Congestion Pricing

Below is a letter from Lower Manhattan State Assembly Member Deborah Glick responding to a constituent who urged her to support Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. If you have written a letter to one of your local elected officials and received a response, send it in. 

City Council Member David Yassky has come out in favor of congestion pricing, with the caveat that "many features of the Mayor's proposal will need to be reworked." Yassky's Brooklyn district, it's worth noting, encompasses three East River bridges, the Battery Tunnel and a seemingly endless number of of honking, spewing, frustrated motorists. Until last week, Yassky had been a long-time fence-sitter on the congestion pricing issue. Why did he finally commit? Last week Mayor Bloomberg announced that New York City's taxi fleet would be converted to all-hybrid vehicles by 2012. The Mayor was notably generous in crediting Yassky (twice, on national television, in the presence of Al Roker, no less) for conceiving of and fighting for the hybrid taxi initiative in City Council. Here's what Yassky wrote in an e-mail announcement to constituents:

The 86th Street border of Mayor Bloomberg's proposed congestion pricing zone is emerging as the northern front of an increasingly intense political battle. Last week, Upper East Side City Council Member Jessica Lappin worried that congestion pricing would bring a "crush of cars circling around 86th Street looking for parking spots." Over on the West Side Council Member Gale Brewer and Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal expressed similar concerns.

If you are planning to write a letter urging your local City Council Member to support Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal, the chart below will be useful to you. Based on 2000 census data, it shows the percentage of New York City workers who commute to work by car into Manhattan south of 60th Street (also known as the region's Central Business District or CBD).

Inside City Hall, a daily political show on NY1, filed this report last night on congestion pricing, traffic enforcement, and PlaNYC. Their report highlights the flawed Quinnipiac poll and the mayor responded, "City government is supposed to lead, state government is supposed to lead, federal government is supposed to lead, not do polls and and do just the popular things. They are supposed to do what's right."

Mark Gorton, founder and executive director of the Open Planning Project, the publisher of Streetsblog, has agreed to match up to $250,000 in donations to a Transportation Alternatives campaign promoting Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030. Today's Crain's Insider reports:

The Campaign for New York's Future and The Partnership For New York City both disputed findings from a Quinnipiac University poll of New Yorkers on congestion pricing. Kathryn S. Wylde, President and CEO of The Partnership for New York City released this statement:

Quinnipiac has a new survey out this morning showing that 90 percent of New Yorkers feel that traffic is a "serious problem" but a majority of voters, by a 56 to 37 percent margin, oppose Mayor Bloomberg's plan to charge $8 to drive in to Manhattan south of 86th Street. The poll also shows a significant gap between Manhattan voters, who support the Mayor's plan by a margin of 62 percent, and survey respondents in the other four boroughs. 

By way of comment on Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal and, perhaps, in response to Transportation Alternatives' recent bike vs. subway vs. taxi commuter contest, the author of Queens Crap, a blog focused on local development issues, conducted his own rush hour comparison test. Here are his results: