Numbers Game

The supporters of the congestion pricing tax are in a bind. They have been saying that the number of people on the road who would have to find alternative means of transportation have ranged anywhere from 70,000 to 100,000 per day.

Yesterday, the new head of the MTA said that those who give up their cars would add only 3,500 people to the already overcrowded subways.

New Yorkers need to know that motorists who give up their cars will have a civilized alternative to get in and out of Manhattan. Yet NYC Transit boss Howard Roberts on Monday insisted that, on some lines, there was just "no room at the inn."

Yesterday, Roberts backpedaled - saying that 100,000 ex-motorists would not add significantly to transit ridership.

Hmm. Then how is it that they'd make a significant dent in traffic congestion?

Such questions, to be sure, should not - in themselves - sidetrack Mike's plan.

But if Hizzoner wants support, he's going to have to be honest and forthcoming - and understanding of what average New Yorkers put up with.

His let-them-eat-MetroCards approach, on the other hand, will only end up fried on the third rail.

What gives?

The numbers simply don't add up. Are the rest of those folks simply disappearing by walking or taking a bus (which are also overcrowded and limp along with the rest of the traffic at a rate that is far slower than I can walk)?

It's also nice to see others starting to mention that the congestion pricing scheme is nothing more than a tax. However, the idea that some think that the congestion pricing tax could result in free transit service is wishful thinking at best and a fantasy world. The whole purpose of the congestion pricing tax is to provide funds to upgrade the existing transit service - for capital projects, not to replace operating costs, a portion of which come from fares.

Charging motorists $16 to drive into most of Manhattan at all times — double the amount Mayor Bloomberg has proposed in his congestion pricing plan — and levying $16 tolls on all bridge and tunnel crossings could bring in $3.1 billion annually to subsidize a free mass transit system, the early results of a $100,000 study by a nonprofit group, the Institute for Rational Mobility, show. The MTA currently takes in about $1.96 billion in fares from the subway and buses, the study says, and it could save an estimated $360 million a year that it spends collecting those fares.

"It's a Platonic ideal," the chief attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, Gene Russianoff, said.

While the subway system seems to be bursting at the seams on certain routes, it has the capacity to handle the flood of riders who would likely switch to mass transit if the city's roads were tolled and transit were free, the president of the institute, George Haikalis, said.

When fewer New Yorkers owned cars and gas was rationed in the years following World War II, the subways carried about 2 billion riders a year, as compared to about 1.5 billion a year in 2006. "Then we were a city that worked more on three shifts than we do now," Mr. Russianoff said. Now riders pile onto subways during morning and evening rush hours, leaving relatively deserted trains rattling through the tunnels during midday.

There is a blind spot by Russianoff for how and why the subways provided 2 billion riders in the immediate post war period. There were more subways and elevated lines - including a Second Avenue and Third Avenue lines. They were both torn down in the post war period and never replaced (the Third Avenue line was demolished in 1955). See here for the historical record of how the system developed. We're only now beginning to see construction renewed on a Second Avenue line that would essentially replicate the path of the elevated Second Avenue line in bits and pieces.

Subway/trolley service that operated over the Brooklyn Bridge was elimiated as well. Mass transit options declined precipitously during the post war period, and commuter train lines suffered the worst. They are still inadequate to deal with the demand, and lack capacity to bring more people into the City during peak periods.

The rules of how the subways operate have also changed, including better safety measures so that trains have more space between them.

In other words, Russianoff is comparing apples and oranges. The system as it is currently configured today simply lacks the capacity to handle more riders. It would be nice to have two more East Side lines to not only relieve congestion on the Lexington Avenue lines (4,5,6) but also to allow commuters more travel options, but that simply isn't happening. We'd be lucky to see the Second Avenue Line built down to Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan in our lifetime.

The congestion pricing tax is more likely to limit further further fare increases, but that takes away from the primary goal of expanding the system and mass transit options. Meanwhile, costs continue to climb on projects already in the pipeline, including a new Penn Station, which is more than double the earlier estimated cost; it's now close to $2 billion instead of the $900 million.