I think one of the things that could be done is to increase accessibility in the subway stations. Far too few stations have escalators or elevators. If I knew that I didn’t have to climb stairs out of a subway station, I’d be much more likely to use mass transit.

Eric-

you may be right, but it’s more likely that Alison is unable to easily climb stairs for physical reasons. Not everyone is a fit 20 year old. New York is an old city so there are many obstacles to those who have difficulty easily climbing stairs. Have a heart.

I am a spry young lad and prefer to walk up and down stairs, but the MTA should definitely strive to make subway 100% accessible. Not only would it benefit the aged and disabled, but if you’ve ever had to go to the airport with luggage, or have taken your bike on the subway, or carried bulky items home from the store……

Hey, you folks in Manhattan have it easy, unlike the rest of the country. You have a mass transit system. All thats left to be done is make all the bridges and tunnels one way off the island (well, a few lanes inbound for trucks and buses), and the problem will solve itself in a very short time.

To me there seem to be a few easy fixes to reduce congestion in Manhattan:
– toll every entry into Manhattan
– implement permit parking so free curbside parking is no longer available to non-residents who drive in (like every other east coast city)
– drastically reduce the free permits to city workers; why do they need these anyway?

All of this is a lot easier than congestion pricing and can be done with EZ Pass technology or the system in place to grant garage tax reduction notices.

Dave,

Those are three sensible and straightforward ideas. Congestion-relief sounds so easy when you put it like that!

However, I’m guessing that you have never run any of these policy proposals by an Outer Borough New York City Councilmember. Don’t forget, this is the City Council that prided itself on overturning Bloomberg’s enstatement of Sunday parking meters. They called it “Pay to Pray.” The Pay to Pray fight was the most substantial discussion of transportation policy that took place during the 2005 mayoral election. That’s what we’re dealing with in this town…

Any policy that a few perceive to hurt them significantly, while many perceive to benefit them just a little, will have trouble because those who perceive it to hurt them will be a vocal minority in opposition and those who it benefits will not vocally push for it because it doesn’t benefit them substantially. This is called having “diffuse benefits” and “concentrated costs”. It’s a public policy conundrum.

But Dave: explain the difference between congestion pricing and “toll[ing] every entry into Manhattan”? Do you just mean that the latter would not fluctuate by time of day? Tolling every entry into Manhattan has been referred to as congestion pricing by many who have studied it in NYC, such as RPA.

I see where Ananda & Glenn are coming from. But I do think that congestion pricing would be such a huge plus for both drivers and non-drivers, that there must be a politically viable way to explain it to voters. Though it’s certainly isn’t going to happen if the city gives up without even trying to explain why it would work.

There are 2 interesting studies (aimed at East River bridge tolls, not congestion pricing, but I think the two are similar enough to be relevant) here: http://bridgetolls.org/research/ These take a look at A) who would pay and B) how much time would be saved by drivers overall. A) found that 98% of all New Yorkers would pay less than $50 a year on East River Tolls — so I’m still not sure why this 2% who would have a large increase in costs are such a huge worry to politicians. Even less so, because many of these are people who would benefit by spending less time to get where they are going — possibly saving them more in time savings than they are spending in cash.

It’s remarkable to note that Mayor Livingstone of London actually ran on the promise of instituting congestion charging — and won!