No, just the opposite. The more you learn about CP, the more you realize that is a regressive tax on the middle-class that has little to do with asthma (what asthma below 86th??? asthma's in Harlam & Bronx!) or the environment. The plan has only been released in dribs & drabs & only after Bloomberg spent millions in PR & payoffs. What next? A charge to enter Central Park? If any other country charged poorer people to enter a richer person's neighborhood (the one with the shops & cultural institutions) w/out a working public transportation system it would be called apartheid. Here it's called Congestion Pricing.

Posted by: Julie Field at November 28, 2007 9:06 AM

Where did you get the 149 people came to all hearings? I don't believe that is true.

Posted by: anon at November 28, 2007 11:56 AM

Actually, Julie, this plan IS used elsewhere-- Singapore, London, Rome, Stockholm-- and it's not called Apartheid, it's called Congestion Pricing. My friends who live in London have been quite happy with it, though of course Londoners complained also when it was first proposed. In Europe, it's fairly simple: remove cars, so buses can actually move in traffic-- then more people will ride the bus-- which removes MORE cars, etc. London started it in 2003 and it works so well, they increased the area affected in Feb 2007. Has it been perfect? No, it seems to have reduced traffic by about 20% instead of 25% as they hoped. It has definitely reduced pollution. (As an E.R. doctor I find it hilarious that you think asthma is somehow limited to "Harlam (sic) & Bronx"-- somehow Manhattanites have evolved lungs that breathe soot?) Traffic fatalities have dropped significantly. Obviously, the funds raised have to go into improving public transportation from the outer boroughs-- more bus and train lines. Bottom line is, every year it gets more and more difficult to move a car in Manhattan. No solution for this is going to please everyone, obviously. But something has to be done. The best days to walk around Manhattan were the weeks following 9-11, when many roads were closed to cars and people had to take public transportation. For a little while, the city was a pleasant place to walk, even outside of the parks. No horns honking, less diesel fumes. A taste of what's possible.

Posted by: Josh Trutt at November 29, 2007 10:16 AM

I find something a little backward here. Commercial vehicles are, for the most part, delivery men, without whom Manhattan would have no commerce. It's passenger cars that are clotting the streets.

Posted by: Nick at November 29, 2007 1:53 PM

Julie, where did you learn all those things, from Walter McCaffrey? Too bad they're all lies.

Posted by: Cap'n Transit at November 29, 2007 1:54 PM

Julie:

I confess to not knowing the specifics of the plan, but I agree with you in principle that it appears to be another way for the mayor to make this City more convenient for the wealthy (second avenue subway is another prime example). I am really commenting to point out that Dr. Trutt is terribly wrong for criticizing your comment about the high asthma rates uptown. Any real New Yorker knows this. Then again, any real New Yorker would not describe walking around Manhattan after 9/11 as pleasant. While I understand the point that he was making about traffic, it was still a pretty absurd statement.

Posted by: laborlibert at December 1, 2007 7:34 PM

Congestion pricing is just another way to make Manhattan into a safe, convenient playground for the rich, for whom $8 is trivial, but for whom being stuck in traffic is a drag. Meanwhile, the rest of us are stuck on even more crowded, miserable, inconvenient, lengthy public transit rides that, even according to the MTA, cannot handle any more traffic. Their solution, unbelievably, is that we should travel off-peak on lines that aren’t overcrowded because they don’t go where we need to go at the time we need to be there; few of us are riding the subways just for the fun of it—we have to be at work in a specific place at a specific time, which usually involves those trains that are already over capacity. As to the mayor’s let them eat cake attitude, I’m sure the trains aren’t that crowded when you’re surrounded by guards with guns, and you only have to travel one stop after being delivered to the optimal station by two gas guzzling SUVs. And some of us can’t leave home at 6:00 a.m. to beat the rush—we have families and responsibilities, and no staff to take care of them for us.

As to the transparently bogus asthma risk reduction, this plan brings MORE traffic to the worst affected areas, poor neighborhoods outside the designated zone. And the claim that congestion reduction is the aim is also demonstrably bogus; note that taxis and limos are exempted from the tax, even though they operate almost exclusively in the areas of Manhattan best-served by public transportation—but they cater to the well-off, who cannot be inconvenienced.

I certainly do not support a plan developed by billionaires and millionaires to turn over public roads to the rich as a private benefit. When the mayor gives up a private jet and helicopter, among other polluting luxuries such as multiple huge homes, maybe I'll be ready to listen to his plans for the rest of us. And please note that while NYC taxpayers who support the building and maintenance of these roads will pay this regressive tax, commuters who don’t even pay a commuter tax any more, but use all city services, will get a free ride by deducting bridge and tunnel tolls; the mayor confirmed that New Jersey commuters would be unaffected by his plan. Exactly who is supposed to be representing the already maximally taxed residents of this city, the only ones stuck with both DOT maintenance costs and the full freight of this tax, among our elected representatives?

I would like to suggest several alternatives to congestion pricing:
1. Since traffic only accounts for 20% of the pollution, and the plan (probably optimistically)estimates a 6.3% reduction in traffic, for a grand total of a 1.26% reduction in pollution, why not tackle it all with pollution credits that can be traded, as is done now in Europe for industry. This would give each resident pollution credits, and according to how large an apartment, whether they have a car, etc. they could either use or sell those credits. Since rich people tend to have large (even multiple) homes (again, the mayor even has a private jet and helicopter) while the poor and middle class live in smaller spaces, often without cars, this plan would be far less regressive than the current plan and would not require the invasion of privacy up to 1000 cameras present.
2. Or, for a much simpler, cheaper, non-invasive low-tech solution that could work immediately, why not try enforcing the current traffic laws on double (or often triple) parking, blocking the intersections, taxis picking up and dropping off fares from anywhere on the road, etc.?
3. Any plan for easing congestion should charge a per ride premium (at least the same $8 residents will be charged), to taxis and limos, who are on the streets all day, unlike commuters, adding disproportionately to both congestion and pollution.
4. Rescind parking permits for government workers, who park anywhere (even at fire hydrants, on sidewalks, or in no parking zones) for free--50% of government workers drive to work.

Posted by: Susan at December 4, 2007 1:30 PM

Julie.. I think I get what you were referencing..FYI Doc.. The worst asthma rates are in low income and communities that have more than their share of polluting facilities (for ex. In Harlem, where there are bus depots; in the South Bronx, where there is a lot of truck traffic, in Queens, where there are a lot of power plants sited) The problem has gotten so much worse over the last decade, in the entire country but especially in New York City. Furthermore, the hospitalization rate for asthma attacks in New York City is twice the national average, and in some areas, like East Harlem, the rate is nine times the national average. The condition afflicts 25 percent of local children:(

Posted by: jackie at December 8, 2007 10:30 PM