Study Predicts Plan Would Reduce
Traffic in Downtown B’klyn by 29%
By Sarah Ryley
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
NEW YORK — Proposing a new toll or tax is always controversial, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to charge drivers $8 to enter Manhattan below 86th Street is no exception.
The announcement, made Sunday during his presentation of the city’s long-term sustainability plan, was applauded by environmentalists who said it would cut pollution and members of the business community who said it would ease congestion.
A study released by the prestigious Partnership for New York City last year estimated that the measure, known as congestion pricing, would reduce traffic in Downtown Brooklyn by 29 percent and in Williamsburg/Greenpoint by 24 percent, because so many cars head through those neighborhoods to take advantage of the free bridges.
The numbers were based on London’s 15 percent reduction in car trips after congestion pricing was introduced, while the mayor’s proposal predicts only a 6.3 percent reduction in trips, in part because Bloomberg’s toll would be much lower than London’s.
But the mayor’s “courageous” announcement was booed by many local politicians, including some in the state Assembly who will have to approve the measure, because they said it would be an unfair tax on the city’s working and middle class, many with inferior access to mass transit.
Bloomberg said the proposed $8 fee would “be high enough to encourage more people to take mass transit and low enough not to break the bank,” but critics pointed to his statement as another example of how the billionaire mayor is out of touch with many New Yorkers.
“If you’re working at a minimum-wage job or you’re living on a fixed income, that’s a lot of money,” said Assemblywoman Joan Millman, D-Brooklyn Heights/Park Slope. “You’re going to have to take from something else, something else that you need.”
Ralph Perfetto, a Democratic district leader, said, “I personally don’t think [it will pass] because you have a Democratic assembly, thank God, and they will see through this.” Perfetto is a Bay Ridge resident who said he takes mass transit to work, but drives his wife to the hospital in Manhattan once a month.
How Congestion Pricing
Would Work
The mayor’s proposal would charge an $8 fee for passenger vehicles and $21 for trucks entering or leaving Manhattan below 86th Street weekdays between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., with the exception of the FDR Drive, the West Side Highway and West Street. Vehicles that drive only within the zone would pay $4.
The charge would not apply to emergency vehicles, taxis, radio cars or vehicles with handicapped license plates.
Bloomberg said the charge would appear on drivers’ E-Z pass statements via high-speed sensors. For drivers without an E-Z Pass, their license plates would be checked automatically by cameras mounted on traffic light poles, and payments could be made within two days online, by telephone or at participating retailers. There would be no tollbooths or waiting areas.
Bloomberg said people moving their cars for alternate side parking would not get charged, but didn’t explain how the technology would distinguish between the two.
An Unequal Toll?
“People who can afford to pay that kind of money, it’s not going to affect them one way or another. It’s the people who are living paycheck to paycheck, the working-income people, people who are working construction, where it would be very difficult for them to lug their tools on the train,” said Millman.
Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Westchester County, agreed. “It’s not going to keep the black cars or the Mercedes Benzes out of Midtown; it will keep the Chevrolets out of Midtown. It’s a form of gentrification onto the streets,” he told the Eagle.
He introduced an amendment to the state’s environmental conservation law that would effectively rule out congestion pricing by only granting the city authority to apply “tolls, taxes, fees, licenses or permits” imposed prior to June 13, 2007.
Bloomberg argued that congestion pricing would actually make the tolling system more equal, not less, by subtracting bridge and tunnel tolls from the $8 fee.
“Many people are already paying to drive into Manhattan — there are tolls on most bridges and the four tunnels,” he said. “But to avoid these tolls, many people drive through neighborhood streets. That not only clogs the streets, it increases air pollution and asthma rates.
“And why should commuters from the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn — and from the northern, eastern and western suburbs — all pay different tolls? By charging a flat fee, we can eliminate these disparities because tolls would be deductible,” he said.
Anthony Ceretti, a resident of Dyker Heights who works in Midtown, said he supports congestion pricing because it would reduce traffic and pollution. “If you take any of the bridges or tunnels, regarding commuting, personally I always wind up paying the tolls, so if it’s going to be a wash anyway, I don’t see the problem.”
Ceretti commutes from Dyker Heights to 51st Street and Park Avenue every day. “I take the train. I used to take the express bus, but it didn’t work out time-wise because of the congestion.”
Pilot Project Must Get
Others On Board
Bloomberg said congestion pricing would be getting its first test drive by 2009, “and we are very optimistic that, in working with state officials, we will secure hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for it.”
“You have to remember, the people in the Assembly are not all from New York City,” said Millman. “I have some colleagues who have never been to New York City. It’s like another part of the world for a lot of people.”
Bloomberg said the improvements in mass transit, such as bus rapid transit lanes, increased train service and new ferry service, could be funded by the projected $400 million net revenue the tolls would generate.
The report also mentioned that the mayor’s office would explore options like residential permit parking for neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights that could otherwise become parking lots for commuters skirting the toll into Midtown.
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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