Bridge and tunnel

[dennis_obell]

I was going to send this just to bradamant, but since everyone's complaining lately of a dearth of LJ posts, I figured I'd throw it up here. (Sorry, online_stalker, but this subject might not interest you.)

Anyway, the news from New York City authorities is that bridge and tunnel traffic is down across the board. Here's the part that interests me:

“Less Manhattan

Comments

[misterpardonme]

i can't really say i have. granted, half the time i'm asleep on the subway, but it actually doesn't feel any more crowded that it would have a year ago.

Then again, I take the A train from Inwood to Brooklyn... i don't think there's many people north of 125th street who were driving to midtown or beyond anyway.

One thing i'm curious about is the logistics of tolling the east river crossings, an plan that may come into existence soon. There's obviously no way to build toll plazas on those bridges. Would they put in transponders that interact with E-Z pass, but also have cameras and an send bills to people based on photographs of their license plates? I remember seeing those in canada, oh, almost 10 years ago and have been amazed that they haven't started eliminating all manned tollbooths and putting those in instead.

Man, who knows?

[dennis_obell]

Re: the tolls-you're right that technology has caught up and made toll plazas unnecessary. But I was listening to an NPR/Brian Lehrer Show on this topic last night, and the commentator basically said politics, not practicality, is what's killed East River tolls all these years. You could put them up tomorrow, but the hue and cry from outerborough residents and their councilmen/women would be deafening.

Instead, Bloomberg's peeps are apparently resurrecting the congestion-pricing idea, which they seem to think is more politically palatable. And they're probably right; it got killed only because of a Sheldon Silver pocket veto last spring. The city/state fiscal crisis would probably make it an easier sell the second time around.

Re: Man, who knows?

[misterpardonme]

Ahhh, user fees. I won't get on my soapbox arguing for residential parking before congestion pricing, but I still wonder why NYC chooses one before the other. Oh yes, the revenue. I forget

Re: Man, who knows?

[kdot]

I wish they'd consider how much dough they could make in residential parking permits before they go to congestion pricing. Apparently they were expecting annual revenue of $380 million from congestion pricing last time around (from a PDF on the city site). Let's do some math

Clearly congestion pricing should've been the topic of this post

[dennis_obell]

...if only because it guarantees impassioned posts from you and your roommate! (See above

Re: Clearly congestion pricing should've been the topic of this post

[kdot]

Lowering emissions is good, obviously, but I don't really buy that as a primary motive here. Looking at the PlaNYC site, environmental benefits are mentioned as a side-effect but the main point, it's made clear, is managing traffic. (And ringing the city with spy cameras, as someone else suggested

Re: Clearly congestion pricing should've been the topic of this post

[bradamant]

The guy who wrote Traffic talks about this quite a bit. A fairly huge amount of traffic is just people driving around looking for parking--whether you're looking at traffic from the point of view of congestion OR emissions. One of the people he interviews suggests that the solution is to price parking such that only 80% of spots are filled at a time. That way people can reliably find a spot without driving around forever. The thing is, I imagine that the price you'd have to demand to achieve that in Manhattan would be quite high--and not even across all the neighborhoods. (How much would Jerseyites in SUVs pay in Soho on a Saturday??) And isn't that just as regressive a tax on the middle class as congestion pricing supposedly is?

Re: Clearly congestion pricing should've been the topic of this post

[kdot]

I haven't read Traffic though it looks like I should put it on my list.

The crowding on unmetered blocks in the city gets worse as they hike the rates at parking meters - the meters closest to my apartment now charge $4/hour. There's also a huge incentive to find an unmetered spot so you don't have to keep running back to feed the meter every 60 minutes.

The problem is that they can't really meter every spot in the city - it would be extremely expensive to install a muni-meter on every block, and would force anyone with a job to park in a lot, unless you were able to pay for several days' worth of on-street parking at a time. A $200 annual parking permit and 25% of spots on residential blocks reserved for residents would function a lot like this expensive-meter plan, I'd argue. As far as it being a regressive tax, parking in an off-street lot is north of $400 a month most places now. A permit - at whatever price - looks like a steal in comparison.

Re: Man, who knows?

[thekatzman]

why would congestion pricing be more palatable? you'd still get hit with a $9 fee if you drove over one of the east river crossings, so it doesn't really save them anything. plus i'm not sure the city realized what a logistical nightmare the congestion pricing technology would be, compared to EZ-pass lanes where you don't even have to slow down (yes, these exist) which would link into existing infrastructure. who in NY doesn't have EZpass at this point? if you have a car and a drivers' license, you have an address, so you can get an ezpass. i guess you need a credit card or a bank account, too, but this seems like a much simpler problem to solve than rigging all of lower manhattan and midtown with cameras, then putting into place all this technology to decide when a car is just moving spots or is actually driving

Re: Man, who knows?

[ennnis]

The SF version of congestion pricing is interesting. They're starting just with congestion pricing on the meters. Right now a lot of people drive in circles, slowing traffic and adding pollution, because parking in a garage for an hour costs something like $7 while parking on the street costs $1. SF is going to raise the prices of street parking at peak to remove the incentive for this behavior. (They're right, I once spent an hour looking for parking in Manhattan when I just needed to deposit the car for 6 hours

Good question

[dennis_obell]

It is a little weird that CP would be considered more palatable, since you're right, financially they're virtually the same, and the toll would be less hassle technologically.

I guess the thinking is that they came thisclose less than a year ago passing CP, whereas East River tolls have never seriously been considered and would seem a more seismic change to the electorate, logic notwithstanding. If you're Bloomberg, and you think you can make the same arguments for CP as before, get a similar (contentious, but successful) vote in the City Council, and then go back to Albany waving the flag of "It's still a good idea, and now we need the money!" you'd probably pick that over introducing the concept of a Flatbush Avenue toll collector.