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http://keepnycfree.com/reports/files/2007-10_Alternative_Approaches.pdf
Executive Summary:
Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free proposes a cost-effective, efficient, fair and practical alternative plan that will address the problems posed by congestion in New York City and exceed the guidelines imposed by the Urban Partnership Agreement between the USDOT and New York City, New York State and the MTA. Key elements of this alternative plan include:
- Value pricing for curbside parking in the Manhattan CBD. Sharply reducing the number of "free" on-street parking spaces in commercial areas of Midtown and Lower Manhattan and increasing the price of on-street parking.
- Major reform of the City's system for issuing parking placards to City employees, and for regulating their use, in order to limit issuance of placards to those who need them for job-related purposes, end illegal parking by placard-holders, and encourage public employees to use mass transit.
- Greatly expanding the number of taxi stands in the Manhattan CBD, along with other measures to reduce the time cabbies spend cruising for passengers - a practice that by itself accounts for approximately 13 percent of all vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) in the CBD.
- Implementing variable pricing on existing tolled crossings serving the CBD and restoring two-way truck tolls on the Verrazano Bridge. Increasing MTA and Port Authority bridge and tunnel tolls, incorporating variations in pricing by crossing and by time of day; and removing the existing incentive for trucks heading to New Jersey from Long Island, Queens and Brooklyn to travel via the Manhattan CBD by restoring two-way tolls on the Verrazano Bridge.
- Increasing fines for the types of parking violations that contribute most to congestion in the Manhattan CBD (double-parking, parking in bus stops or loading/unloading zones, etc.), coupled with more aggressive enforcement and legislation that strengthens the City's ability to enforce existing rules against "blocking the box."
- Reducing congestion caused by "black cars" and non-yellow for-hire vehicles through a targeted campaign against parking and other violations these for-hire vehicles contribute to congestion; and exploring the feasibility of creating designated parking zones for these vehicles.
- Modernizing traffic signals in the Manhattan CBD, to enable NYCDOT to manage the flow of traffic more effectively through "real-time" adjustments in signal timing.
A look at the City's congestion pricing plan highlights how it fails the test of equity, efficiency and economic viability:
- The City's plan disproportionately hits the pockets of middle-class and working New Yorkers who live outside the proposed congestion zone.
- The City's plan shifts traffic and pollution to neighborhoods outside the congestion zone.
- The City's plan requires and depends on massive spending on infrastructure (they claim $233.6 million; London paid more for much less - $376 million).
- The City's highly inefficient plan loses 39 percent of all revenues raised to its cost of operation.
- The City's plan, if implemented, imposes substantial harm to New York City's economy:
. Some $100 million annually in "compliance costs," the value of time motorists and businesses will have to spend paying congestion charges (or appealing fines for late payment, etc.).
. As much as $690 million overall reduction in economic activity in the City, a loss of as many as 8,700 jobs, and tens of millions of dollars in lost State and City tax revenues.
- The City's plan fails to efficiently use its existing value-pricing system (existing bridge and tunnel toll infrastructure).
The primary flaw in the City's congestion pricing plan is that it indiscriminately taxes all vehicles whether or not they are a direct cause of congestion; it thus fails to focus on the root causes of congestion. These include:
- Unnecessary cruising by yellow-medallion cabs (accounts for 13% of total VMTs in the congestion zone).
- Undervaluing on-street parking (mid-day cruising for on-street parking accounted for 15% of all VMTs in West Midtown; 28% of those driving in Soho are looking for parking).
- An out-of-control and permissive placard and permit system (86% of all cars with placards around City Hall parked illegally; 88% of all cars with placards around Chinatown parked illegally).
- The 10,000 trucks that drive through Manhattan daily with no point of origin or destination in Manhattan.
- Undervaluing of parking and traffic fines and the lack of consistent, aggressive enforcement.
- Undervaluing of tunnel and bridge crossings during peak periods.
- The 30,000 "black cars" and other non-yellow for-hire vehicles that clog our streets in Midtown and Lower Manhattan.