"Regressive"? What's That?
NY State Assemblymember Richard Brodsky -- the diabolically effective public face of the forces that this week killed traffic relief for NYC -- informs us (through a staff member): "Of course congestion pricing is regressive."
Hello? Here's what the City's premier transportation statistician, Bruce Schaller, found in his comprehensive 2007 report on NYC travel data, City in Flux:
* Auto commuters have higher incomes than transit riders.
* Among Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island residents who work in Manhattan, auto commuters earn 32% more than subway commuters and 15% more than bus commuters. [2000 Census data]
* Auto commuters living in Manhattan earn 20% more than bus commuters and 18% more than subway commuters.
* Similar earnings gaps are seen among residents of outlying areas of the outer boroughs.
* Among commuters from outlying parts of the city that lack direct subway access, auto commuters earn 35% more than do subway commuters.
When did c.p. opponents decide that facts don't matter?
Friends, I'm trying to treat Brodsky relationally -- he's a political force in NY State, and clearly any future initiative to fund transit and reclaim city streets from cars will have to bring him on board. But there needs to be some regard for the facts, no?
As for Brodsky's aide's other canard, "Congestion pricing approved prior to an environmental analysis is a terrible precedent." Folks, the 17-member Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission (on which Brodsky served) did an extraordinary amount of careful environmental review in the past six months. Commission staff fully vetted the "official" plan and exhaustively analyzed alternatives. It's hard to imagine what additional review might have been necessary, and what further facts it could have provided (let alone whether Mr. Brodsky would have considered them).
No, the "environmental review" argument is just another fig leaf with which opponents of congestion pricing can cloak their decision to continue giving away the most precious resource in NYC -- our streetscape -- to drivers, and to condemn another generation of New Yorkers to incessant, damaging, spirit-destroying traffic.