Streetsblog Capitol Hill

If nothing else, gridlocked traffic is a good marketing opportunity for Oscar Mayer's Wienermobile.

US Rep. Anthony Weiner was one of the first voices to speak up against Mayor Bloomberg's proposal for a three-year congestion pricing pilot project and he remains one of the loudest. In his testimony Oct. 25 before the NYC Traffic Mitigation Congestion Commission, Weiner -- who is planning a 2009 mayoral run -- consolidated his arguments, starting off with a diplomatic concession: "The Bloomberg administration has begun a very important conversation about what New York will look like in 2030 and how we prepare now for the sustainable and prosperous future." Weiner went on immediately, however, to characterize the mayor's congestion-pricing plan as "expensive and unfair." Today, an even more boiled down version of Weiner's proposal can be found on the New York Post op/ed page. 

In his testimony, Weiner outlined a seven-point alternative that has a little something for everybody. Very roughly, here's what it boils down to:

• Improving mass transit, including ferries and buses, before anything else is done. Weiner also outlines a plan to get 1 of 10 New Yorkers on a bike by 2020, with strategies including a pilot bike-sharing program and expanded bike-storage facilities.
• What he calls "carrot and stick congestion pricing"-- a tax credit for companies that schedule truck deliveries in off-peak hours; increased tolls during rush hour; and an increase in metered parking fees during peak hours. Weiner says these last two points "would satisfy the Department of Transportation's requirement that some element of congestion pricing be part of the City's plan, and thus make us eligible to collect the federal grant." (Actually, no, those ideas don't appear to meet the federal government's definition of "congestion pricing.")
  
• Reducing reliance on trucks by building the Cross Harbor Tunnel.
• Scaling back alternate-side parking and street-cleaning.
• Avoiding the creation of an expensive infrastructure in order to qualify for the $354.5 million in federal funds.
• Enforcing existing traffic laws such as "don't block the box."
• "Apportioning the benefits and the burden fairly--don't pit neighbor against neighbor."

Weiner's proposals prompted a scornful response from Transportation Alternatives. In a letter to the Traffic Mitigation Commission, TA executive director Paul Steely White said: "Congressman Weiner does nothing to help the work of this Commission by presenting an 'alternative' plan to mitigate congestion that includes a hypothetical blank check from the federal government to pay for it. Choices the Congressman suggests like eliminating congestion pricing, lowering truck tolls at off-peak times, providing off-hour delivery tax credits to businesses and building a cross-harbor tunnel carry an exceptionally high cost while providing no substantial revenue streams." Here's the PDF of White's full letter.

Jeff Zupan, Regional Plan Association's transportation analyst, has shown why other alternatives to congestion pricing are flawed. Some of those points apply to Weiner's plan as well.

In June, NYU's Wagner Rudin Center of Transportation Policy & Management teamed up with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council to host an event focused on current and future freight needs in the New York metro region. Their report cited increased consumption and congestion as serious challenges to moving goods in and around the city:

Since 1980, New York City's population has increased by 14%, to just over 8 million people in 2000. Now, the city is expected to grow by another million people by 2030. This means more demand for freight in the future. In 1998, commodity flow in the NYMTC region totaled 333 million tons. Foods accounted for 47 million tons; clothing accounted for 2.8 million tons; and 70 million tons of gasoline was delivered. As the population of the New York metropolitan area swells, the expected impact on freight needs will be astounding. NYMTC's Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) estimates that the 31-county tri-state population will grow to 26 million, or 1.5 million more households, by 2030. At the same time, NYMTC's Regional Freight Plan (RFP) estimates the annual commodity flow in the region will grow to a staggering 490 million tons by the year 2025 - an almost 50% increase in freight tonnage. All of this freight will be moved on the region's currently over-burdened transportation system.

In the Keynote address, the Commissioner of the New York State Dept. of Transportation stated there is no room to build new roads downstate. While trucks will most likely remain the dominant mode of transporting freight, several different modes will become increasingly necessary to meet future demand:

Commissioner Glynn emphasized that we need to be better prepared for the needs of today and for the future by diversifying the investment to achieve modal balance in goods movement and mitigate congestion on our transportation network. To do this, increased rail access and modal share are important, but will not be a panacea for region's freight challenges. It will be a notable feat for freight rail to attain a desirable 10% market share of the long distance commodity flow for the East-of-Hudson market. To accomplish such an increase, we will need a long-term commitment and the cooperation of the region's many transportation agencies and stakeholders.

You can read the entire report here.

Sheridan Swap is a new blog covering the Mother of All Livable Streets projects -- the long-running campaign to convert one mile of little-used highway running along the Bronx River into affordable housing, parkland, greenway and economic opportunity for one of the city's most beleaguered neighborhoods. The blog is run by the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance. The state, it seems, is getting ready to weigh in on the merits of the project:

The New York State Department of Transportation announced last month that it will weigh the costs and benefits of its plan to expand the Sheridan Expressway against a Community Vision for the highway's removal and redevelopment.

The Community Vision, which includes decommissioning the Sheridan and replacing it with affordable housing, open space, and new economic development opportunities, will be included in NYSDOT's Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed expansion.

If the analysis finds that the Community Vision makes more economic and environmental sense than the expansion proposal, NYSDOT will be hard pressed to move forward with its plan to stretch the Sheridan south into Hunts Point.

Check back soon for updates on the DEIS process. In the meantime, check out what Wikipedia has to say about Environmental Impact Statements.

A third-grader was hit on her way to school here two weeks ago.

You have to move fast to beat the turning traffic on Fourth Avenue.

DOT Deputy Commissioner for Brooklyn Dalila Hall faced some tough questioning from members of the public at a meeting on pedestrian safety on Third and Fourth avenues in Brooklyn on Saturday.

"Why should we have to run across the street?" demanded Melissa Torres, whose daughter attends PS 24 in Sunset Park, near the busy intersection of 38th St. and 4th Ave.

Sometimes running isn't enough. A third-grader was hit by a car two weeks ago as she crossed at the spot, where vehicles roar down a ramp off the Gowanus Expressway and make a left turn right into a crosswalk on Fourth Avenue.

That girl survived the crash, but Third and Fourth avenues have been fatally dangerous streets for many children -- like six-year-old Andry Vega, who was run over at the corner of Third Ave. and 46th St. last December, and four-year-old James Rice, who was struck and killed at the corner of Third Ave. and Baltic St. in February.

They were just two of the fatalities that showed up as blue crosses on the map of the Third and Fourth avenue corridor at the back of the auditorium -- interspersed with many, many red circles indicating crashes that resulted in pedestrian injuries.

The meeting, organized by the Community Education Council for District 15, was designed to give the public a chance to voice their concerns directly to DOT officials and to police. And the parents, teachers and students who attended made the most of it, requesting traffic-calming measures and better enforcement for specific intersections, like the one at 38th and Fourth.

According to Transportation Alternatives' Brooke DuBose, who made a presentation at the meeting, several residents marked trouble spots on the map, and representatives from Community Board 7 and the offices of various elected officials expressed interest in following up the meeting with further workshop and planning opportunities.

Representatives of the 72nd and 78th precincts, which cover the area, said that truck enforcement is a priority. In the 72nd, according to Sgt. Alfredo Rosario, summonses for trucks are up 50 percent over this time last year. He welcomed the input from the community on specific dangerous intersections. "It's actually very helpful to us," he said after the meeting.

Several of those present wanted more immediate action from the DOT to make crosswalks safer. "When a kid gets killed here, god forbid, then they'll do something," said Raymond Mercado, who lives around the corner from PS 24 and has two children in the school. He said he constantly sees near-misses as kids travel on the traffic-filled streets.

He and others wondered if the DOT needed to study the situation.

Read more...

London mayor Ken Livingstone, whose congestion-pricing plan has served as a model for Mayor Bloomberg's, is expected to unveil today an even more radical measure aimed at reducing pollution in his city. According to the Guardian, Livingstone's proposal would target high-emission commercial vehicles:

Ken Livingstone is expected to confirm that older, "dirtier" lorries and buses will be charged £200 a day to drive in London. London First, a lobby group for businesses in the capital, has warned that the scheme will hit smaller firms that cannot afford modern vehicles that are exempt. Mr Livingstone also plans to adapt the £8-a-day congestion charge so the most polluting vehicles pay £25 a day to enter.

The LEZ will cover all of London's 33 boroughs, rather than the smaller congestion zone, which straddles central and western areas of the city....Fines will be far more punitive than the congestion scheme, with transgressors facing a bill of up to £1,000.

The LEZ has been earmarked for launch next year and will be extended to vans and buses by 2010, in effect giving businesses two years' notice to overhaul their fleets.

Mr Livingstone has commissioned a report on the LEZ and indicated earlier this year that he would push ahead with it. "London suffers from the worst air quality in the UK and the proposed low-emission zone would target those diesel engine lorries, coaches, buses, heavier vans and minibuses which are pumping out the most harmful pollutants," he said.

Transport for London, the capital's transport body, estimates the LEZ would prevent about 40 deaths a year from pollution-related illnesses and avoid up to 86 hospital admissions. Some businesses have backed the LEZ and called for even more stringent curbs.

The Knightsbridge Association called for a more ambitious scheme. "The LEZ should go much further, much faster," it said. 

Today's New York Times has an entire section on "The Business of Being Green" (Times Select), which includes articles on economies of scale in alternative energy, carbon-offset shopping, the possibly endangered practice of truck idling, Danish wind farms, and environmental litigation.

The left-leaning Guardian of London has long made green stories a staple of its news hole, going so far as to have a standing section on "Ethical Living." Maybe the Times is now waking up to the idea that this is an area of ongoing interest to readers -- not to mention to advertisers such as Hewlett-Packard (their full-page ad claims "we estimate that for every 12 people who use the power-saving features built into HP computers and monitors, the amount of CO2 saved is equal to removing one car from the road") and Shell ("Don't Throw Anything Away. There Is No Away"), who have paid the big bucks to have their ads, complete with flower-power graphics, included in the section.

The Business of Green, indeed.

Photo: ijalab on Flickr

Today's Times marked the onset of Gridlock Alert season with a paean to Fresh Direct -- the dot-com that brings New Yorkers expensive, home-delivered groceries along with idling engines, double-parking and gridlock galore.

Founded five years ago, Fresh Direct is now a $240 million a year outfit that offers us "a glimpse of the next wave of Internet commerce," wrote Times business columnist David Leonhardt. Too bad Leonhardt didn't check his paper's City section, which a year ago depicted the impacts of Fresh Direct trucks on Upper West Side residents and merchants:

Consider the experience of Joe Peta. Earlier this month he sat in Sude, a boutique that he and his wife own, and gazed out at one such Fresh Direct truck. Since spring, according to Mr. Peta and others, this particular truck has regularly spent several hours a day parked outside Mr. Peta's store, on Broadway near 91st Street, where it acts as a busy, messy and noisy distribution hub for deliveries to nearby blocks. When the first truck empties, it is often replenished by a second truck; when it cannot find a spot, it sometimes double-parks. Either way, it obscures Mr. Peta's store from the view of pedestrians across the street.

Multiply that a few hundred-fold and you've got a sense of Fresh Direct's hulking presence in our neighborhoods. Plus, the big trucks compound those hellish road delays between the company's Long Island City plant and its Manhattan client base.

It's probably no exaggeration to say that Fresh Direct has built its financial success on its ability to fob off its social and environmental costs on the city as a whole. Yet the Times -- in a column called "Economix," no less -- made no mention of this subsidy.

Earlier this week Streetsblog reported stirrings of a public conversation about congestion pricing in NYC. This discussion needs to culminate in a real road pricing plan, before our streets and neighborhoods are inundated by the next wave of congestion.

Photo: jonmc on Flickr