Not wanting to devalue their on-street parking permits, but not wanting to be accused of doing nothing, it is clear that the State Legislature is looking for a congestion pricing alternative. But the only alternative to rationing street space by price is rationing by queue; congestion will rise to the point where there are no more people who can stand it, and the rest will either use other means to travel or relocate themselves (and their businesses?) elsewhere. Once the state has decided that the only acceptable limit to congestion is congestion itself, and thus the city has no choice but to live with it, however, taking away street space, and taking other measures to reduce traffic flow, will become reasonable. Such measures wouldn’t make congestion worse, because congestion would simply be as bad at it is going to be anyway. The only difference is that the general public would get the benefit of alternative uses of the street. And how about the revenue that congestion pricing would bring? With space that tight, it becomes impossible to avoid committing traffic infractions such as blocking the box, impeding emergency vehicles, and getting stuck in bus lanes. Ruthless enforcement (you decided to drive here and didn’t want to pay? Tough!) could bring in the cash in fines, rather than fees. Indeed according to a Daily News article last week, when it comes to scarce “free” on-street parking spaces in my neighborhood, this is already happening.
Per the News “several Brooklyn precincts, encompassing Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO, reported an increase in summonses, much to the dismay of some motorists…North of Bay Ridge, there was a whopping 25.9% increase in the number of parking tickets given in the 72nd Precinct covering Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace; a 4.3% in the 76th Precinct covering Red Hook, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens; and a 6.6% increase in the 84th Precinct covering Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO.” What is going on? Unfair persecution? “I have noticed that there has been illegal parking in the past that they have concentrated on, but a 25% jump is quite a jump in this community, especially when we have to move cars four times a week for alternate-side parking” according to the district manager of Community Board 7. But according to an NYPD spokesman “there have been no crackdowns or policy changes that may account for the uptick in the number of parking tickets.”
I can tell you what is going on in Windsor Terrace, a traditionally working class Irish neighborhood that more recently has received an influx of younger and, in many cases, more affluent residents. Every time and old lady dies or sells, she is replaced by a young couple with a car. Generally, the new residents take mass transit to work rather than drive, meaning that they need to find a legal parking space for the day, something particularly difficult (and in some cases nearly impossible) during alternative side of the street. In years past, when hard up, I would drive to Flatbush Avenue between Prospect Park and the Botanic Garden and park there, taking the B41 bus up to the 2/3 station at Grand Army Plaza. But now the legal side of this park and ride location (for some reason, the city feels the need to sweep here every day) is often nearly full. So without enough legal places to park, residents are parking where they can and getting tickets.
Can it get worse? As long as parking is “free,” you bet it can. There is one Park Slope block where a daughter’s friend lives that is too narrow to double park and allow a truck or van through. These days you cannot even pull into the hydrant, because there is someone parked there 24/7. The hydrant parkers have “no choice” – once the car is owned and has to be put somewhere, that is. So fine revenues will go higher and higher until enough people cry uncle. It’s not a convenient transit trip from where we are to there, but I’ve already cried uncle – if she wants to visit that friend, she can walk the two miles each way.
The idea that every attempt to alleviate traffic simply attracts more of it, so one might as well do the opposite, might be called the “Transportation Alternatives” alternatives, after the group those at City Planning used to refer to as the “bike crazies.” I didn’t think much of this view in the past, since deliveries must be made and emergency vehicles must get around even if no one drives, and for some trips driving is necessary and reasonable. Moreover, local traffic restrictions seem selfish. They appeal to the local interest – keeping traffic away from MY street even as I drive elsewhere – against the citywide and regional interest – people getting around to all neighborhoods. Well, if and when congestion pricing goes down I might conclude that perhaps the “bike crazies” aren’t so crazy after all, or are no so than the “auto crazies” up in Albany.
So what might a Transportation Alternatives alternative look like? Let’s take some possible examples.
Cut 4th Avenue in Brooklyn from three lanes in each direction to two? Go ahead. Today parking is prohibited in the peak direction on Flatbush Avenue, Atlantic Avenue and Ocean Avenue, at the expense of local residents and businesses, to allow people from further out in Brooklyn to drive to the government offices in Downtown Brooklyn and over the free bridges. Let’s take that street space back for parking. Let the traffic back up until some people decide not to drive. It backs up anyway.
Will that flood Brooklyn Heights with cars coming off the BQE? Why not close the BQE exits at Atlantic Avenue and for the Brooklyn Bridge to prevent back ups? Heights residents could drive to Kent/Wythe or Hamilton Avenue when they are going out of town.
Eliminating cars from Prospect Park, where they are now permitted during rush hours, begins to make more sense.
Measures like these would choke off the number of cars that could make it to Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn in a tolerable amount of time, but congestion would remain the same – the most the marginal driver could stand.
One of the things I dislike about working in the private sector is that I now work in Midtown, with its choking traffic, crowded sidewalks, and high prices rather than Downtown where there are pedestrianized and narrow low traffic streets to move around on. The city has in recent years implemented through streets to help traffic get across town. These are now jammed.
So why not convert the through streets and some others into pedestrianized streets like Nassau, Stone and John Streets Downtown, with traffic limited to deliveries during restricted hours? Can’t get cross town? You shouldn’t have driven to Midtown to begin with! But you’d better not block the box, or that will be $110 or more.
All this could, in fact, be in addition to some measures I have in fact suggested. Banning private cars from 5th Avenue in Brooklyn, leaving the parking lane for deliveries at certain hours and recreational use otherwise, and limiting the travel lanes to bikes and buses. Doing the same for Broadway in Manhattan from Central Park to Madison Square, and 5th Avenue south from there.
Perhaps, in fact, a cross-town busway on 23rd Street could be done without underpasses for the avenues. Just give 23rd Street signal priority, unless an avenue bus is passing. Would that lock the grid? Sure, but that’s eventually going to happen anyway. Just post a cop and a tow truck at each intersection, and rake in the cash.
Is this what Transportation Alternatives and related groups would really favor? Well over on Streetsblog, I did read something about taking back the city street by street
Is all this impossible? The Vatican just issued “ten commandments” for drivers, perhaps in reaction to the near insanity of motorists in the surrounding Eternal City. What is driving them crazy is not congestion pricing, which they do not have in Rome. It is the unwillingness of the Italians – the most auto-oriented people in Europe – to make any concessions to traffic flow. Motor vehicle traffic in Rome is hell, but walking from one pedestrianized plaza to another, down pedestrianized streets and narrow lanes six feet wide, you would never know it and wouldn’t care. Bicycles and scooters also move. And believe me, there are plenty of traffic tickets in Rome. The Roman attitude is pretty much if you want to drive, fine, but we won’t bend over backward to help you do it.
Wouldn’t the state legislature continue to defend those who drive to Manhattan against other traffic restrictions and fines? The have in the past, but don’t bet on it in the future, based on the stadium precedent.
The right and wrong, good and bad of the Olympics, the Jets, and the West Side Stadium, from a technical and moral perspective, were much more debatable than the congestion pricing issue. I could have gone either way, and am relieved the Olympics (with its financial risk) won’t be coming. Yet the State Assembly made a lot of enemies, and expended a lot of political capital, by killing it. And ever since, anything remotely related to a stadium has sailed through, regardless of public cost of consequence. The Assembly got its way, but has rolled over every since.
Another example. In 1996, the City Council voted down a NYC Planning proposal that would have allowed large stores to locate on wide streets in manufacturing districts –without protracted and expensive public reviews that local companies and low-margin supermarkets cannot afford. It was influenced to protect existing grocers in poor neighborhoods from competition, so they could continue to charge high prices for lower quality food. The Council took a lot of heat, but more than a decade later few new supermarkets have opened in poor neighborhoods, so it too got its way. But over that decade large retail companies that can afford the time and money required by the review process have swarmed into the city, and aside from a symbolic stand against Wal-Mart (which a decade ago was unwilling to enter the NYC market) the City Council has waved through every large store in manufacturing zone and every other retail project requiring discretionary approval, and waved through the extensive rezoning of manufacturing zoned land for housing as well. So we get Fairway, Whole Foods, and IKEA for the affluent but no new supermarkets in East New York.
So the state legislature could stop congestion pricing. In fact it probably will. But now that Mayor Bloomberg has put the issue on the table, the result would be radicalization. Parochial short-term interests, the kinds the legislature has tended to feed off, which are now working against congestion pricing, would then work against drivers with a vengeance, and lead to more and more demands for more and more traffic restrictions, and localities try to push traffic somewhere else. Moreover, those who advanced congestion pricing will be politically insulated from whatever other measures must be taken to finance our debt-ridden transportation system. The legislature will find that it cannot just say “no” to everything and demand the impossible without taking the much-deserved blame.
And as for the “bike crazies,” they have endorsed the alternative I prefer – rationing by price. In six months I might be crazy enough to endorse their alternative in turn.