station is another ten minutes away. The vast majority of cars, therefore, in this neighborhood are a luxury. Owners have them for weekend getaways and other commutes. Do they have a right to park them for free?

According to Wikipedia’s entry on parking spaces, a curbside space is on average 160 square feet. In real estate terms, using that $700 figure, parking spots could cost up to $112,000. Do we need to provide people in such transit-rich neighborhoods with free on-street parking? Of course not. The city is just squandering a resource for no real reason.

Now, the city could sell parking spots for a one-time fee based upon the neighborhood in which a driver wishes to park and the average real estate value of that land. This would never pass political muster. The more sensible way is to charge rent. Market rent on that 160-square-foot parking space would be a few thousand dollars a year, and that money would quickly solve not only the MTA’s deficit problem but its capital expansion funding issues as well. Those who choose to enjoy the luxury of a car in an urban area can support the subway system that benefits all.

Of course, even a few thousand dollars a year wouldn’t earn political support, but a few hundred bucks for a residential parking permit isn’t outlandish. Washington, DC, charges $15 a year for a parking permit; Philadelphia asks for $35 once and $20 perpetually. New York could charge $200 and still be practically giving away the spaces.

Drivers get defensive about their parking spots, but the city doesn’t need to kowtow to them. We pay to use roads, taxis and subways. Why shouldn’t we be charged for and collect revenue from the spaces on the streets as well?

In cities around the country, mass transit ridership is on the climb. In New York, around 5.2 million per day ride the subways around the city. In Washington, D.C., site of this week’s fatal train collision, daily ridership for the Metro is around 730,000, an all-time high for the WMATA.

Meanwhile, investments are down, and financial crises for transit authorities are on the rise. From Chicago to New York, Boston to Washington, transit agencies are looking for ways to cut costs and cut services while raising fares in order to bridge budget gaps. Local and state municipalities are scaling back investment levels, and federal contributions, while higher than they’ve been in the past, can’t begin to overcome the funding abyss these transit authorities face.

For New York, the funding decisions — what to cut, what not to cut, how to invest — have been seemingly easy and transparent. The MTA will cut the frequency of train service as a last resort. They will close stations as a last resort. They will instead turn to fare box revenue and somewhat superfluous services that make the system nicer. Station cleaning staff will be reduced; station agents will be eliminated through attrition.

What the MTA has not been willing to cut are its modernization and security measures. By developing two separate budgets with two separate revenue streams — one for capital, one for operations — the authority can continue to invest in new rails, new signals, new stations and new train cars while the day-to-day operations of the system may be scaled back. Safety, security and the comforts of getting from Point A to B are paramount, and if straphangers have to wait a few minutes more or suffer through more crowded trains until the economy improves, so be it.

Not every system has the same structure in place. ,As we head south to the site of this week’s horrific and deadly train crash on the D.C. Metro’s red line, we come to another overtaxed system. As D.C. and federal transit officials investigate the cause of a high-speed rear end collision that left nine people dead and nearly 80 more wounded, they are finding that a lack of investment may be one of the culprits. Ian Urbina reports:

[National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie] Hersman said the federal safety board had recommended that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which runs the transit system, “either retrofit those cars or phase them out of the fleet.”

“They have not been able to do that, and our recommendation was not addressed,” Ms. Hersman said. She called the transit authority’s response to the recommendations “unacceptable.”

The authority’s general manager, John B. Catoe Jr., said the transit system had been waiting to receive proposals “over the next month or so” to replace the old cars. The new trains were still years away from being added, he said.

Why didn’t the WMATA heed the government’s safety warnings? Because, as Doug Feaver writes in the Washington Post, they didn’t have the money. They have old cars that haven’t been retrofitted because politicians have shoved mass transit to the side. As Feavers, transit is far safer than driving and is becoming an increasingly popular mode of transit. We as a nation should be investing in it.

In New York, the MTA on Tuesday took great pains to ensure costumers of the safety of its fleet. The MTA does not use any of the types of cars damaged in Monday’s accident, and as officials explained, the subway’s fixed-block signal system has better crash-prevention measures in please than the new WMATA system does.

Nationwide, there have been few bad transit accidents over the last few years. When they happen, they earn top headlines because they are so rare, and we as a public consider trains infallible. When cars age, when systems aren’t upgraded, they break down and become dangerous. With so many people recognizing the value of transit, it’s time to invest in both our safety and our future.