Congestion pricing

Here’s Marty Markowitz at the press conference yesterday making the case that charging tolls on the East River bridges is essentially congestion pricing, which he opposed.

Many opponents of congestion pricing also oppose tolling the bridges, but not all.  read more »

Among the elected officials who came out at a press conference yesterday against the Ravitch Commission’s recommendation to raise revenue for the M.T.A. by tolling the East River bridges was Senator-elect Dan Squadron.  read more »

After Sheldon Silver dropped the news that he's open to reinstituting the commuter tax, Michael Bloomberg told reporters in City Hall that he himself is also in favor of bringing it back. Bloomberg stopped short of demanding Republican state lawmakers take action.

“I’ve always thought it was a very bad mistake to give up the commuter tax back when it was done,” the mayor said. “I’ve been screaming about the commuter tax for all the time I’ve been here.”

New York City's commuter tax was lifted in 1999.

Bloomberg added, “The fact that the speaker is in favor of it is encouraging, but there’s 145-odd members in the Assembly, and we’re going to need a majority of them, as well, if we are to reinstitute it.”

That, essentially, was the lesson of the failure of congestion pricing.

If we are to make this planet more sustainable, all of us--individuals, families, schools, nonprofits, and especially corporations--will need to change our behavior. This does not mean that we must live grim lives where we stay at home freezing in the dark. It does mean that we need to pay attention to the resources we consume and we need to switch as quickly as we can to renewable resources. This is going to require changes in public policy and increases in the funding for scientific research and development. It is also going to require the private sector do more to incorporate sustainability principles into best management practices.  read more »

One of the central elements of Mayor Bloomberg's plan for a sustainable New York City is to improve mass transit and get people out of their cars and into busses and subways. In addition to better and more frequent transit service, the city also needs to ensure that the price of mass transit is kept under control. In the aftermath of the defeat of congestion pricing, we see that mass transit in this region is under greater financial stress than at any time since the fiscal crisis of the mid 1970's.

State and local tax collections are in decline, and the MTA bears the burden of the Pataki philosophy of borrowing to fund transit infrastructure.  read more »

On March 17, 2008, Lieutenant Governor and former State Senator David Paterson was suddenly placed in the center of Albany's storm and assumed the Office of Governor. While it may seem premature, we decided to review the environmental record of his first 100 days. New York State's League of Conservation Voters is known for their thoughtful representation of the electorate's interest, so we asked them for their view of our accidental governor's environmental record. Marcia Bystryn, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters observed that:

"In the course of his first 100 days, Governor Paterson has shown that he can work effectively with the Legislature and that he understands the importance of an environmental agenda.  read more »

A panel of transportation advocates held on the Upper West Side on Thursday night reached a predictable consensus:

“The M.T.A. is in deep doo-doo right now and it’s only going to get worse," according to the Regional Plan Association's Jeffrey Zupan.

More on the panel from Em Whitney at The Politicker.

Earlier today, Michael Bloomberg defended the pledge he reportedly made to help Dean Skelos keep the narrow majority Republicans hold in the State Senate.

“Because I have said repeatedly I will help those who help this city,” Bloomberg said when he was asked why he made the promise during a Q&A with reporters in Lower Manhattan after unveiling the Waterfalls. “The Republicans in the State Senate were willing to vote for congestion pricing, and the Democrats were not. And there’s been a whole bunch of things where they have been there to help us," he added. "If the Democrats help us, I’ll support them as well.  read more »

From Geoffrey Gray's New York magazine profile of State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver:

He recalls a conversation he had with Robert Rubin—the former Treasury secretary, current Citigroup director, and friend of the billionaire mayor’s. Rubin, like us, was also stuck in traffic and decided to give Silver a call to talk up the proposal. Silver says, “Let me ask you something, Bob. Are you in one of those limo-type cars?” He was.  read more »

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Streetsblog quoted State Senator Marty Connor talking about congestion pricing during a debate this weekend with his challenger, former Chuck Schumer aide Dan Squadron.  read more »

The 6,300 miles of streets and the transportation infrastructure spread across New York City's 321 square miles “is coming up against limits,” the commissioner of the New York Department of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan, said in the agency’s “Sustainable Streets” plan announced today.

Since Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan never got off the ground, the DOT laid out a new blueprint to ease travel within the city by making streets more pedestrian friendly; targeting improvements in bus mobility, safety, and bicycling; and reducing the transportation network's impact on the environment. It's ambitious, but since Albany has no say in the matter it might be more likely to become a reality than its predecessor.  read more »

A little more than a year ago, Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched his pathbreaking "PlaNYC 2030" urban sustainability plan. According to the city’s own progress report on the plan’s first year:

The implementation of PlaNYC's 127 initiatives requires the effort of more than 20 City agencies; the help of our Sustainability Advisory Board; partners and supporters from all across New York City; and close cooperation with the City Council and other elected officials. In the first year since the release of the plan, we completed rezonings, planted 54,484 trees, moved our taxis and black cars toward fuel efficiency, encouraged bicycling with 60 new lane miles, and engaged New York City in the most significant transportation discussion in a generation.

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Here is something I just noticed.

Minutes after Kevin Sheekey went on NY1 and blasted Sheldon Silver for not having the "courage" to vote on the mayor’s congestion pricing plan, Sheekey officially made a new Facebook friend: Paul Newell, one of two Democrats seeking to oust Sheldon Silver in the September primary.  read more »

Yesterday, Dan Hendrick of the New York League of Conservation Voters stopped by City Hall, just in time to chat about Earth Day!  read more »

Today is Earth Day! It’s also the one-year anniversary of Michael Bloomberg's formal announcement of a plan for congestion pricing.

To honor the occasion, a congestion pricing critic, Assemblyman Mark Weprin, is distributing a letter that commends Bloomberg for putting the issue on the table:

"So while I opposed the congestion pricing plan, I applaud the Mayor for appropriately placing traffic congestion and its environmental impacts at the forefront of public discourse. Indeed, every mayoral candidate running next year will now have to present a serious plan for traffic mitigation in New York City.

Here's the full letter:  read more »

A little over a month after the Port Authority hiked tolls on its six bridges and tunnels, there has been a 2.9 percent drop in the number of vehicles commuting amid Manhattan, New Jersey and Staten Island-- more than the 2 percent dip the agency expected and more than the 2.3 percent dip that followed the previous toll increase in 2001, according to The Times' CityRoom blog.

More than 350,000 cars and trucks used the bridges and tunnels on an average weekday before the toll increase. Since March 2, usage has dropped by over 10,000 vehicles every day. In the past, it's taken between as long as nine months for traffic to drop following a toll increase.  read more »

After he delivered a speech this morning in Washington, a reporter asked Michael Bloomberg if he agreed with top political aide Kevin Sheekey that Sheldon Silver lacked "courage" on congestion pricing.

‘Well, I didn’t hear what Kevin said last night,” Bloomberg said, according to audio provided by his office. “I suggest you talk to Kevin.”  read more »

Michael Bloomberg and his aides have presented the demise of their congestion pricing plan, which occurred without a floor vote in the Assembly, as an example of Albany’s well-noted dysfunction.

Not surprisingly, the view from within the Democratic-held Assembly is different.  read more »

"Shelly just came out of our conference and said our conference does not have the support to bring this to the floor,” Democratic Assemblyman Mark Weprin yesterday told reporters after a meeting with Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assembly democrats about Mayor Bloomberg's congestion-pricing bill. “I want to be clear that the conference was overwhelmingly against it,” he further said.

To say that congestion pricing died because the Assembly members were against it is of course true, but not the point. When items are important to Speaker Silver he has this habit of “leading” his conference. He will maintain that his style is to engage his members and compromise, and his ability to bully the legislature is overstated. That is, of course, ridiculous—the Speaker usually gets what he wants. The bottom line is that Shelly Silver killed congestion pricing.  read more »

“I don’t see how anyone can use support of congestion pricing against somebody politically,” Christine Quinn just told reporters at a brief availability inside City Hall, where she reacted to the Assembly’s decision not to vote on the plan the City Council urged them to adopt.  read more »

I just got off the phone with Sheldon Silver spokesman Dan Weiller, who tried to explain his boss's decision not to bring congestion pricing legislation to a vote in the Assembly today.

“There was not enough support for this legislation in the Assembly majority -- not nearly enough support to bring this to the floor,” Weiller said.

Unlike Michael Bloomberg, Weiller doesn't think there needed to be a vote to find out where Assembly members stand on the legislation.  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan has flat-lined, but transportation advocacy groups said that dealing with congestion and traffic remains imperative at the city level.  read more »

Here is Christine Quinn’s statement on the death of congestion pricing, which says she is “disappointed that we missed an opportunity” and describes today as a “setback.”

Neither Quinn's statement nor the statement from Michael Bloomberg aide John Gallagher mention Sheldon Silver by name.

Here’s the full statement:  read more »

Michael Bloomberg’s spokesman John Gallagher is releasing, upon request, a statement blasting the legislative process that killed his boss’ plans for congestion pricing.

“What we are witnessing today is one of the biggest cop-outs in New York’s history. After insisting on the formation of a commission to make recommendations for a bill, and then for the City Council to vote to endorse that bill, the Assembly needs to stand up and be counted.  They owe it to the majority of New Yorkers who support this plan, the scores of environmental groups, public health organizations, business leaders, unions, and the public at large, to put this proposal to a public vote.”

Mary Peters, the U.S. Transportation Secretary also released a statement thanking by name everyone but Sheldon Silver for their “leadership” on the issue.

“Thanks to the leadership of Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Paterson, Majority Leader Bruno, the City Council and many other state and local officials and civic, environmental, business and labor organizations, New York has engaged in one of the most vigorous and significant debates about transportation policy in modern U.S. history. While today's announcement, if accurate, is deeply disappointing, New York’s mounting traffic and environmental woes point to congestion pricing as an inevitable solution, even if not in the next few months or with the assistance of federal Urban Partnership dollars. Starting tomorrow, we will engage with many of the largest cities in the United States that have put forward ambitious traffic fighting plans to discuss how they could use this money to cut traffic, improve transit and reduce pollution.”

More reactions after the jump.  read more »

Thanks in large part to Sheldon Silver, congestion pricing is dead. Now, Silver's Democratic primary opponent, Paul Newell, wants to make sure the Assembly speaker gets credit.

“This is a perfect example of how the broken system in Albany fails New Yorkers, and lower Manhattanites [are] included in that category,” Newell said.

“What is the point of being represented by the speaker of the State Assembly if he can’t even go to bat for us when it counts?”

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State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and allies have effectively doomed Mayor Bloomberg's congestion-pricing plan for Manhattan. More from The Politicker.

Congestion pricing is dead in the Assembly.

“Shelly just came out of our conference and said our conference does not have the support to bring this to the floor,” said Democratic Assemblyman Mark Weprin.

“I want to be clear that the conference was overwhelmingly against it,” he said, dispelling the notion that Silver, personally, blocked the plan. Weprin, who opposed the plan, said the program’s biggest supporter, Michael Bloomberg, should not be blamed for the failure, but rather, commended for making it an issue.  read more »

Midnight tonight is the deadline for state lawmakers to approve the mayor’s congestion pricing program in order to qualify for $354 million in federal transportation funds. It’s still not clear that there are enough votes to get it passed in either house of the legislature.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Joe Bruno supports it, but may not have enough votes on his side of the aisle to get it through. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been typically lukewarm and has consistently suggested that his members are not inclined to be in favor.

But Michael Bloomberg’s top aid, Kevin Sheekey, still thinks it’s less about cobbling votes behind closed doors and more about forcing legislators to vote on the issue publicly.  read more »

At an anti-congestion pricing rally at City Hall yesterday, Councilman David Weprin claimed that the program isn’t supported by a majority of city lawmakers, even though it passed the Council recently by a vote of 30 to 20.  read more »

From Downtown Express:

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told Downtown Express Wednesday he is likely to support congestion pricing, but the Albany power broker also said passage is still in doubt.  read more »

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Citizens Union, a group that promotes government openness and transparency, is urging state lawmakers to pass congestion pricing.  read more »

City comptroller Bill Thompson, who is also a possible mayoral candidate, just released a letter to Governor David Paterson that urges state lawmakers to pass congestion pricing by the April 7 deadline.

There are, however, a few amendments he would like to see.

Thompson wants to eliminate the discount that drivers would receive if they pay the tolls prior to entering the congestion pricing district. As the letter puts it, that change “ensures that all drivers will contribute equally.”
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Once again, Michael Bloomberg has defied public opinion polls and noisy skeptics, lined up bipartisan support from the Democratic governor and the Republican State Senate and won over city lawmakers in support of an idea that would have a profound impact in New York City.

And once again, his big plan—this time, to impose a toll on cars driving into midtown Manhattan—faces a immovable obstacle in Sheldon Silver, who often seems to be the most powerful politician in New York. (It was Mr.  read more »

A day after the City Council voted in favor of congestion pricing, and before the state legislature has a chance to, critics of the plan are making the argument that it is a financial burden on community services and charities.  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg's dream of charging commuters to drive below 60th Street in Manhattan took a giant leap forward yesterday as the City Council voted in his proposal's favor. Manhattan renters, especially those on the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side, should take notice.

The old boundary for the congestion pricing proposal was 86th Street, smackdab in the middle of both neighborhoods. In June, The Observer wondered aloud:

[T]he $8 daily fee that Mayor Bloomberg is proposing car drivers pay to enter core Manhattan will give people all the more reason to seek out homes near existing transit hubs. Commuters who choose to drive every day will incur about $2,000 a year in commuting charges that they don’t currently pay.

Now that the border's likely to be 60th Street will we see midtown condos like the Sheffield on West 57th become all the more valuable? And will more New York homeowners and tenants soon have to factor commuting fees into their midtown travels? Will they simply opt for downtown or midtown living instead?  read more »

The City Council on Monday passed a measure 30-20 supporting Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal. (More coverage here from brother blog The Politicker.) The proposal now moves to the State Legislature, which has until April 7 to act.

A congestion pricing measure before the Council just passed, 30 to 20.

Domenic Recchia, who is planning to run for Congress, took a pass on voting the first time around, but eventually voted yes. Eric Gioia, who had told the New York Times on March 8 that he was voting no, also voted for it. Comptroller candidate Melinda Katz voted no, but her likely rival David Yassky voted yes. The two candidates for Brooklyn brough president, Bill De Blasio and Charles Barron, both voted against.  read more »