Manhattan parking garage and restaurant industry groups hired The Sam Schwartz Company to examine the effect of the carpool rule, and, in a report released last week, recommended lifting the carpool rule immediately at least in midtown.

The report, relying on NYC DOT vehicle counts from November, found that 24,000 fewer vehicles traveled over bridges and tunnels south of 62nd St. into the central business district in peak hours (the only facilities and times the carpool rule is in effect).The good news is that the number of people per car, as counted by The Sam Schwartz Company, increased from an average of 1.57 to 1.87.This is a huge increase in average vehicle occupancy in just a two-month period and means that only 13,000 fewer people entered the central business district by car during the morning rush hour than before the peak-period carpool rule went into effect.

Other changes contributed to the decline during peak hours. According to NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s first economic report, the city lost 93,000 private sector jobs after 9/11.Still other companies and agencies left the central business district for other parts of the city.Traffic traveling through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel is severely restricted, not because of the carpool rule, but because of clean up and recovery efforts accounting for 10,000 fewer vehicles in the peak and 17,000 fewer off-peak.

The report finds that during off-peak periods, nearly 100,000 fewer cars entered the city south of 62nd Street.It asserts that much of the decline is due to confusion and lack of information about being able to drive into the city citing anecdotes of people who wrote into the Gridlock Sam website. 

Aside from confusion, other plausible reasons people now shun the CBD off-peak are lost jobs/recession (less money to spend), fear (warnings of terrorist attacks have continued), air quality (news coverage of hazards and workers’ claims has been prominent), avoidance of check points, and delays due to street closures.In fact, people driving in during off-peak hours by car from points north where no carpool rule is in effect (those least likely to be confused by the carpool rule) also dropped by 11%. 

The report argues that use of other modes (trains, subways, buses, ferries) have not declined as

much as driving and posits that if fear or job loss were caused fewer people to enter the CBD, that the decreases should be proportionate across all modes.It’s likely that some people who used to drive shifted to transit because of the carpool rule in effect officials hoped for.Disproportionate decreases during peak hours may be a testament to the carpool rule’s success and a reason to keep it in place. 

Restaurants and parking garages understandably need patrons.However, these industries blamed all 190,000 fewer visitors on the carpool rule and assigned a value of $1.5 billion to it.The number of people not coming into the CBD solely because of the carpool rule is closer to 1/10th this estimate.And because there are fewer cars in the city congestion costs have decreased.According to the Texas Transportation Institute, gridlock cost the NYC region $9.7 billion in 1999: $1 billion in wasted fuel and $8.7 billion in travel delay in 1999 alone.

Carpool Rule Set Until May 
(Feb. 11, 2002)

Manhattan Carpool Rule Still Working for NYC (Feb. 4, 2002) 

Driver, Trucking and Transit Groups Support Manhattan Carpools  
(Oct. 1, 2001) 

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