In his Earth Day speech on April 22, Mayor Bloomberg outlined an admirable plan to confront the city’s traffic ills and generate billions of dollars for the region’s public transit system. The most controversial element of PlaNYC was predictably, congestion pricing. The mayor proposed to charge drivers $8 per day and trucks $21 per day to enter Manhattan below 86th Street. Vehicles would not be charged if they only use the FDR Drive or the West Side Highway. The charge would be reduced to offset tolls paid on existing tunnels and bridges. Vehicles that stay within the charging zone would pay reduced fees.

The mayor’s plan has been praised by organizations ranging from the Partnership for New

York City to the Straphangers Campaign and American Lung Association, and assailed by others, including prominent elected officials from Queens and Brooklyn. As this debate continues, we suggest keeping close at hand a few facts and how they relate to the mayor’s proposals.

The large majority of New Yorkers would directly benefit from transit improvements while only a small number would be affected by the congestion charge:

• 53% of New York City’s employed residents take public transportation to work and would benefit from citywide transit improvements.
• 5% commute to work in the Manhattan Central Business District (CBD – 60 th Street to the Battery) and would be affected by the congestion charge.

Approximately one-half of the congestion fees would be paid by suburban commuters:

• 47% of auto commuters to the CBD live in the suburbs while 53% live in the five boroughs. PlaNYC envisions regional transit improvements including LIRR access to Grand Central Terminal, Metro-North access to Penn Station and a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

The plan generates enormous funds for public transportation improvements that benefit both city and suburban commuters:

• A new “SMART” fund would finance $30.9 billion in regional transit improvements. The fund would be underwritten by congestion fees and city and state contributions. Projects that would be financed through this new fund include the commuter rail projects listed above, completion of the Second Avenue subway, development of bus rapid transit throughout the city, and maintaining the transit system in a state of good repair.

Public transportation is a viable alternative for most auto commuters, particularly with the transit improvements that are a part of PlaNYC:

• 61% of city residents who commute by auto live within two-thirds mile of a subway or commuter rail station.
• In the region as a whole, 80% of auto commuters have a transit alternative that would take no more than 15 minutes longer than their auto trip.
• PlaNYC commits the City to improving and expanding bus service citywide through exclusive bus lanes, traffic signal priority, bus lanes on East River bridges, and a new set of transportation studies to revamp and improve people movement on major corridors throughout the five boroughs.

So what does congestion pricing mean for New York? It means that a relatively small number of people who choose to drive into Manhattan below 86th Street would pay a fee for adding to congestion in the busiest part of the city. For both drivers and everyone else, it would mean less traffic and better public transportation options. The debate over whether this is a desirable and fair tradeoff is one that everyone should welcome.

Sources:

City of New York, PlaNYC, http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/plan/download.shtml.

Schaller Consulting, CITYinFLUX: Understanding and Untangling Traffic and Transportation in New York City, April 2007, http://www.schallerconsult.com/pub.

Bruce Schaller is Principal at Schaller Consulting and a Visiting Scholar/Practitioner at the NYU Wagner Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management.

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