New York City's political elite have thumbed their noses at common sense, rejecting a plan to impose an $8 traffic fee on cars and trucks entering the Manhattan core during peak hours. I could understand if NYC was a guinea pig for downtown traffic levies. But that's not at all the case. In fact...
According to a New Scientist story from this past November:
NINE months after London started to charge motorists for driving in the city centre, the leaders of the world's cities are falling over themselves to see if they can repeat London's trick of cutting traffic jams. "We have been inundated with requests to talk to people. It's just been incredible," says Michelle Dix, who is the joint head of congestion charging at Transport for London (TfL).
Even London wasn't the first to try reducing pollution and congestion by charging for the right to make things worse. Singapore got that honor, back in 1975. And by all accounts, the London "experiment" is a rousing success:
There are now 50,000 fewer cars entering central London every day, a drop in traffic of 16 per cent. Because traffic is moving more freely, car journeys in the zone are now 14 per cent quicker than they were before the charge. Buses too are now more reliable. The extra time that people have to wait at bus stops, because their bus is caught in a jam, has dropped by 60 per cent.
Most of the people who no longer drive into central London now take public transport, some are cycling and a few - about 4000 a day, according to TfL - just don't make the journey any more. Many of the problems that were predicted, such as traffic chaos on the boundary of the charge zone as people tried to avoid paying, have not materialised.
Plus, the levy means London is raking in millions of euros to spend on mass transit upgrades. So why did NYC not show the political courage to follow suit? Today's New York Times reports that, despite support from civic, labor and environmental groups, Mayor Bloomberg's proposal was
strongly opposed by a broad array of politicians from Queens, Brooklyn and New York's suburbs, who viewed the proposed congestion fee as a regressive measure that overwhelmingly benefited affluent Manhattanites.
Well, yes, it would benefit those who are living and working close enough together to eliminate the need to own a car. And yes, the rich will always be able to afford to pay whatever it costs to get around. But there is simply no one way we're going to start bringing down greenhouse-gas emissions associated with the personal automobile until we start making it more expensive to drive about. Period.
Sooner or later, every major city will have downtown traffic toll. We all know that. It was the same with smoking bans. It didn't matter how many other cities and larger jurisdictions had demonstrated that the bans don't kill the bar and restaurant trade -- quite the opposite is the most common effect -- each time the proposal came up, the same tired, discredited arguments were made. It took a few years, but there now appears to be enough inertia in the movement that the ban on smoking in all public places is within reach. And thus it will be with traffic.
All it takes is for those in charge to show that have the guts to get ahead of the curve, instead of dragging their knuckles behind it.
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It wasn't so much NYC's political elite that screwed up. The fee was dependent on state approval, which was blocked almost single-handedly by Sheldon Silver, the state assembly majority leader. Silver represents a district in lower Manhattan.
To be fair, actually, it wasn't New York City that blew it. The mayor and city council both supported it - the council approved the plan.
But due to the warped nature of politics in NY, the mayor and council have relatively little power. Most of what they can do is give an essentially symbolic approval to something, which amounts to a request to the state to approve it.
So the city did approve it; but the city doesn't have the authority to make decisions like that. So all their approval did was send a request to the state saying "We would very much like to do this, please give us permission". And the state assembly said no.
Speaking as someone who works in the city, I'm pissed. I work in a district that would have been covered by peak pricing. And every day, I deal with the pollution spewed into the air by the ridiculous number of cars that drive in - and then sit idle with their engines running in the inevitable traffic jaws. Meanwhile, I'm stuck on insanely overcrowded subways, because there's really only one subway line on the east side.
The peak pricing would have cut the number of cars - cutting the pollution and traffic jams; and it would have provided the money for the long-discussed new east-side subway line.
I wish I had something more enlightening to say, but all I can say is -- sounds like it would have been a good idea. Too bad NYC will be missing out.
Also -- nitpick: The UK (still) uses pounds, not euros, last I checked.
It wasn't NYC politicians that blew it. The NYC city council passed congestion pricing. It was the greedheads in Albany that blew it, turning their back not only on common sense but also millions in federal money. I'm donating to Silver's opponent in the next election and I don't care who it is. Secession (from the state, not the country) is looking like a better and better idea. NY state uses NYC as a cash cow and never gives anything back. Time to dump them.
As others have pointed out, it actually wasn't New York City that blew it. It was New York State.
All major city-wide NYC leaders supported the plan, including the Mayor, the City Council Speaker, and the City Council.
Even at the State level it was supported by the Governor and Senate Majority Leader. Only one man blew it: State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
This is a critical distinction; City leaders should be supported, while there must be consequences for Silver.
As a Brit, it's amazing how ignorant people are here about congestion charging, loads banging on about stealth taxes and the like. The fact is, it's cut traffic, reduced air pollution, and put a shit load of extra mass transit vehicles online.
I don't think Americans realize how close New York is to losing its place as the "Capital of the World". Cities like London, Shanghai, Mumbai are rapidly catching up. As you Americans like to say, "get with the program!"
Martin -
It's not ignorance, it's selfishness. I know a lot of people who claim to want alternative energy and encourage public trans, who see nothing counterintuitive about also driving fracking everywhere. They want to see these things but they don't want it to hurt them. Thus they bemoan high fuel prices and refuse to actually use the public trans they claim to support.
I find it very ironic that the excuse they use, is it takes too long. What they fail to realize, is that the more people using it (and the less individual vehicles on the road) the faster it becomes. Less waiting when the bus has to run every five to ten minutes. Faster going when the bus isn't competing with as many cars. And if you live in a city with light rail (thank gods I do), it is easier and faster than driving to get across town.
I'm a handyman/remodeler and a regular user of public trans. If I don't need to haul materials, I leave my station wagon at home. I absolutely adore sitting back with my paper or computer, occasionally glancing out the window and observing the freeway gridlock that I'm whipping past.
There are a lot of Portlanders, who would love to see cars eliminated from downtown altogether. But most of us would settle for a tax like this one. I listened to a speaker who actually suggested monthly passes for the privilege of driving downtown. I for one, am all for it. Especially as there are a lot of non-natives who didn't actually pay attention to Oregon driving laws and the rights of peds. Bad enough they can drive in the rest of the damn city. Downtown should at least be a safe place for peds.
Yes, I know that technically it was the state politicians who killed the plan, but clearly they were responding to elements from within the city. So let's not get distracted by which New York City power-brokers are living in the Dark Ages. The problem is there are far too many of them.