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Congestion Pricing & the Lobbying Apparatus that Won't Take No For an Answer

Congestion Pricing Legislation was being Pushed in Albany over a Decade Ago ... so Who's Really in Charge?

March 26, 2019 / NYC Neighborhoods / NYC Politics & Government / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.

Last week I attended a Congestion Pricing Town Hall organized by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. Earlier in the week City Council Member Helen Rosenthal had organized one along the same lines because legislation is percolating in Albany.

Governor Cuomo appears to be itching to pass the Congestion Pricing legislation, likely so he can get his hands on more taxpayer money, while satisfying a whole host of private industry consultants and corporations. These consultants and corporations would then rake in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars thanks to Albany. So then would they recycle a small portion of the funds into the campaigns of the folks who supported it?

These days that seems to be the campaign funding cycle - where the voters get left out because they aren't minding the store. A government of the people, by the people and for the people doesn't work if the people aren't paying attention. Jefferson said, "Those who believe they can be ignorant and free, believe in something that never was and never shall be."

I. Congestion Pricing is a Very Expensive Taxation Plan

Let me start by outlining what the Congestion Pricing legislation really is, versus the myriad of narratives they've used to sell this pig. While they have said it will reduce congestion, reduce carbons, increase cycling, increase safety - note that all of these claims are highly debatable. Based on the research I've done, the Congestion Pricing Plan seems quite simply to be a very, very expensive means of taxation.

In London, where they implemented Congestion Pricing over a decade ago, as of a few years ago, only about half of the revenue made its way into public transit development. The other half was used to install and operate [and god knows what else] the new infrastructure. Click here to read a prior report we did which includes lots of facts, figures and the history and effects of congestion pricing in the U.S. and Europe.

It's worth noting that London decided NOT to go forward with the second proposed phase of Congestion Pricing. And it's worth mentioning that I found a lot of 'authoritative looking' disinformation out there regarding the London results, which one can surmise was encouraged - if not funded - by those who so handsomely profit from this sort of legislation.

If the government officials in Albany are going to increase our taxes, the least they could do is make it such that the taxation revenue that is collected is 100% usable, not 50% usable.

When you take away the incremental revenue generated by the Congestion Pricing Plan, you will clearly see that it DOES NOTHING TO SOLVE THE NYC MASS TRANSIT PROBLEM and there are far less expensive / more efficient / more beneficial means of taxation.

• CLICK here to read our report on the Congestion Pricing bill under consideration in the NYS Senate.

NYC / NYS Congestion Pricing 3.0

NYS Senators Liz Krueger & Brad Hoylman Host Community Transit Discussion

March 5, 2018 / Midtown Manhattan / Manhattan Neighborhoods / Manhattan Business / News Analysis & Opinion / Manhattan Buzz NYC.

It was a cool Thursday evening as I made my way to the CUNY Graduate Center in Midtown. The CUNY Graduate Center is located on Fifth Avenue just north of 34th Street kiddy-corner from the Empire State Building.

I was headed to a community discussion about the public transit crisis facing NYC. I suppose, not surprising, was that one of the Congestion Pricing representatives, Alex Matthiessen, was there to present. Alex started out the conversation with a presentation of the new Congestion Pricing Plan, which is now called Fix NYC, telling us how this Congestion Pricing plan was different from the two prior ones floated by the Bloomberg Administration and by Mattheissen's Move NY group a few years back.

Click here to read our report about NYC Congestion Pricing posted in March 2016 when we took a pretty in-depth view at who has been pushing this plan [consultancies & businesses that will profit from the infrastructure build out], how much of the London implementation revenue went back into improvements in that city [about 50%], how congestion pricing didn't reduce traffic, but time shifted traffic in a New Jersey bridge / tunnel implementation [they had claimed emissions reductions and used a 'green' label to promote the last version of this plan], and other important things to consider regarding implementing a 'new and improved' congestion pricing system along the East River Bridges.

Matthiessen started by telling us things we all know, from firsthand use of the century-old subway system, that is the backbone of the NYC public transit system - namely that it's crowded and has been slowing down due to capacity constraints, maintenance and improvements like the installation of the new signaling system which should enable the MTA to insert more cars on the track.

He then switched to the tolling on the bridges used by private motorists, where he talked about the toll structure, which he characterized as 'unfair', telling us that the motorists who use the East River Bridges are getting a free ride. I couldn't help but think that many of the motorists, who generally work and / or live in the boroughs, pay pretty huge sums of money in property or business taxes and / or rent, so to characterize them as getting a free ride didn't seem to factor in the whole scenario.

He then showed us the 'Fix NYC' plan which would change these rates, raising them for the East River Bridges and for Manhattan riders south of 60th Street, while reducing them for the bridges heading to New Jersey or upstate New York. The last piece of his presentation included a timeline for the implementation of this plan, which included:

1) Identifying 'transit deserts' where public transit isn't that effective.
2) Imposing added fees on for hire vehicles like taxies, Uber and others operating in the south of 60th Street Manhattan zone.
3) Set up and begin operating tolls on all East River bridges, with some possible exceptions.
4) 'Lock boxing' the revenue so that it can't be used for other political agendas.

What I found interesting about the 'Fix NYC' plan versus the prior version, the 'Move NY' plan was:

1) That they weren't making the misleading claims previously proffered about saving the environment by reducing traffic.
2) They continued not to discuss the expense of the implementation and operation, nor about what percentage of the proceeds will actually make it to funding public transit improvements [not that I would necessarily believe the 'estimates', as in political implementations they are all too frequently underestimated on the cost side and overestimated on the revenue side].
3) And none of this really 'fixes' the public transit system, which Matthiessen originally highlighted in the beginning of the presentation - as the subways and buses - not so much the roads. I understand that the buses use the roads, but it's important to note that buses represent less than 25% of public transit rides.

So, while the 'Fix NYC' doesn't seem to really fix anything, it does appear to be a very expensive method of taxing people for something for which they are already paying in their state and local taxes. Matthiessen told us the plan would raise $1.5 billion, but did not present that as a 'net of costs' number. He compared it with other taxation methods like raising gas, sales, auto registration or millionaires' tax [proposed by Mayor de Blasio], which would cost very little to implement as the infrastructure and operating costs for collecting those taxes are already in place.

Following Matthiessen's presentation, a panel of speakers came onto the stage. Each then gave a short presentation of who they were and what they're working on related to NYC's transit problem.

First up was Polly Trottenberg who is the Commissioner of the Department of Transportation. She began by telling us what public transit the city controls versus what is controlled by the state.

To be continued at a later date.

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Governor Hochul Scraps the Ill Conceived LGA - Willets Point Air Train

Former Governor Cuomo's Air Train Seemed More About Catering to the Whims of the Billionaire Class, than in Streamlining Public Transit

March 15, 2023 / NYC Neighborhoods / News Analysis & Opinion / Queens Buzz NYC / 1066.

In 2017 I attended a Community Board meeting in Astoria where our urban planners talked about new improvements coming to LaGuardia Airport. Since then a number of those plans have come to fruition. But one of them, what at the time was called the third phase, the Air Train to LGA, has not. Use the link to see the thinking nearly six years ago when the plans had been drafted and the construction was about to begin. I'm happy to say that we flagged and reported to you a number of the issues with the LGA Air Train early on, which we've included in the list below.

The photo at right shows the CTA [Chicago Transit Authority] subway that runs along the Kennedy Expressway from downtown Chicago to O'Hare Airport which vies with Atlanta for the title of the busiest airport in the U.S..

The Former Emperor [Governor Cuomo] had No Clothes [Sound Public Interest Rationale]

On Monday, Governor Hochul announced what was already well known and expected, which was that the Air Train shuttling between LaGuardia Airport and Flushing Meadows Corona Park, would not be built.

There were any number of good reasons why the LGA Air Train should not have been built, such as: 1) the costs of building the train would cost more than five times the original estimated cost of under $500 million to over $2.5 billion, 2) then, implicit in a number of alternatives, there was the idiocy of connecting the LGA Air Train, to the second most trafficked subway line [the #7] in NYC, which was already nearing peak capacity pre-pandemic, 3) the politically and billionaire preferred alternative destination, Willets Point on Flushing Bay, had just been cleaned up after decades of environmental pollution, and would again be threatened again, and to top it all off, 4) the politically and billionaire preferred Willets Point alternative required all of the people traveling to and from LaGuardia on public transit, to travel out to Flushing first, before circling back around to LaGuardia Airport. The billionaires who would have benefitted from this include billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross and [now minority interest] Mets Club billionaire owners Saul B. Katz and Fred Wilpon. The new Mets baseball team owner, Steve Cohen, is also a billionaire.

CLICK here to read our report on Governor Hochul scraps the LGA to Flushing Meadows Corona Park Air Train.

NYC News Round Up Mid October 2021

MTA Ridership Bouncing Above the Halfway Line, Columbus Day Weekend Travel Numbers, Movies & Theaters Attendance Update, Demographics of Office Workers Returning to Work in NYC and CoVid Vaccination Progress NYC NYS & USA

October 12, 2021 / NYC Neighborhoods / NYC Things To Do Events / Gotham Buzz NYC.

Weather. The temperature highs will range from the low to the high 70's throughout the week, while the temperature lows will be in the 60's all week. Winds will be 4 - 8 mph all week. Humidity will range from the mid 70% to mid 80% Tuesday and Wednesday, dropping to between the mid 60% - 70% range on Thursday and Friday. No rain is in the forecast until Saturday, so you can get the update in our Friday post.

The image at right was taken from the official website of the military health system in the U.S. It shows George Washington, who back in 1776 ordered his troops to get vaccinated against small pox, as the Continental Army was losing more men to disease than were being killed by the British. Here we are over two centuries later, and about a fifth to a quarter of the people in this nation, think they are being 'patriotic' by defying vaccination mandates - like Texas Governor Greg ButtHead and Florida Governor Ron De Stupido. We discuss where these people's confidence in their incredible ignorance comes from, below. The champion of American ignorance was born in Australia.

MTA Ridership Running at 45% - 65% of 2019 Volume

Both the subways and buses are running at near or over half their pre-pandemic ridership. While that may not be great news, it's encouraging, as we've been tracking the MTA's progress since the pandemic hit, and these numbers are about the best posted.

It's important to put things in context, and that is that NYC tourism contributes to MTA usage and it's still nowhere close to normal [like the MTA ridership numbers], and many white collar workers are still working remotely because many large Manhattan based corporate operations delayed their plans to return to the office in September 2021 - kicking the deadline to January 2022 because of the CoVid Delta variant surge.

The photo at right was taken a few weeks ago in Grand Central Station. Things have a come a long way from where they were a year ago.

I wish the non-vaxers would quit listening to the hypocritical pundits on Fox News, the NY Post & WSJ who are reportedly all - or mostly - vaccinated, including the Australian born billionaire and Goebbels-like owner himself, Rupert Murdoch. It was reported that about 90% of all Fox employees have been vaccinated, and for those who resist there's a very stringent testing regimen.

• CLICK here to read the rest of our report about the NYC economy is coming back as more people get vaccinated, in spite of Rupert Murdoch's mass media CoVid disinformation campaign.

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Update: LaGuardia Airport Development Project

First Phase Moving Along with Second & Third Phases About to Begin

April 24, 2017 / Astoria Neighborhood / Queens Real Estate / Gotham Buzz NYC.

I attended a Community Board One meeting at the Astoria World Manor on Wednesday, April 19th. People representing the LaGuardia Airport development project were scheduled to provide the community with an update regarding several of the multi-billion dollar renovation projects associated with LaGuardia Airport, that are either currently in the works or nearing the end of the planning process.

The presentation was split into three parts: 1) LaGuardia Airport development project construction updates, 2) traffic mitigation efforts and 3) community outreach including job opportunities related to the projects.

Click here to read our report on the LaGuardia Airport development project & expansion, related job opportunities, its possible impact on travel times to the airport and the public hearing details on May 3rd, 2017 in Flushing. We have also included a small bit of history about the airport and the fight over the property and development in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The graphic at right was created as part of the LaGuardia Airport development project.