And Did We Mention How Much Money We’d Raise?

Just in case the primary reason for instituting congestion pricing was unclear:

Queens politicians have been among the most steadfast opponents of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan. Only 2 of the borough’s 23 state legislators have so far spoken up for the scheme.

That’s confounding to Rohit Aggarwala, the city’s director of long-term planning and sustainability. He’s spent the last year crafting PlaNYC, which promotes 127 measures for not only a greener city but one that can accommodate a million more inhabitants by 2030. Congestion pricing is just part of the plan, but Aggarwala believes it may be the least understood.

. . .

The biggest benefit would be immediate improvements to mass transit, often in areas that are now lacking subway access. The congestion pricing system would claim $200 million of an anticipated $500 million federal grant, Aggarwala said, and the remainder would go to better transit.

“You can’t build a subway in five years, but you could increase bus frequency,” he said. “You could put in this signal-prioritization system so that the bus sends a signal to the traffic light and can get through. You can add new bus routes, either express or regular, and facilitate connections. There are places where the subway stations are three blocks apart, and we haven’t put in a free transfer. Well, with MetroCard you can do that very easily now — it’s a programming thing. You don’t have to build a tunnel anymore.”

He sees congestion pricing as a comprehensive, evolving plan, with dedicated bus lanes over East River bridges to compensate for increased subway ridership. An L train rider at Bedford Avenue, for example, may choose to switch to a bus for a one-seat ride to his Lower Manhattan office.

More importantly, the plan will take pressure off an already debt-ridden Metropolitan Transportation Authority, allowing it not only to provide better service but to keep fares down.

Congestion pricing, Aggarwala said, may save the Second Ave. Subway, East Side Access and other transit expansion projects.

“We need to come up with $31 billion in transit investment,” Aggarwala said. “That was really the fundamental place we started this plan. It wasn’t, well, do we do congestion pricing or not? It was, how do we solve this problem?”

For all the benefits of congestion pricing, it’s funny that you don’t see “alleviating traffic congestion” listed — or “reducing pollution,” for that matter.

Just A Little Sniffling Now, But Moving Towards Full-Blown Congestion For Sure

The idea of raising $400 million a year for public transit through fees on drivers isn’t terribly interesting. A bold plan to reduce traffic almost 15 percent through technologically exciting EZ-Pass doodads is slightly more interesting. Linking those doodads to reduced asthma rates for the children is pretty smart. But co-opting Critical Mass riders is basically a masterstroke:

At the first Legislative hearing on congestion pricing on June 8, the hearing room, in the stately Association of the Bar of the City of New York building in midtown, was packed with hundreds of supporters of congestion pricing wearing “I Breathe & I Vote” T-shirts. They ride their bikes to work, or eat vegetarian, or strive to leave a zero carbon footprint in their daily lives — in other words, they looked like the future.

Does it work? Check the polls:

The survey, conducted for a pro-plan group by Penn, Schoen & Berland, found 41 percent of residents of the city and the suburbs backed the plan when first asked, compared to just 13 percent opposed. Forty-six percent said they didn’t know enough to form an opinion.

When those polled were told of potential plan benefits, such as ending gridlock and reducing pollution-related health problems, support for the proposal jumped to 81 percent, according to the Campaign for New York’s Future, which funded the survey.

. . .

Campaign for New York’s Future spokesman Michael O’Loughlin said the poll showed that the more New Yorkers learn of Bloomberg’s plan, “the more they like it.”

However, in a separate statement, the polling firm noted that after being told that the plan would impose an $8 “congestion fee” on cars entering Manhattan below 86th Street during working hours, New Yorkers split 46 percent in favor and 46 percent opposed.

No more gridlock! No more asthma! Who wouldn’t agree? But for $8 . . . I don’t know.

Be Suspicious When A Politician Says He Or She Only Wants To Help The Children . . . Or The Environment (Or In Sheldon Silver’s Case, Both!)

So when Assembly Speaker Silver says that the health benefits of congestion pricing “aren’t clear,” what he really means is “there’s no way we’re going to allow you to collect hundreds of millions of dollars, no strings attached, like that troll Robert Moses sitting under the Triborough Bridge,” which in turn can be boiled down to the snappy slogan “Manhattan below 86th Street is not your own little private Triborough Bridge”:

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, in his strongest language yet against Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to charge people who drive into the most congested parts of Manhattan during the day, questioned the health benefits of the proposal yesterday. He also suggested that many of the environmental goals Mr. Bloomberg has outlined could be accomplished without congestion pricing.

His comments suggested that two hours of testimony by Mayor Bloomberg at an Assembly hearing on Friday had not swayed the Democrats who control the chamber. Mr. Silver even seemed to outline new concerns, saying that the plan could actually hurt areas with high asthma rates.

“The children of the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Harlem, among others, are the ones who have been exposed to a lot of pollutants,” he said. Not only would those neighborhoods not benefit from the plan, he said, “some of those areas will become parking lots with people driving around the neighborhoods looking for parking spots in order to avoid congestion pricing fees.”

“There is a plan that can be put together that would obviously alleviate the environmental negativism of what takes place in Manhattan right now,” he said, but added that it could be done “with or without” congestion pricing.

. . .

But Mr. Silver’s remarks underscored that he may once again serve as the mayor’s foil in Albany. His opposition doomed the mayor’s plan to build a West Side football stadium for the New York Jets. Asked about parallels to that battle, Mr. Silver harked back to the mayor’s contention then that a Manhattan stadium would not cause undue congestion.

The stadium, Mr. Silver pointed out, would have been “right in the middle of this congested zone.”

“At that time, a year ago, there obviously was no congestion,” he added, facetiously. “We can even put this stadium to attract 100,000 people to come in right in the middle of the zone and there was no problem.”

. . .

Mr. Silver’s skepticism partly reflects the wide concern about the plan among the more than 100 Democrats who control the Assembly.

“I’m sort of torn here,” said Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr., a Bronx Democrat. “On the one hand, I really want to address the environmental issues,” he said, but added that he was concerned that congestion pricing could mean “that folks from other places are going to park their cars in my community” or that the toll would end up being a tax on his constituents without much benefit.

“I think in its present state,” he said, “there are too many concerns, certainly for us to rush to any judgment.”

Mr. Silver said that he was left with “a lot of questions.” But he did not say outright that he would reject the plan, and said that it was “very possible” that an agreement on some environmental plan for the city could be struck by August.

Gay Marriage As Economic Generator

There are many reasons to support gay marriage but “increasing tourism revenue” is one of the weaker ones*:

Legalizing same-sex marriage in New York would be a monetary match made in heaven for the city and the state, city Comptroller William Thompson said yesterday.

His report found that allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry could yield $142 million in economic benefits for the city within three years and, on a net basis, add about $184 million in spending to the state’s economy. Thompson said the money would primarily derive from residents and visitors spending for their big day, as well as expenditures for their out-of-town guests.

“Overall, it is clear that contrary to some anti-equality arguments, marriage equality would in fact result in economic benefits to New York City and New York state in both the short- and long-term,” Thompson said. “New York City and New York state are losing money right now by not moving forward.”

Thompson said other potential outcomes of legalizing same-sex marriage could also include lower recruiting costs for local firms and an expanded pool of qualified candidates. Greater economic security from marriage may also lead to more couples buying homes, generating additional tax revenue.

Using Massachusetts as a guide, Thompson estimated that 51 percent of same-sex couples statewide would marry if given the opportunity. Within three years of legalization, Thompson estimated more than 56,000 couples would travel from out of state to marry in New York, resulting in spending of about $137 million. New York City, meanwhile, would receive an estimated $175 million boost to its economy during those first three years, largely from hotels.

*Question: Does the City Comptroller’s staff really sit around coming up with economic reasons to support gay marriage (What, is the Public Advocate busy or something? Just kidding!) and if yes, then tourism is all they could come up with?

Sooner Or Later You’re Going To Listen To Ralph Nader

The best reason to support congestion pricing is that it will cut the parking lot market off at its knees:

Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion tax is emerging as a terrifying business proposition for parking operators, who fear their market will be slashed to pieces.

“Parking is supply and demand economics in its purest form,” a parking consultant with Walker Parking Consultants, Andrew Hill, said. “You have to weigh the availability of transit options against the percentage of folks coming into the city with the appeal of driving, as well as local real estate conditions.”

Leasing a parking garage in Manhattan has long been a gold mine. “You had a set, fixed demand, and you’d fetch a good dollar for the service you were providing,” Mr. Hill said. “If Bloomberg caps access, it just cuts the market off at its knees.”

The Metropolitan Parking Association has been pouring big dollars into a newly formed anti-congestion pricing advocacy group, the Coalition to Keep NYC Congestion-Tax Free.

This in a place where the monthly price of a parking spot far exceeds the national average on a two-bedroom rental:

The most expensive parking spot — located at 2 E. 60th St. between Fifth and Madison avenues — now costs at least $1,183 a month, and more than $1,300 a month for an “exotic” car such as a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley, or an Alfa Romeo.

With many garages in that neighborhood charging more than $1,000 a month for oversize vehicles, the garage next to Mayor Bloomberg’s mansion on East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue suddenly seems a bargain at $829 a month. Compare that with the town of Bakersfield, Calif., where the most expensive parking lot charges about $50 a month.

Midtown Manhattan has for years been the most expensive neighborhood in America to park, according to the annual Colliers International North America Parking Rate Survey, which rates London’s parking the world’s most expensive. With most of the city’s priciest lots functioning near capacity, it seems that many Manhattan residents are willing to pay any price for the luxury of keeping a car in the city to allow for a spur-of-the-moment getaway. Some garages are even charging $200 for the right to reserve a spot.