New Yorkers on Congestion Pricing: The Numbers in Detail
The recent revelation that the New Jersey Treasury Department is studying the implications of charging tolls on some of the state’s freeways is probably more a milestone in the regional conversation about paying for better, greener transportation in the 21st Century than something likely to be implemented soon.
Business Group Say Fix Congestion Now
The Partnership for New York City — the city’s largest business group — released a report this week that says congestion costs the metropolitan region $13 billion in lost productivity and jobs annually.
Connecticut Responds to Relentless Increases in Truck Traffic
In Fairfield County, the Connecticut Citizens Transportation Lobby recently won a two-year struggle to obtain highway I-95 truck inspection station data from the state. Also news from New Haven and Seymour.
Environmentalists Sue Over NJDEP Road Exemption
Community activists in Byram Township have filed suit to overturn a Highlands Exemption granted for the Route 206 widening project in Sussex County.
Rebuffed by Courts, NJDOT Tries Again to Manage Trucks
In 1999, Governor Christine Whitman’s administration announced new truck rules, designed to keep trucks passing through New Jersey off of local roads.
Hempstead's Master Plan Focuses on Walkability
Safer, more walkable streets and more productive uses of land now covered by parking lots are two potential recommendations of Hempstead Village’s master plan update.
NYC Transit Ridership: Up, Up, and Away
New York City Transit enjoyed record subway ridership in September, with average weekday ridership reaching 5.076 million.
Transportation Alternatives Holiday Party
Thursday, December 14th, 7:30-10pm. The new location is the NYC Fire Museum, 278 Spring Street. Music, food, drinks, and more! See www.transalt.org for more information.
New Yorkers on Congestion Pricing:
The Numbers in Detail
With strong leadership, congestion pricing could win public support in New York City, poll results released last week by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign indicate.
The survey found New Yorkers evenly split on the basic question of whether a London-like congestion charge for the Manhattan central business district is a good idea. 44% think congestion pricing is a good idea, 45% think it is a bad idea. The poll, conducted by Michaels Opinion Research in May, surveyed 800 New Yorkers and had a margin of error of 3.5%. The level of support for the concept is impressive given that most of those polled — 81 percent — said they were unfamiliar with it.
The numbers are also notable when compared to initial public responses to congestion pricing programs in London and Stockholm. In London, prior to its February 2003 implementation, the public was evenly split on congestion charging. In 2004, YouGov, a market research company, found that 60% supported the new charge and 32% opposed it. In Stockholm in 2005, 69% opposed congestion charging. The policy was imposed in January 2006 and in September 2006, voters approved a continuation of the program with a 52% support level. The program has reduced traffic significantly in both cities, increased bus speeds, reduced pollution, raised millions in revenue for transit, and has not impacted businesses within the pricing zone (according to a recent Partnership for NYC study — see left).
Who Supports Congestion Pricing and Why?
According to the TSTC poll, nearly three-fourths (73%) of New Yorkers, whether they support congestion pricing or not, think it would reduce traffic in Manhattan below 60 th street.
New Yorkers who work in Manhattan are more likely to support congestion pricing (50%), than oppose it (41%). Support rises in those who work below 60 th street (52%), and declines in those who work north of it (46%).
Not surprisingly, people with a vehicle in their household are less likely to want to pay a fee a drive into Manhattan. Still, 41% of vehicle owners polled support congestion pricing in New York City, as compared to 47% of those who do not own a motor vehicle. About half of transit commuters (49%) think it’s a good idea, with fewer (40%) opposing. Surprisingly, 39% of those who drive to work support pricing. 55%, however, aren’t in favor.
Staten Island residents were most positive toward pricing, perhaps thinking that they already pay coming and going so that it’s time for others to pay up (SIers were also the most dissatisfied with city government performance on traffic congestion in another part of the poll (see MTR #537). Brooklynites viewed road pricing the most warily.
Support and opposition to pricing, by borough
Is congestion pricing…
|
..a good idea? |
.. a bad idea? |
Staten Island |
58% |
38% |
Manhattan |
49% |
39% |
Queens |
44% |
45% |
Bronx |
42% |
48% |
Brooklyn |
37% |
49% |
Overall, 48% of New Yorkers think congestion pricing will have no impact on them or their families, with a quarter (24%) believing it will have a positive impact or negative impact. 45% think it will have a positive impact on the overall economy of NYC. More than half (54%) of New Yorkers think congestion pricing revenue should be dedicated only to transportation. Most people thought taxis should pay no toll or a reduced toll.
Perhaps some of the most interesting results were seen in arguments for or against congestion pricing. New Yorkers are clearly highly receptive to congestion pricing when it is linked to improving emergency response times and improving health, safety and overall quality of life (see chart at right). Overall, New Yorkers seemed to identify with arguments for congestion pricing more strongly than with arguments against it.
Similarly, when asked an open-ended question about why congestion pricing was a good or bad idea, the most commonly cited positive response, with 28% citing it, was reduction in traffic jams. The most commonly mentioned negative mention was “too many tolls and taxes already,” with 15% of respondents mentioning it.
It’s clear that New Yorkers can be engaged in an intelligent discussion of road pricing, far beyond the apocryphal pleas for the “working stiff who must drive to Manhattan” of Queens politicians or moronic TV news “reports” that consist of sticking a microphone into a driver-side window with the question: “do you want to pay more?” But only leadership at the mayoral level will be capable of taking the issue beyond such base levels.
New Yorkers’ agreement with statements for and against pricing, all responses
Arguments for congestion pricing |
% agreement citywide |
Improve emergency response time |
91 |
Reduce air and noise pollution |
77 |
Increase travel time for buses, taxis, and cars |
78 |
Create safer pedestrians conditions in Manhattan |
74 |
Be a good way to raise money for transit, roads and bridges |
70 |
Result in an overall improvement in quality of life in the city |
66 |
Arguments against congestion pricing |
|
People in Manhattan shouldn't have to pay extra to if they choose to drive |
50 |
Enforcement would be too expensive |
49 |
Traffic will increase in areas surrounding Manhattan |
47 |
Traffic congestion isn't bad enough to start a program like this |
42 |
From Tri-State Transportation Campaign Telephone Survey of NYC Residents, Conducted by Michaels Opinion Research, May 2006.
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Business Groups Says Fix Traffic Congestion Now
The Partnership for New York City — the city’s largest business group — released a report this week that says congestion costs the metropolitan region $13 billion in lost productivity and jobs annually.
The report states: “The level of traffic in the city and much of the Metro Region has crossed the dividing line that separates economically efficient traffic from destructive, excess congestion…Left unchecked, excess congestion will stunt the region’s capacity for sustained growth and innovation in the years ahead.” The report finds that today,congestion costs the region 37,000-52,000 jobs annually.
The report, Growth or Gridlock? says congestion pricing is one policy option that should be considered in light of these woes. Benefits of a congestion charging zone in Manhattan could ripple across the city, according to the Partnership. A 15% reduction of traffic in Manhattan below 60th St would cause reductions in vehicle hours traveled of 29% in Downtown Brooklyn, 24% in Greenpoint/Williamsburg, and 27% in Long Island City.
The report urges other improvements, pointing specifically to bus rapid transit, toll lanes on routes like the Long Island Expressway, ferries, high-tech transit passes, and steeper parking prices. While it advocates these in their own right, clearly they would be easier to afford with the new transportation revenue stream afforded by a congestion pricing policy. See www.pfnyc.org for the full report.
The Mayor Responds?
Mayor Bloomberg told the NY Times congestion pricing was not on his agenda because it would never get state approval, though some reports have indicated the city may apply to the FHWA’s “value pricing” program for study funds. That would seem to indicate that pricing implementation is off the table during the Bloomberg administration but that a small bone may be tossed to pricing advocates.
The mayor has announced big plans to transform NYC into a model of sustainability. His first address on the plan is next week. It will be interesting to see how or if he deals with transportation, since capacity and liveability will be big problems in the “9 million person city” without major changes.
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Connecticut Responds to Relentless Increase in Truck Traffic
In Fairfield County, the Connecticut Citizens Transportation Lobby recently won a two-year struggle to obtain highway I-95 truck inspection station data from the state. After numerous request refusals and runarounds from CT police, the group filed a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission, which ruled in the group’s favor. The data shows that only 1% of trucks I-95 are inspected – but a shocking 92% of those trucks receive summonses for violations. The group’s next advocacy step is to win traffic enforcement cameras to discourage speeding trucks. But speed cameras would require state approval — unfortunately, a bill to allow municipalities to use them was defeated in the Connecticut House this past March.
In New Haven, transportation authorities will soon begin a truck traffic impact study to review trucks’ impacts on roadways and residential properties; the study will also look to optimize the overall truck route network and identify needed enforcement and signage improvements to minimize truck-related impacts, apparently similar to the large and lengthy process undertaken by the NYC DOT.
The Town of Seymour in New Haven County made news headlines this year, as
residents fed up with truck traffic have sought to reclaim their streets. This fall, Seymour’s Board of Selectmen voted to ban through-trucks, which has become a favored shortcut for truckers heading to and from a construction site in the next town. Seymour also has an inspection station on Route 8 to ensure truckers are compliant with safety and weight laws.
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Environmentalists Sue NJDOT Over Highlands Road Exemption
Community activists in Byram Township have filed suit to overturn a Highlands Exemption granted for the Route 206 widening project in Sussex County.
The NJ Dept. of Transportation applied for the exemption to excuse the project from the Highlands permitting process, claiming that the widening of a road from a two-lanes to four or five lanes with an 80-foot right of way is “routine repair and maintenance.”
New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection disagreed, rejecting the argument that a widening of that scale could be defined as “routine.” However, the DEP granted the permit anyway, claiming that the project qualified for an exemption under a separate category that DOT had not even identified — DEP called the project a “safety” measure. Outraged local activists immediately filed suit with the aid of the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic, claiming that because DOT never justified the project on safety grounds, the public was denied its right to comment on the application. North Byram Concerned Citizens, Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Township of Byram input on the application all focused on the “routine maintenance” aspect of the project.
While the case will be watched closely by locals, it will also being monitored by state smart growth advocates. If exemptions to the Highlands permitting process are granted often and irresponsibly, protection efforts in the area could be threatened.
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New York City Transit enjoyed record subway ridership in September, with average weekday ridership reaching 5.076 million, the first month since 1970 (when the agency first started tracking monthly data) that weekday ridership topped 5 million. Combined average weekday bus and subway ridership reached 7.61 million, the highest level since December 1970.
Record ridership has contributed to the $938 million in unanticipated revenue for the MTA, though unexpected gains from real estate transaction taxes have fueled the bulk of it. MTA chairman Peter Kalikow has promised, “no fare increase, no service cuts…” in 2007, according to
AM New York. But looming deficits could spell fare hikes and/or service cuts for 2008.
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