Manhattan BP Stringer Calls on NYC to Seek Federal Funds

$15 Million in Grants Are Available for the Study of Congestion Pricing

stringer.jpgIt’s rare that you see someone on the inside of New York City’s political power structure doing anything that looks even remotely like picking a public fight with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. That is why this press release from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer caught my eye. Stringer, who hosted an important conference on New York City transportation policy at Columbia University in October, has been making great use of his bully pulpit as a catalyst for transportation policy reform. While he doesn’t criticize Bloomberg by name, his statement reads as a pretty direct rebuke of the Mayor’s apparent brush off of Growth or Gridlock, the Partnership for New York City’s recently released study finding that traffic congestion costs New York City at least $13 billion a year.

From the Borough President’s press release:

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer today said that New York City should seek federal funding from the US Department of Transportation (DOT) to explore a local value pricing pilot program in order to ease the congestion on New York City’s streets.

DOT has $15 million in grants available for local value pricing pilot programs. Stringer said that given real-world successes with the policy elsewhere, New York City had an obligation to seek these funds and to determine whether value pricing would be a feasible and equitable solution for New York City’s transportation woes. 

"Clearly the time has come for our City to seek out and explore bold solutions to our transportation crisis," Borough President Stringer said. "Value pricing has reduced congestion in major cities around the world and it would be wrong to brush it off without even exploring its feasibility here in New York City. It may not be the answer to our traffic problems but unless we study the impacts, we will never know."

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Scott Stringer Asks: What Are Your Budget Priorities?

|
If you had to choose where the city should cut funding, which mode of transportation would you target? Personal automobiles, cabs, Access-A-Ride? How about buses, subways, bikes, and pedestrian safety enhancements? This somewhat loaded prompt is one of several transportation-related questions posed by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in an online survey on the next […]

Bush Administration Advocates for Congestion Pricing

|
Here’s some more fodder for the debate that was prompted by today’s earlier post about charging more for parking on city streets. This story, too, comes from the Wall Street Journal, and is available online to subscribers only. But you might want to run out and buy today’s paper to read the whole thing, because […]

Moynihan Station Is the First Big TIGER Stimulus Winner

|
New York City’s Moynihan Station project has snagged $83 million in grant money from the stimulus law’s Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced today. A rendering of the proposed Moynihan Station. (Photo: The Real Deal) The grant makes the intended successor to the current Penn Station, a longstanding priority […]

Stringer, Squadron, and Silver Call for Safer Chinatown Streets

|
Will Silver follow through in Albany to make streets safer for his Chinatown constituents? In response to the crash that killed two young children on a Chinatown sidewalk yesterday, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and State Senator Daniel Squadron have released a nine-point plan to improve safety on the neighborhood’s streets. From Stringer’s press release: […]

Making Hell’s Kitchen Less Hellish

|
StreetFilms Ninth Avenue Renaissance Town Hall Meeting Running time: 3:35 Monday night was the first meeting of the Ninth Avenue Renaissance project. About 130 neighborhood stakeholders filled the gym at the Holy Cross School in Midtown to begin a process to transform Ninth Avenue from a dysfunctional, traffic-choked, polluted highway into, what organizer Christine Berthet […]