As I squeezed myself onto the packed subway car this morning my heart sank with despair; not because I was going to forfeit all claims to my personal space for the rest of the ride, but because the crowded train would not even exist come June.
Well, might not exist. In the face of a looming and unexpected budget deficit, the MTA Board voted in December to approve a series of service cuts that would begin in June of 2010. The cuts include the train that I took to work this morning, the M train in Brooklyn. Also on the chopping block are the W and Z trains, several bus routes, free fares for NYC schoolchildren, and paratransit service for the disabled.
But these service cuts don't have to happen; New Yorkers have a choice. By charging drivers a fee for driving into the central business district, we can prevent these crippling service cuts and ensure that the MTA has a stable source of revenue for years to come.
While a congestion charge would impose costs on those commuters that choose to drive (only 5 percent of working New Yorkers drive into the central business district), the economic, social, and environmental benefits of congestion pricing would far outweigh these costs.
Congestion pricing would raise $500 million a year for mass transit, more than enough to prevent the proposed service cuts and cover the MTA's current budget shortfall. Congestion pricing would provide the MTA with a stable source of revenue and end it's reliance on costly borrowing. Instead of seeing vital train and bus service disappear, we could instead be talking about new transit lines to underserved neighborhoods. New development, opportunities for affordable housing, and job creation would surely follow any new transit lines.
Second, a congestion charge would save the city's economy billions of dollars by reducing the $8.1 billion wasted every year in travel delay and fuel consumption. While drivers may be upset about the toll, they will be undoubtedly pleased when their travel speed has increased by 20-25 percent. Once a congestion charge is in place, there would be an immediate and perceptible drop in traffic congestion as drivers switch to transit or make their trips during off-peak hours, resulting in savings of $2.5 billion.
Third, congestion pricing would result in cleaner air and fewer pollution-related illness. A recent survey of the city's air quality linked pollution-related illness to heavy volumes of automobile traffic. As a result of poor air quality, children in New York City are almost twice as likely to be hospitalized for asthma as the national average, and a 2003 study found that the cost of asthma hospitalization was $242 million a year.
Our state legislators have the power to prevent the proposed service cuts. By implementing congestion pricing, the city would reap the rewards of improved transit service, faster travel times, increased productivity, and a healthier environment. There will be costs, but these costs will be borne largely by high-income individuals that choose to drive. The benefits, however, will be shared by everyone.
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Argument #3: "While drivers may be upset about the toll, they will be undoubtedly pleased when their travel speed has increased by 20-25 percent. "
Response: Laughable. Have you ever sat in one lane of the freeway, and watched what happens when the lane next to you starts moving 20-25% faster? You move to that lane. Guess what will happen when traffic speeds increase: Correct - more people will use their cars. People use mass transit because it's "the next best thing" to cars. If commutes are onerous, people will switch from driving to mass transit...until driving becomes less onerous. All things exist in equilibrium.
Argument #4: "Once a congestion charge is in place, there would be an immediate and perceptible drop in traffic congestion as drivers switch to transit or make their trips during off-peak hours, resulting in savings of $2.5 billion. "
Response: See Robert Moses, History of. "If we just build one more bridge, it will relieve all traffic congestion."
I could go on and on - in the end, "congestion pricing" will do several things:
1.)Increase the amount of money coming into the MTA (if that's where the money is funneled) - which union bosses will see and demand their share of.
2.)Cut low-income people out of driving
2a.)Make room for higher income people to drive
3.)Do nothing that solves the long-term structural deficiencies of the MTA's capital budget structure.
Argument #1: "Congestion pricing would provide the MTA with a stable source of revenue and end it's reliance on costly borrowing"
Reponse: The MTA already has a stable source of revenue - the revenue that comes from the users of the system, as well as tax subsidies and payouts from the government. Technically, this money should be sufficient to run all operations of the MTA, to fund direct capital investment, and to service debt directly related to capital expansion. Instead, increases in fares go elsewhere as well...to the pockets of the workers.
Argument #2: "Instead of seeing vital train and bus service disappear, we could instead be talking about new transit lines to underserved neighborhoods. New development, opportunities for affordable housing, and job creation would surely follow any new transit lines."
Response: Housing is typically "affordable" because it's not located where people want to live. Housing on Central Park West is not affordable. Housing in Malibu is not affordable. Housing built on the outskirts of Omaha is affordable...connect the dots. As soon as you connect previously "unconnected" parts of the world to the commuter grid, these areas become desirable. When that happens, the desire pushes prices up, moving the housing to the "unaffordable" column.
TBC
Congestion pricing is also a user fee, in the same way that paying the subway fare is a user fee.