the price of progress
to know about congestion pricing
COURIER LIFE, MARCH 2 M BR B G 9–APRIL 4, 2019 29
state must follow through with its promise
to use that revenue solely on publictransportation
improvements — and
those improvements must begin almost
immediately.
The funds that would come from congestion
pricing could be used to implement
more and faster signal upgrades,
trains, and accessibility measures at
Southern Brooklyn subway stations —
such as those many R line hubs south of
DeKalb Avenue station that are not set to
receive repairs under the Transportation
Authority’s current plan to upgrade signals
along that line.
The revenue must also be used to improve
the borough’s beleaguered bus system
— some routes of which have been
unchanged for decades — especially in
subway-starved neighborhoods such as
Brownsville, Canarise, Bergen Beach,
East New York, Marine Park, and Mill
Basin, where commuters need viable alternative
transportation options before
they can ditch their cars.
Additionally, the Transportation Authority
must, within the next year, take
down the toll gantries at the Cross Bay
Bridge, and the Marine Parkway Bridge
between Brooklyn and Queens. If we are
to pay more to travel into Manhattan,
then we ought to have no cost to travel
within Kings and Queens counties.
These are steps that should be taken
right off the bat, but the congestion-pricing
plan must also serve to provide a
down payment for the future of public
transportation.
If congestion pricing is going to work
for New York City, then the city and state
must keep their promise, and it must be
an unshakable, unconditional pact: For
this “tax” on drivers, the city must fi nally
provide all New Yorkers with a modern,
effi cient public transportation system.
EDITORIAL
With congestion
pricing seemingly on
its way, there must be
some assurances that
the revenue created
from the plan will help
improve the state of
transit in Brooklyn and
beyond.
Here’s what you need to know about congestion pricing, as the April 1 deadline for the state
Legislature to include the proposal — which has been heralded as the best option for providing
the Metropolitan Transportation Authority with the estimated $40 billion it needs to dramatically
modernize the subway — approaches.
making the subways more compliant
with federal accessibility laws
in the coming years, for one. And
much of the cash would likely go
toward funding the $40-billion socalled
Fast Forward plan to modernize
the system that Andy Byford, the
head of the state-run agency’s local
arm, New York City Transit, introduced
last year.
• Assembly Majority Leader
Carl Heastie (D–Bronx) announced
on March 25 that congestion pricing
had enough votes to pass and
get inclusion in the 2020 executive
budget, but some lawmakers are
still holding onto their opposition
to the toll, which they claim will
only isolate the outer boroughs
from Manhattan, while placing an
undue financial burden on some
Brooklyn constituents. Assemblywoman
Rodneyse Bichotte (D–Flatbush),
for instance, opposes the
plan, which she reportedly claimed
would tax some of the borough’s already
vulnerable residents.
• The plan would only affect between
one and two percent of Kings
Countians who drive into the distant
isle of Manhattan, according
to analysts. Leaders of the independent
Regional Plan Association,
which advocates in favor of the tolls,
claim they will only impact some 1.3
percent of Brooklynites, while data
culled by another group supporting
the plan, the Tri-State Transportation
Campaign, estimates that number
could be as high as 2.4 percent.
• Congestion pricing is part of a
$175-billion budget that Cuomo proposed
in January, and the plan received
support from Mayor DeBlasio
in February after his administration
opposed it for more than a year,
when it instead advocated for a socalled
millionaire’s tax to fund the
transit system — which Cuomo and
then Transit Authority Chairman
Joe Lhota shot down, claiming it
lacked immediacy.
• Establishing a dedicated revenue
source for the Transit Authority,
which moves more than 8-million
people per day across all the
services it provides, is not the only
reform Cuomo has ordered to be
made to the agency. It will also undergo
a restructuring to improve accountability
in fi nancing, cut down
on bureaucracy, and have a board
made up of members appointed by an
elected offi cial, whose tenure would
expire with that of the politicians
themselves. The restructuring will
include a variable pricing structure
for the tolls into Manhattan and establish
a so-called lockbox for those
funds to go into.
• Budget amendments would determine
the pricing structure,
“which would take into account the
type of vehicle, the time and day of
the week, credit for any tolls paid at
other bridges and tunnels, as well as
other key factors.”
• The lockbox for congestion-pricing
funds would ensure that 100 percent
of the revenue collected would
only be used for Transportation Authority
capital projects.
• Congestion pricing was fi rst proposed
by former Mayor Bloomberg,
but it proved unpopular at the state
level and was killed before it could
even make it to a vote in the Assembly
in 2008.
• The environmental impacts of
congestion pricing can dramatically
improve the overall health of communities
in central zones where it is
implemented, according to a Johns
Hopkins study performed in Sweden
, which showed asthma attacks
in children decreased by up to 50
percent after Stockholm enacted its
own congestion-pricing scheme. The
Los Angeles–based organization
Transform, however, warns that
congestion pricing can also pass
on the burden of traffi c pollution to
other communities, and that legislators
should take caution.