Suppose you were asked to choose which of two local laws will be more consequential for New York’s environment: (1) The "City of Yes" housing package aimed at boosting density and reducing sprawl while also improving affordability so that people stay in a city where household carbon footprints are lower; or (2) A bill requiring 40 percent of parking garage and lot spaces to have EV charging by 2035.
And whom would you deem the greater environmental champion: (1) Someone who helped push New York’s congestion pricing program across the finish line; or (2) Someone who supported a Council bill requiring the addition of planters or stormwater infrastructure to half-a-mile of paved medians each year from now to 2046. Yes, half a mile per year.
If you chose #2 on both, you’re probably OK that the New York League of Conservation Voters, the statewide outfit that has been endorsing candidates for half-a-century, last week endorsed Council Member Christopher Marte (D-Lower Manhattan) for re-election.
The rest of us are simply stunned that a celebrated environmental outfit could endorse someone who voted against the City of Yes — indeed, Marte was the only Manhattan council member to oppose it. And you’re likely wondering why the League didn’t ding Marte for saying he was an advocate of congestion pricing, yet conditioning his support on exemptions for residents of his district — a wink-wink stance that diluted and undermined public support for the tolls.
Either stance is disturbing. The combination should have been disqualifying.
How did this happen?
Like most advocacy groups, the League issues scorecards for how elected officials vote on key bills. But the League’s 2024 scorecard gives equal weight to each of 12 bills. As a result, Marte’s “No” vote on the generational City of Yes housing package registered as just a glancing blow rather than a knockout punch. Congestion pricing, meanwhile, wasn’t scored at all, since the authorizing legislation came from Albany, not City Hall.
Both City of Yes and congestion pricing will generate huge environmental dividends. And inevitably, they’ll be canonized as Gotham saviors (congestion pricing already has been). Even if the double-digit drop in vehicles entering the Manhattan congestion zone tails off due to the rebound effect, it’s still bringing about the first-ever durable drop in hellish Manhattan traffic. Plus, the reductions will grow again with the planned increase in the $9 peak toll to $12 in 2028 and $15 in 2031.
'City of Yes'
I do credit the League for seeing the environmental benefits of urban housing abundance. And City of Yes, vast in its sweep, includes legalizing building apartments around low-density transit stations, letting one- and two-family homeowners add Accessory Dwelling Units like garage conversions and backyard cottages, and slashing parking mandates that render new housing costlier and scarcer. The package represents by far the biggest housing reform since the restrictive 1961 zoning code that caused home-building in all five boroughs to plummet, which has jackknifed rents, worsened homelessness and abetted family flight.
Every household retained in New York and other urban centers means less driving, fewer McMansions and a greater foothold for cycling and transit. More and more New Yorkers and progressives nationwide understand that urban housing and affordability are essential to stemming population flight that has markedly reddened the national electoral and congressional maps.
That didn’t register with Marte. His "No" vote aligned him with the likes of arch-conservative Council members Vickie Paladino (R-Queens), Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn) and all three Staten Islanders — defenders of a suburban past that is destructive to our future. But Marte's vote was not a one-off; it was in keeping with his opposition to virtually every contested housing development proposal in his district.
So it’s for that reason that the League’s scorecard should have weighted candidates’ City of Yes votes far above the 11 other items. I’d argue that the City of Yes vote should have accounted for as many points as the other 11 combined. On that alone, Marte would have flunked.
City of Yes passed the council by an unusually tight 31-20 margin, and was watered down to appease opponents like Marte. That’s another red X next to Marte’s name.
Marte and Congestion Pricing
For roughly a century, three bridges and two tunnels have poured car and truck traffic directly into Marte’s council district, which includes the Financial District, Chinatown, Tribeca, Battery Park City, Little Italy and a slice of the Lower East Side. Thanks to congestion pricing, these volumes have shrunk markedly. By any reasonable calculus, the enhanced safety, quiet and travel-efficiency being enjoyed by everyone in Council District 1 far outweigh the pocketbook hit to the relatively few residents who frequently drive from the zone and are subject to the $9 toll when they return.
The drop in traffic and its benefits were eminently predictable, both through modeling and on first principles: make it more expensive to drive to or through a place, and traffic will diminish. Marte didn’t have to wait till this Jan. 5 to know that.
As a neighbor and constituent, I repeatedly encountered Marte’s toll naysaying. I tried to impress on him that the terms of his support — carve-outs for residents — would shackle congestion pricing and were abetting objectors around the city and region. After all, if the district with the most to gain wasn’t solidly for it, why should areas that stood to gain less lend their support?
The Challenger
Marte’s prime challenger, Jess Coleman, is endorsed by the advocacy group Abundant NY, which is the independent expenditure committee for Open New York.
But this post isn’t about Coleman or Marte as much as it’s about the NY League of Conservation Voters’ endorsement process. Something is badly amiss when an environmental seal of approval goes not to a candidate campaigning for more homes and fewer cars (Coleman) but to an incumbent who may say he stands for housing and safe streets but legislates against them.
In an interview, NYLCV President Julie Tighe said that she wasn’t sure if the endorsement panel grilled Marte about congestion pricing at his interview. She added that congestion pricing was legislatively a state matter, but agreed that local officials’ support or opposition affected the politics around implementation.
She said that NYLCV’s endorsements do have a “slight incumbent bias” so as to reward office-holders “who have sided with us” and to better “cultivate relationship” with officials. She said that although Marte's score dipped from 100 percent in 2022 to 88 for 2023, he has been a standout on parks issues that are important to the League.
Editor's note: This is an opinion piece and is labeled as such on the top and the bottom. Streetsblog invites those with other opinions to submit them either via email to gersh@streetsblog.org or through the comments section below.
