Some other things we could do to reduce traffic and improve transit; most without State approval

• Make all the major crosstown thoroughfares (Canal, Houston, 14th Street, 23rd Street, 34th Street, 42nd Street, 57th Street, 72nd Street, 79th Street, 86th Street, 96th Street, 106th Street, 116th Street, 125th Street, 145th Street, 181st Street, and finally, Dyckman Street) accessible to pedestrians, bicycles and buses (BRT) only.

• Do the same for every third or fourth avenue (First Avenue, Lexington Avenue, Fifth Avenue, Broadway, Ninth Avenue).

• Make all deliveries requiring trucks larger than a van take place between 6PM and 6AM.

• Do the same for major thoroughfares in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx.

• Establish a dedicated force of 2,500 police to enforce the traffic laws, dedicate half of the increased fines collected to mass transit; the other half would pay for the increased enforcement.

• Eliminate at least half of the parking placards now in circulation.

• Double the parking tax; dedicate the increased revenues to mass transit.

• Triple the street parking fees; dedicate the increased revenues to mass transit.

• Impose a $1,000 per year tax surcharge on passenger vehicles registered within the city that get less than 25 mpg/city.

• Eliminate city sales tax on bicycles and bike equipment.

• Make the fine for traveling over 30mph in the city $20.00 for every mile per hour above 30—and strictly enforce it.

• Ban "schooling" behavior of cabs—hundreds at a time travel up Church/Sixth Ave en masse or down Columbus while people elsewhere can't find one. Cabbies income would rise, streets would be calmed.

• Get the cross-harbor tunnel built—we've been waiting since 1915!

And there's so much more that can be done—please post your ideas!

Congestion pricing—a great idea, a terrible plan

I support congestion pricing, but have extreme reservations about this version they’re trying to ram down our throats. There are serious drawbacks to this plan; most importantly, it will not produce substantial reductions in traffic and pollution, nor will the plan provide sufficient revenues to enable the necessary improvements to mass transit necessitated by congestion pricing.

The plan may also be unconstitutional—how do you justify making outer-borough residents de facto second-class citizens of the city in which they live? What additional tax burden do Manhattanites living within the zone pay, that they should receive preferential treatment above and beyond other city residents? Yet the state assembly was the direct cause of this—the original agreement with the federal DOT did not specifically restrict congestion pricing to the borough of Manhattan (as I read it), but the bill approved by the state assembly and senate authorized the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission to devise a plan restricted to Manhattan. We outer-borough residents already receive inferior city services compared to Manhattan.

There are insufficient disincentives to discourage drivers coming from Westchester, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Long Island to forgo travel to Manhattan by car; most would receive a credit for tolls paid, and would only pay an additional $2.00 to enter the congestion zone. Do you really think that a $2.00 charge will stop drivers from coming? There are no incentives in the plan for the use of hybrid vehicles and other, non-polluting and alternative methods of transportation (how about eliminating sales tax on bicycles and helmets?). Only those who live within the congestion zone will benefit from improved air quality—those who live in neighborhoods outside the zone, who already suffer disproportionately higher rates of asthma and COPD due to high concentrations of particulate matter will continue to do so—the rates of asthma and COPD may even rise. As New York City has the highest rate of asthma in the United States and the Hunts Point neighborhood in the Bronx has the highest asthma rate in the world, I, and many others find this green-wash solution completely unacceptable.

New York City residents have the lowest car-ownership rates in the area, and account for the lowest percentage of drivers in Manhattan, yet the lion’s share of costs of this plan will inequitably fall on them.

I will not go into all the alternatives here, but many spoke out to the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, including myself, and that testimony is part of the record, and I urge you to read all of it—there are many excellent suggestions, most of which were ignored by the commission.

Please read my report on Traffic and Mass Transit in New York City, which I originally sent to Governor Spitzer in May of 2007, but I ask you to also read the letter to the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, which also appears here:

http://bettertransitny.blogspot.com/2008/01/trafc-and-mass-transit-in-new-york-city.html

I also request that you read my other posts, too.

I’d like to point out that 40% of the City Council did not approve of this plan, and I would like to say, once again, that drastic reforms at the MTA (ignored in the plan) are necessary if congestion pricing is to be an effective means of reducing congestion, pollution and improving the quality of life for all New Yorkers, both upstate and down. Driver reform is also entirely necessary, and is also completely ignored in the current plan.

Please, don't buy into the current plan. Note that City Councilmember and Environmental Committee Chair James F. Gennaro voted against this proposal—he's well aware that this is a bogus bill that will only increase the tax burden on outer-borough residents, and will fail in providing the promised benefits of decreased pollution and traffic that we city residents deserve. It will only decrease congestion in select neighborhoods (if at all) while increasing pollution in most other areas, will only marginally improve mass transit; again, only in a few places, and will not benefit the majority of New York City residents. Write your state assemblymember, your state senator, Senator Bruno, Assemblymember Silver, and Governor Patterson, and let them know we need a real plan that benefits all the residents of New York City.