Congestion Pricing

Daily News, April 23, 2007

The Mayor is right on target in suggesting congestion pricing (CP) for the Big Apple. We need it to reduce traffic strangulation, make business more efficient, allow us to grow and maintain our pre-eminence as the least gas-guzzling and most energy efficient city in the US. We also must maintain our competitive advantage with other world cities; no wonder our closest competitor London, has already implemented this NYC-born concept (Nobel laureate William Vickrey, Columbia University).

I'm a veteran, as a former city official, of three earlier attempts in the 1970's and 80's when we lost in the courts and in the legislature. The opposition was largely Brooklyn and Queens based even though those boroughs benefit enormously from CP. Here's what the Mayor must do to make this saleable in Bay Ridge, Bayside, Bay Terrace and Pelham Bay:

• Eliminate tolls where they don't belong. CP should only be applied where there's heavy congestion and good transit (i.e. Manhattan south of 60th St.). Remove tolls from the Verrazano Bridge. Let free bridges ring in the Rockaways. Let Long Islanders (which includes Brooklyn and Queens) pass easily without E-ZPass to the US mainland (i.e. Queens-Bronx bridges). More city drivers use these crossings than use the 'free' East River bridges.
• Staten Islanders will be happier since they will finally be able to get home without paying a toll. But they deserve more; their borough is strangling with traffic. Widen the Staten Island Expressway and twin the Goethals Bridge.
• Get trucks off Brooklyn Streets by rebuilding the Belt Parkway to allow commercial vehicles. Add a few more parks adjacent to it while we're at it. The car-only restriction is a Robert Moses anachronism.
• Give all city residents five free trips/year that they can barter if they don't use them. One of the biggest complaints I hear is "what do I do if I have to go into Manhattan to the doctor or want to catch a play?" Bartering is a version of the federally sponsored FAIR concept "Fast and Intertwined Regular" lanes currently being considered for the San Francisco Bay area.
• Apply CP to transit. Reduce the bus fares in the subway-less neighborhoods to $1.
• City employees must not be exempt and before the city gets moving on CP it must clean up its own act and crack down on government abuse of parking.
• Educate the public. Somehow they accept CP when their cars are parked but not when they are moving. Park at Rockefeller Center during the holiday season and it could cost you $60, Long Island City will cost you ten and you'll get change for a fin in Douglaston. The economic model shows that parking fees will go down with CP. There will be a transfer in funds from private parking operators (many are my clients- at least till this comes out) to public coffers.
• Activate the masses who are riding subways, buses and taxis. Borough pols are adept at telling which way the wind is blowing.

I'm convinced that once people get rational about CP they'll see what a win-win it is. The rich move faster, the poor get better transit, we all get better air and our city gets greener.