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As the clock is counting down the time Albany has to approve Mayor Bloomberg's ambitious - and controversial - congestion pricing plan in order to qualify for $500 million in federal funding, Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky is getting ready to explain why Albany shouldn't. He is releasing a report that calls congestion pricing "un-enactable". He suggests that the Mayor's plan is very different from what's before the Legislature. From the NY Sun:
While Mr. Bloomberg has assured Manhattan vehicle owners that they would likely not pay to move their cars within the tolled zone to comply with alternateside parking rules, Mr. Brodsky charges that such an exemption is not in the bill. The legislation also doesn't identify locations or standards for residential parking permits that have been put forward as a possibility for neighborhoods surrounding the tolled zone.Brodsky also questions whether the city has "mass transit improvements" in place to handle more riders and whether traffic flow would improve. He offers a "congestion rationing" plan, which, per the Sun, involved "certain license plates [being] allowed to drive at designated times." And, according to the Daily News, Brodsky's study will show that Brooklyn, Queens, and Bronx drivers, with an average salary of $46,000 will make 24% of the trips, but pay 47% of the fines, while Manhattan drivers, with $74,000 in average salary, will make 72% of the trips but pay only 42% of the fees.While Mr. Bloomberg has said the funds collected from charging drivers in Manhattan would be used to fund capital improvements to the mass transit system, Mr. Brodsky said, "That's not in the bill."
Some interesting stats from Streetsblog is that Brodsky has received $16,500 in donations from the parking industry over the past five years, more than any other state legislator. City Councilman David Weprin, another congestion pricing opponent, has received $20,500 in contributions from the parking industry.
Over the weekend, Mayor Bloomberg said, "It's imperative that our State leaders put aside their competing interests and come together on this issue. To leave this half a billion dollars just sitting on the table would be absolutely ridiculous." And there are dueling congestion pricing press events: At 1PM, Bloomberg is detailing mass transit benefits and then at 2PM, Brodsky releases his report.
Photograph by Transportation Alternatives on Flickr
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Brodsky's an ass.
Here are the facts:
1. NYC Traffic is only going to get worse.
2. New Yorkers (just like most Americans) don't want to do anything that is inconvenient.
3. New Yorkers (just like most Americans) don't want to fix (or acknowledge) a problem until it has reached it's breaking point.
The Czech is right. Congestion needs to be alleviated before it really gets out of hand, and this plan is a step in the right direction.
No mass transit improvement immediately should mean no congestion taxing, period.
All you people for congestion pricing are going to feel pretty dumb when you can't fit on the subway in the morning, when you're boss is yelling at you that you're late. When you get fired because you can't get to work. (yeah, take your bike to work in the rain and snow... uh-huh. have you all realize the weather is only nice here half the year at best? Have you been here long enough to have been through a serious winter storm? or better still, a serious winter when it doesn't stop snowing for a few weeks? Bikes and snow don't mix too good...)
This stupid plans is unworkable and it is nothing but a tax upon NYers who can ill afford it in an age of raising costs for everything.
I think congestion can easily be alleviated by all non native NYers leaving NYC forthwith. Take Bloomturd with you. We don't want him anymore.
It's going to happen, get over it.
I live here, and I am tired of the traffic, this could really help NY.
Brodsky from Westchester is a politician bought for the low price of 16K. We can't let a single politician stand in the way of progress just because they are bought and paid for by lobbyists. Can you hear us BRUNO?
grow some balls, riding your bike in the snow isnt that bad; with most storms the roads are clear immediately due to the heat from the underground
#3... it doesn't make sense that Brodsky gets himself elected either, but that's Westchester for you.
And I agree, the Czech is right on this one.
Brodsky is certainly right about the alternate side of the street rules. Bloomberg claims that you will not be charged for it, but has laid out no plan for how this will happen.
this plan is dead -- probably along with Bloomberg's short stint in politics.
This is not about pollution, please stop attaching that strawman to it. If it was about pollution, hybrids would get a discount or be exempt.
This is no different than why cigarettes are $8/pack. That is: applying a tax to something that affects a small percent of the population that the rest of the population finds annoying... and then attaching some happy-sounding political motivation to it like "for the children" or "health concerns".
People living in the lower counties already pay for the roads in New York City. It's that extra part of your income taxes that's with-held.
Congestion pricing been successful in London for a while hasn't it? I think most citizens are scared because they feel all the relevant information has yet to be disclosed.
why make a simple premise so complicated? who and what industry will have their hands in the till when this law gets passed? the technology company who implements the ez pass? the cameras? who else?
[9] raises an interesting point - I'm still not clear how moving your car for alternate side will be exempted. That being said, while I don't know what it is, I'm willing to believe that there is a way to make that work, like maybe based on just traveling a very small distance. I don't it's a big enough stumbling block to derail the whole concept.
Oh boy, those crazy parking-lot-lobbyists again.
Actually, congestion pricing is not as successful as one thinks.
Today London's leading afternoon newspaper published a study saying many points in the area have become more congested and it takes longer to get to places.\
Also, with an expansion of the original congestion zone and the rise of the daily price to 16 GBP [$16] ... some people who reside in some very politically connected and wealthy areas such as Chelsea and South Kensington pay as little as 80 pence/day ... or about $1.60.
Back in NYC ... why don't we improve the area trasnit systems first ... like London, sell one card that can get you passage on trains and buses, whether it's to New Haven, Hempstead, Ho-Ho-Kus, the #7 to Main Street Flushing or the M10 bus.
Fix mass transit first ... then phase in a type of congestion pricing -- tolls on the free East River bridges -- enforced with the computer and snoop camera technology a certain billionaire mayor is in love with.
Congestion pricing as it stands now in Bloomberg's plan is a tax on everyone who works in Manhattan and lives elsewhere, and hits harder on the lower classes in the outer boroughs who have crap public transit and need their cars to get to work.
Whoops, in previous post I meant 8 GBP/day - $16 USD.
The touting of the congestion pricing plan’s potential reductions in tail-pipe emissions as a panacea for respiratory disease is unfortunate. This argument is a red herring. The plan does nothing to help the quality of air in low-income areas of upper-Manhattan and the Bronx – where asthma rates are among the highest in the country.
Much talk is made of the potential loss of $500 million in federal funding if the congestion pricing scheme is not approved, but New Yorkers should not let themselves be bought in exchange for a plan that would provide as little as a .6 mph increase in traffic speeds. I believe that some plan to reduce congestion is appropriate, yet the current proposal being rammed through the legislature would be ineffective and primarily benefit the Manhattanites, and the wealthy, whose air will be cleaner and who will continue to drive with impunity, because they can afford to.
what you don't understand, guest 6:54, is that this pricing scheme is designed to make those who drive pay for the externality caused by driving, be it congestion or asthma or GHG emissions or energy security or what have you. Driving in the city currently has costs that drivers do not have to bear. This pricing plan forces them to bear it. Unfortunately, those with less money always have less elastic demand. However, I side here with the economists and say that forcing people to pay is the only way to get them to change their behavior. And that payin' be where the money for the subway system come from. Blame Moses for that one.
Actually, yo mamma, I do understand that people need to be forced to be pay for externalities of driving. I am all in favor of a national carbon, or gas, tax that would actually force people to pay for the costs of the evnironmental and health damage, and military costs borne, from the use of gasoline to power our cars. Make gas as expensive as it is in Europe, say $4.50 and that will be a real dis-incentive to drive, and use those dollars to fund public transportation.
Putting a toll on the use of PUBLIC roads, that are already payed for by tax payers, amount to nothing more than the privatization of a public resource. There are much better ways to reduce congestion than the current plan, although some plan in needed. There is a good alternative proposed yesterday by Assemblyman Rory I. Lancman that talks about actually enforcing current traffic regulations, and ecouraging the use of public transportation, rather than penalizing the use of taxpayer supported public goods. We also need to keep in mind that the Bloomberg plan will not work because the public transport alternatives do not yet exist. SO, if people massivelt shift to public transport, that will overwhelm an system already bursting at the seams. Try getting on the 6 train almost any time of the day.