March 29–April 4, 2019 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 AWP 11
Congestion pricing gains support
State poised to pass scheme, which would barely affect Brooklynites, analysts say
By Julianne McShane
Brooklyn Paper
The state Legislature is
prepared to approve congestion
pricing as part of the governor’s
executive budget —
a measure that would only
affect between one and two
percent of Kings Countians
who drive into the distant isle
of Manhattan, according to
analysts.
Assembly Speaker Carl
Heastie announced on Monday
that the lower chamber
was “ready to go forward”
with approving the measure,
weeks after the state Senate
passed a budget resolution
supporting it , according to
the New York Times .
Both chambers would have
to approve the measure before
the state’s April 1 budget
deadline, and the Assembly
plans to have a bill ready
to vote on by Thursday, according
to Streetsblog , after
this paper went to press. The
move would make the Big Apple
the first city in the nation
to implement congestion pricing,
which would charge a yetto
be-determined fee to drivers
entering Manhattan below
60th Street at peak times.
Proponents of the decadesold
idea say it would both reduce
the amount of cars on the
road and provide about $15
billion annually to the Metropolitan
Transit Authority
to fund improvements to
the city’s beleaguered subway
system, according to a
rep for the independent Regional
Plan Association, who
on last week’s episode of the
Brooklyn Paper Radio Show
said the pricing scheme would
impact only 1.3 percent of
Kings Countians.
Data compiled by procongestion
pricing organization
Tri-State Transportation
Campaign predicted
a slightly higher impact on
the Borough of Churches, estimating
that 2.4 percent of its
commuters would regularly
pay the charge, and adding
that more than 60 percent of
its residents take public transit
and would benefit from
transit improvements.
Other cities, including London
and Stockholm, already
use the tolling scheme, and
have seen environmentallybeneficial
results, said procongestion
pricing campaign
Fix Our Transit.
In London, the measure
has reduced traffic by 15
percent and reduced greenhouse
Congestion tolls are
the price of progress
We believe it’s plan worth getting behind
— as long as pols keep their promises
While the chips have yet to
fall on congestion pricing,
April 1 is the deadline for
the Legislature to approve a budget
including the proposal, which has
been heralded as the best option
for providing the state-run Metropolitan
Transportation Authority
with the estimated $40 billion
it needs to dramatically modernize
the subway system.
Not only does the antiquated
transit system need extensive,
system-wide overhauls, but the
agency is facing a steep decline
in ridership as a $1-billion deficit
looms in 2022. As legislators decide
whether or not to vote to include
congestion pricing in Gov.
Cuomo’s 2020 executive budget
before it is due next month, here
are some things you should know
about the scheme:
• The cost to drivers has not
been decided upon by lawmakers
or the Transportation Authority.
An early proposal by Cuomo’s
so-called Fix NYC panel
released in January 2018 suggested
charging passenger cars
entering Manhattan up to $11 during
business hours. Trucks would
have to pay about $25 to conduct
business between boroughs, according
to that proposal
• The governor’s office has outlined
a central business district in
Manhattan below 60th Street as
the boundary for where drivers
to expect to pay to access. Traditionally
free East River bridges
would not be directly tolled, according
to early projections, unless
drivers follow routes continuing
into the central business
district. But a clear definition
of where gantries for cashless
tolling would be placed has not
been established.
• Congestion pricing has been
projected to provide about $15
billion for the Transportation Authority’s
next capital plan, which
encompasses 2020 through 2024.
Those funds could go a long way
toward making the subways more
compliant with federal accessibility
gas emissions by 20 percent,
and in Stockholm, congestion
pricing has cut in half
the number of children who
sought treatment for asthma
at local hospitals, according
to Fix Our Transit .
But those who oppose the
measure — including Kings
County’s own Assemblywoman
Rodneyse Bichotte
(D–Flatbush) — charge that
the pricing amounts to an unfair
burden on the poor.
Assemblywoman Mathylde
Frontus (D–Coney Island)
agreed with Bichotte’s concerns
about the plan, and characterized
herself as a “reluctant
supporter” of the pricing
in order to help fund improvements
to the subway system,
which she said her Coney Island
constituents — whom she
characterized as “the working
laws in the coming years,
for one. And much of the cash
would likely go toward funding
the $40-billion so-called 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
poor” — rely on.
“I know firsthand that just
because people are blessed
with a car and that they have
to go into the city, it doesn’t
mean that they’re well off. I
know people who are living
check-to-check and have a car
because they have to have it,”
Frontus told this newspaper.
“But I’m looking at the writing
on the wall and saying,
‘you know what, I don’t want
subway fares to go up instead.’
”
Data compiled by the Tri-
State Transportation Campaign
showed that only 3.1
percent of commuters in
Frontus’s transit-starved district
— which also includes
Sea Gate and parts of Bath
Beach, Bay Ridge, Brighton
Beach, Dyker Heights, and
Gravesend — would pay a
AP Photo
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.
congestion charge, and that
more than 56 percent of the
district’s residents take public
transit.
And the organization predicts
3.6 percent of commuters
in state. Sen. Andrew
Gounardes’s (D–Bay Ridge)
neighboring and similarly transit
starved district — which
also includes Dyker Heights,
Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Gravesend,
Gerritsen Beach, Manhattan
Beach — would pay the
congestion fee.
But Gounardes cheered
the proposed plan, calling it
a “necessary step” to funding
subway upgrades and an
“environmentally friendly
thing to do.” The freshman
pol said that he would push the
MTA to use the extra funds
raised by the fee to implement
more and faster signal
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 De-
Blasio in February after his administration
opposed it for more
than a year, when it instead advocated
for a so-called 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 financing, cut down on
bureaucracy, and have a board
made up of members appointed
by an elected official, whose tenure
Bay Ridge state Sen. Andrew Gounardes said congestion
pricing is a “necessary step” to funding
subway improvements.
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 congestionpricing
funds would ensure that
100 percent of the revenue collected
would only be used for
Transportation Authority capital
projects.
• Congestion pricing was
first 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 traffic pollution to other
communities, and that legislators
should take caution.
For more than a decade
now, the movement to institute
congestion pricing
in New York City has been
proposed, debated, and ultimately
killed over and over
again. But this time, it appears
that the controversial proposal
is finally going to become
a reality.
As this newspaper went
to press this week, it was
reported that Democrats in
the Legislature appeared
to have enough votes in favor
of congestion pricing
to include it in the budget
that’s still being hammered
out. Lawmakers have until
April 1 to get a budget
deal done.
What this means is that
very soon, anyone crossing an
East River bridge into Manhattan,
or traveling south of
60th Street in Manhattan, will
be charged a toll. The revenue
generated from this plan will
be used to fund much-needed
public transit improvements,
even though it’s hoped that
congestion pricing will encourage
more people to leave
their cars at home when traveling
to Manhattan, thereby
reducing traffic volume.
The plan would only affect
between one and two
percent of Kings Countians
who drive into the distant isle
of Manhattan, according to
analysts.
Proponents of the decadesold
idea say it would both reduce
the amount of cars on
the road and provide about
$15 billion annually to the
Metropolitan Transportation
Authority to fund improvements
to the city’s beleaguered
subway system,
according to a rep for the independent
Regional Plan Association,
who on last week’s
episode of Brooklyn Paper
Radio said the pricing scheme
would impact only 1.3 percent
of Brooklynites.
Data compiled by pro-congestion
pricing group Tri-
State Transportation Campaign
predicted a slightly
higher impact on the Borough
of Churches, estimating
that 2.4 percent of local
commuters would regularly
pay the charge. But more than
60 percent of Brooklynites
take public transit, and would
benefit from improvements
to that system, according to
the organization.
Opponents of the plan
say it’s just another undue
expense that would drain
more money out of middleclass
pockets. A few critics
also argue that imposing the
tolls would turn bridge-adjacent
neighborhoods like
Brooklyn Heights, Williamsburg,
and Downtown into
parking lots for commuters
who would ditch their cars
there, and then hop on subways
to avoid paying the fee.
And, of course, skepticism
abounds over whether the
state will allow these funds
to truly be used for publictransit
projects, or whether
this becomes just another
revenue stream from which
to pilfer.
But the woeful state of the
city’s public transit system,
combined with the stark increase
in traffic volume in recent
years, have made congestion
pricing a necessary evil
in the eyes of many. Still, it
needs to come with changes
for the Transportation Authority
and for Brooklyn commuters
alike.
Prior to the tolls being implemented,
city officials must
look to expand the NYC Ferry
Service to even more coastal
neighborhoods, such as Canarsie,
where residents for
What you need to know about congestion pricing
Photo by Trey Pentecost
upgrades, trains, and accessibility
measures at southern
Brooklyn subway stations —
since the MTA’s current plan
to upgrade signals along the
R line do not include the stations
south of DeKalb Avenue
— and added that the move
would also push the transit authority
to invest some of the
money back into the city’s beleaguered
bus system.
“I think on the whole this
will be a net improvement for
our district — we should see
improvements to our subway
system, our bus system, repairs
and maintenance to our
express buses,” Gounardes
told this paper.
EDITORIAL
File photo
With congestion pricing seemingly on its way, there must be some assurances that the revnue created from the plan will help improve
the state of transit in Brooklyn and beyond.
years have said a boat would
provide a needed alternative
for commuting in Brooklyn
and beyond. The recently announced
stop in Coney Island
is simply not enough.
And the state-run Transportation
Authority must do
more to trim the fat from its
corporate budget. The overhead
in the agency is staggering;
more than a quarter of
all employees earns in excess
of $100,000 a year, at a time
that the authority faces an unprecedented
deficit. Leadership
must be held accountable
to cut costs as the public
is asked to pay more for improvements.
For this plan to be truly
palatable to all Brooklyn residents,
the city and state must
follow through with its promise
to use that revenue solely
on public-transportation 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 finally
provide all New Yorkers with
a modern, efficient public
transportation system.
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.
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