Content-Description: 7Dec2006 MI-CRD road pricing panel transcript.doc

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MANHATTAN INSTITUTE
          Road Pricing Worked in London - Can It Work in New York?

                              December 7, 2006

[START CD 1]

HOPE COHEN:  Okay, it's 8:30, so I'd like to welcome all of you
who have battled your way through holiday season traffic on the streets,
underneath the streets, however you came to be here today for what promises
to be a very informative and animated, even passionate discussion.

As the response to this program came pouring in over the last
couple of weeks, the offices of the Manhattan institute were abuzz with the
suggestion that we apply congestion pricing to the RSVP process.

I am Hope Cohen, the Deputy Director of the Center for
Rethinking Development at the Manhattan Institute.  At CRD we work to
foster a new understanding of the importance of good development to the
city's wellbeing.  Traditionally, that's meant focusing on issues of zoning
and planning and housing.

But more recently, we have begun to focus on the infrastructure
needed to make New York work.  In fact, next Wednesday, the 13th, same
time, same place, perhaps a different room, we'll be having a program on
powering New York's development, looking at the electrical infrastructure
that needs to be built in the next 20 years to support a power-thirsty
metropolis.

But we're here today sponsoring this program and issuing
"Battling Traffic:  What New Yorker's Think About Road Pricing," because we
believe that good transportation is vital for the function and growth of
the city; and frankly, our transportation system is strained almost to the
breaking point in many places and clearly will not be able to handle the
additional million people anticipated to be here in the next generation.

So we have to start figuring out how to be-how to make it work
better, be more efficient, and that includes discouraging unnecessary and
inefficient car trips; especially, but not only in Manhattan.

New York's clogged streets increase the difficulty and cost of
building, as well as all of the other costs you're about to hear about
shortly from Kathryn Wylde.  And the noise, stress, and pollution make New
York less attractive than it can be in competing for businesses and
residence.

Road pricing solutions have been around for about 50 years, and
they are embraced by transportation and environmental elites; but New
Yorkers, politically, have just never accepted these ideas.  Will they now,
that traffic gets worse and worse, and the city is poised to grow, and with
electronic toll collection, like E-ZPass?

We actually have the technology to do it.  That's what we hired
Bruce Schaller to find out.  And in seeing the coverage of the
Partnership's study over the last few days, including Mayor Bloomberg's
remarks, it's clear that public acceptability is still the key question.

So today we're going to hear first from Kathryn Wylde about the
study just released by the Partnership for New York City; and then Bruce
Schaller will discuss his research and findings; then Sam Schwartz, who
proposed a congestion pricing plan for New York in 1980; and council member
David Weprin, who speaks so eloquently for the people of eastern Queens
will weigh in on the pros and cons.  And I promise we will get to the Q & A
as soon as possible.

So let me introduce all of our distinguished speakers now.  You
also have their bios in your handout in the order that they'll be speaking.

Kathryn Wylde is President and CEO of the Partnership for New
York City, the preeminent business leadership organization.  She has been
with the Partnership since 1982 in a variety of leadership positions, and
has been instrumental in its role in the revitalization of our city in the
last 25 years.

She serves on a number of boards and advisory groups, including
the Mayor's Sustainability Advisory Board, and the Port Author, and many
others that, again, you can read in your handout.

Bruce Schaller is a nationally recognized expert on
transportation policy.  He has consulted for many transportation and
transit agencies, including the NTA and the Taxi and Limousine Commission
here in New York, as well as many advocacy and planning organizations,
ranging from the Regional Plan Association, to Transportation Alternatives,
to the Straphanger's Campaign.

He's also a visiting practitioner at the Rudin Center for
Transportation Studies at the Wagner School at NYU, and he writes the
monthly Gotham Gazette column on transportation.

Sam Schwartz is the President and CEO of Sam Schwartz
Engineering and, of course, the legendary Gridlock Sam, and I just learned,
Gridlock Schmool [phonetic] of the Yiddish News Report.  [laughter]

Before starting his consulting practice, he was at New York
City's Department of Transportation for 20 years, including being in charge
of getting people around during the legendary transit strike of 1980, an
experience that inspired him to propose a congestion pricing plan at that
time.

In addition to his many awards and honors, he's written many
books and articles, and is an educator, as well, also affiliated with the
Rudin Center at the Wagner School, as well as having taught at Cooper
Union, and LIU, and Brooklyn College, and public high schools, and setting
up the School for the Physical City.

Council member David Weprin was elected to Council in 2001,
serving since 2002, from the very start as the Chair of the Finance
Committee of New York City Council.  He comes from a distinguished
political family, with his father having been the Speaker of the New York
State Assembly, and his brother in the Assembly now.

And he, before the Council, he was at Donaldson, Lefkin, and
Jenrette, Kidder, Peabody, Paine Webber.  He serves on too many boards for
me to even list in the printed bio there.  So.

He has not only the Queen's point of view from his district, but
the citywide point of view as being responsible for the Council's work on
the New York City budget.

So without further ado, I'm going to have Kathryn Wylde come up
and talk about the Partnership's study.

KATHRYN WYLDE:  I just have to press a button, right?  Do I
press the down button?  I'm not good at audiovisual.  Which one?  H down?
Okay, I got it.  Okay, thank you very much.

The Partnership for New York City is a business leadership
organization.  We really got involved in the issue of congestion and
congestion pricing as a result of the experience of our international
business companies in London and other cities around the world that saw
dramatic improvements in their traffic congestion situation when they
introduced road charging schemes, as they say in London.

The Partnership, though, felt that we had to look at the
potential economic impact of what would happen with congestion pricing, and
then we stood back and said, "Well, wait a minute.  But the first thing we
have to do is understand what is the impact of traffic congestion on our
economy."

And we found that there really was no evidence or no
information, no strategy or methodology for approaching economic impact.
So we found someone named David Lewis, who's a transportation economist,
runs a firm out of Ottawa called Decision Economics, as part of a company
called HDR.

And we recruited them, and we've worked, really, for the last
year to try and work with the economists to develop what is, in fact, a new
approach that is different from what's been done in the past by traffic and
transportation experts, which is really taking a look at what is the cost
and impacts on the overall economy at a macro level, and on a granular
level at individual industry sectors.

And the report that we have that's available and complete on our
website will give you a detailed understanding of how we've gone about the
process of the conclusions that I'm going to highlight very quickly today,
and give you kind of a top line on, again, the costs of congestion.

The bottom line is that, from a standpoint of out-of-pocket
costs, lost revenues in the New York metro region, which we include the 28-
county, tri-state, metro New York region, the cost is of traffic congestion
is well over thirteen billion dollars a year annually lost from our
economy.

And at a macro level, we're talking about economic contraction
of the economy by another three to four billion dollars a year and up to
52,000 lost jobs a year.  So the bottom line got our attention.

It became clear that looking at congestion and also its
remedies, one had to look, at the same time, at transit options and make
sure that we had those in place.  So that became a major part of the study.

This is a summary, basically, of the findings in various
categories, and each of these was built from models, sort of from the
ground up.  And, again, this is cumulatively something that in the regional
economy shows that traffic congestion is something we have to do something
about, that this is the cost of doing nothing.  There's a lot of focus in
the talk about congestion pricing.

Well, what would it cost, in terms of how many dollars a day,
and whose pockets would that come out of?  Today, right now, this is what's
coming out of the pockets of every New Yorker, every employer in New York,
everybody who visits.  It far exceeds anything that anyone's suggesting in
a congestion pricing scheme.

This is a regional problem.  This maps shows, in the colored-in
areas, where during peak periods traffic travels at less than 12 miles per
hour across the region, and I think this is something that we haven't been
conscious enough of.  Similarly, the distribution of hours delay in the
region.  As you see, Long Island, which is far more dependent on cars than
the rest of the region, suffers most, with Queens close behind, with 20% of
the traffic congestion delay being in the borough of Queens.

The other thing that David Lewis did for us, and his team of
economists, was come up with a definition and a way to calculate the
tipping point.  The usual argument is, and we all know, we want a busy
city.  We want people coming into Manhattan.  We want traffic and activity.

There is a point at which, however, that that traffic goes
negative on us and starts destroying our economy, discouraging people from
coming in, where the costs, the inefficiencies, the logistics make it a bad
place to do business.  And the calculation that David Lewis made, and which
is reflected in detail in our report, concluded that 48% of the traffic in
New York City is excess traffic, destructive traffic causing inefficiency
and losses from our economy.

When we do the quantification, the thirteen billion numbers, the
52,000 lost jobs, all we're talking about is that excess congestion.  We
are not talking about normal traffic that we all can put up with.

The distribution of excess congestion, again, this damaging
congestion, as you'll see, again, you're talking about numbers that are
pretty evenly distributed.  While Manhattan is the source of the problem,
the entire metropolitan region suffers, and you'll see that the boroughs of
Queens and Brooklyn, here we're talking about losses of more than two
billion dollars a year from their local borough economies because of excess
congestion.

The source of the problem, again, Manhattan central business
district, which is the concentration of economic activity for a 28-county
region.  Fortunately, we have a great mass transit system; 67% of the
people in the region take mass transit coming into Manhattan.

But of the 3.6 million people who come in every day, only 1.8
million of them coming to work.  A third come by vehicle, plus there's
600,000 people living there, and virtually every tourist that comes to New
York City visits Manhattan south of 60th Street.

This translates into, today, 810,000 vehicles a day, 40% single
occupancy vehicles, 19% just passing through.  Surprisingly, we were
surprised, and we took a close look at this, trucks account for only 5.4%.
Intuitively, most New Yorkers think trucks are responsible for our
congestion problem.  By virtue of volume, certainly, they are not.

There are issues like accommodation of trucks and freight
loading facilities.  Certainly, there's a lot that has to be done there.
But our analysis indicates that messing with trucks could really mess up
our economy, the logistics and the costs associated with just in time
delivery.  We don't have a rail freight system serving this region.  We are
entirely dependent on trucks, and small business, in particular, would be
totally damaged if we started regulating truck time.

So we looked closely at that option, thinking that that might be
the low-hanging fruit, and it turned out not to be.

The future.  In the next 25 years, as Hope mentioned, a million
more residents, 750,000 more jobs, and a projected 20% increase in the
vehicles entering Manhattan, reaching over a million daily.

Economic damage.  The excess congestion, again, loss of business
revenues, increased cost of doing business-and this was, again, kind of an
epiphany.  We ask ourselves all the time, what is contributing to the cost
of doing business in New York?

You know, higher salaries, in a way, directly relate to the
length of commute and the difficulty of commute in terms of attracting
talent.  Just as an example, the logistical costs, the delay costs, the
parking tickets.  There are a whole series of costs associated with traffic
congestion that we've begun now to quantify and understand.  Plus, the
productivity losses.

We are a headquarters city, and that means people coming in and
out by airplanes, in particular, and having to move from the airports into
the center city and out again for us to be able to function.

All of this has affected the work, not just commute, which is
the traditional way of measuring delay-and New York has the longest
commutes in the country-but also it is the work-related travel during the
day that's adding to the costs for employers that really starts to take a
toll on the economy.

These are a just a snapshot, and I'll mention just a couple.  We
wonder why construction costs are going up 1% a month in New York.  Major
contributor to construction problems and delays is traffic congestion.
Similarly, manufacturing, which is an industry we've been hemorrhaging for
the last decade, and we ask ourselves why and what can we do about it?

These are very low margin sectors where, again, the cost of
inventory and a high cost real estate market, of keeping inventory, the
cost of shipping and delay all are passed along.

This affects both operating costs and lost revenues.  As you
see, wholesale trade-this is the trucking industry, which is an obvious
problem.  And all these costs, of course, are passed along to retailers.

I wanted you to know that these numbers may seem small.  These
are adjusted for regional displacement.  So, for example, when somebody
wants goes to a restaurant, if traffic congestion discourages them from
coming to the center city to a restaurant, they go to a restaurant in the
region.

The economic model has adjusted and taken out all that
displacement that stays within the 28-county region.  So now we're really
talking about lost business to the region.  We're not talking about
displaced business.

Again, the job losses are concentrated in Manhattan, on a
percentage basis, because that's where the huge concentration of jobs is.
But every county, including nearby New Jersey, is suffering a significant
loss of jobs because of traffic congestion generated by the magnetic pull
of Manhattan and the through traffic that's going to and from Manhattan,
but felt throughout the region.

We looked at what London is doing, and most of you are familiar
with this, with the London demonstration.  They started in February 2003.
They have a system that includes a daily charge for entering the center
city and exemptions for bikes, taxis, and special user groups.  And the
wonderful thing about technology and E-ZPass is that you can do just about
anything with these systems.

The results in London, after three years-and this is current, as
of now.  Anybody that tells you it's not working in London is not paying
attention.  Average 17% reduction in total traffic.  Bus ridership up 37%.

Before the instituted congestion pricing district, London bought
300 buses, equipped them with global positioning devices, and set up a
system that really was able to accommodate additional people.  Obviously,
capacity is a huge problem in New York, as well.

Trip speed is 19%.  Trip reliability, which is most important to
a business and professional service, is financial services, where you don't
have to leave half an hour early to make sure you get someplace.  And the
huge reduction in CO2 compliance and annual net revenues, after the
expenses of the system, that are applied exclusively to transit upgrades.

Only 15% of the folks driving into center city changed what they
were doing to achieve those dramatic results; 85% pay the fee and keep
going; 50% of those who changed what they were doing shifted to transit.

There are a number of options for New York in the traffic area,
and we certainly do not think congestion pricing is the first or only one
of them.  We do think that you have to go very carefully when dealing with
freight, but that there is much that can be done with incentives for better
accommodation and management of freight onsite.

On-street parking offers an opportunity, and there's been some
work done in that area; not enough to accommodate commercial traffic at
curbside.  More needs to be done.  I'm sure more will be said later on
public parking permits, among other things.

Bus rapid transit, which is being tested now, and offers promise
for moving more quickly; although, again, buses can only move as fast as
general traffic until we have dedicated lanes set up, and in much of the
most congested part of the city and particularly on the Manhattan Street
grid.  This is going to be very hard to achieve without a general
improvement in traffic.

Expanded regional ferry network is something we've been arguing
for, for a long time, and can be done at a relatively low cost.  And
finally, introducing road charges and looking at congestion pricing as
another option.

If we were to achieve what London has, which is a 15% change in
how people go to work, getting out of cars and going by other means, by
public transit in particular.  This would be the impact in terms of traffic
in Manhattan, if we got the London results.

Manhattan traffic would be reduced down 27%; downtown Brooklyn
29%; South Bronx 7%; 125th Street 18%.  As you can see, there's a ripple
effect, importantly.  Staten Island 5%.  Significant impact throughout the
region, if we were to achieve what London has achieved.

So our recommendation, this week in the Federal Register, the
Federal Department of Transportation is putting out an offer.  They're
going to select five cities to enter into urban partnerships, which will
give federal funding for further study of congestion relief measures and
will also provide those cities that participate with priority for their
public transit funding investments, in terms of moving to the top of the
list and provide some extra funds for them.  And that's what we're
recommending.  So thank you.  [applause]

BRUCE SCHALLER:  Well, good morning.  It's good to see such a
crowd here today for what looks like a popular topic.  I'd like to start by
thanking Hope Cohen and the Manhattan Institute for the opportunity to work
on this important and timely issue.  I'd also like to thank others of you
who are here this morning who helped us in the research with your advice.
Thank you.

So the first question that comes to mind when you start to think
about things like congestion pricing is why would you want to think about
something like this?

As we've seen in the media this week, and I'm sure we'll see in
the discussion, as we move through the morning, there's strong public
resistance to such things as congestion pricing.

That resistance is based, in part, on opposition to anything
like a fee, or toll, which often comes across as a tax; and we know how
people feel about taxes.

There's also strong concern about how pricing would affect
certain groups, such as low income people, and people who lack a good
transit alternative to the motor vehicle.

There are, however, a number of reasons to look at congestion
pricing and other types of fees and charges for the use of streets and
highways, which together we're calling road pricing.  There's the cost of
congestion to the city's economy, as Kathy has detailed in her excellent
report.

There's also the way that unpredictable travel times, truck and
auto exhaust, distresses, and sometimes the peril of just crossing the
street make New York less the kind of city that New Yorkers would like to
live in.

Traffic congestion isn't just an economic issue.  It's also, for
the average New Yorker, traffic congestion is an important quality of life
issue and one that recent polls show most New Yorkers very much want the
city to do something about.

Moreover, it's hard to see, as has been mentioned already twice,
how we're going to accommodate another million new residents in New York,
if we don't do something about the traffic.

And a final and very important reason to talk about road pricing
is it's effective.  It works.  Cities such as London, Stockholm, and
Singapore have shown reductions of up to 35% in the number of vehicles
which are subject to a charge coming into the center city.

There's no other options on the table-none that I can think of,
or have read about, or talked about-that would have such an impact on
traffic congestion.

Even with these reasons in support of looking at road pricing
options, there's obviously strong opposition, as I mentioned.  A recent
public opinion poll, showed by the Tri-state Transportation Campaign,
showed that in New York City the public is evenly divided in terms of
congestion pricing.

So, clearly, the main barrier-and as the Mayor's comments
earlier this week reflected-the main barrier to road pricing is
acceptability to the public and the political implications of that.  And so
in this research we set out to face this squarely.

The questions we asked were, "What role, if any, should road
pricing play in improving transportation in New York City?"  "What type of
plan would improve transportation in New York City?"  Not just kind of big
picture, but improved transportation in the day-to-day experiences of
people throughout the city and the suburban areas, as they move around.
"What would be a sensible road pricing plan, one that would gain public
acceptance and support?"

So those were the research questions.  This is the first
research to look in-depth at these questions, and so we chose a focus group
methodology to explore them.  We did eight different groups with different
segments that represent every type of transportation throughout the region,
residents from both the city and the suburbs.

We also did focus groups with small businesses, restaurants, and
retail, and also companies that make deliveries in Manhattan.  We wanted to
understand the public's views about road pricing from every possible
perspective.

In each of these three groups, we tested three road pricing
concepts, which I'll just go through quickly.  First, a London style
congestion pricing, which I think you know how that works.  It would apply
below 60th Street in Manhattan.

Second, a concept of express lanes with tolls on selected
highways throughout the five boroughs.  These express lanes would be
reserved for high occupancy vehicles like cars with three or more people,
obviously a bus, and then other cars that would use E-ZPass to pay a toll
to use the lane; which a number of these lanes are already around the
country.

The toll would be set high enough to maintain uncongested speeds
in the express lane, while the general purpose lane would presumably remain
highly congested.

And then the third concept we looked at is increasing the cost
of metered on-street parking in commercial areas of the city.  The purpose
of this is to increase the turnover of vehicles in the spots, make it
easier to find an open spot, and to encourage motorists to use off-street
parking for longer stays.

By talking about this range of forms of road pricing, we were
able, in focus groups, to obtain a three-dimensional understanding of the
contours of what people do and don't like about pricing.

So how did our focus groups respond to these concepts?  Well,
overall, express lanes with tolls receive the broadest support.  Even
drivers who use highways outside Manhattan were particularly in favor of
this concept, showing that those who would pay the charges will support at
least this one form of road pricing.

And so a major conclusion from the research is that road pricing
is not a political non-starter.  Certain forms of road pricing can win
public support from people who wouldn't pay, as well as people who would
pay the charge.

Response to congestion pricing was mixed, similar to the poll
results that I showed earlier.  Some people supported the concept, some
people were very strongly opposed.  Reaction, very notably, the reaction
was mixed in each of the segments we looked at, so reaction was mixed among
transit user, as well as among auto users.

The tri-state poll also had the same result, and I'll talk in a
minute about why that was the case.  Reaction was mixed within the groups.
Reaction was also mixed both at the beginning of the discussions and after
our extensive discussion of congestion pricing in each of the focus groups.

And so a second major conclusion of the study is that London
style congestion pricing is unlikely to win broad support in New York City.
 The same conclusion, the same type of mixed response and the same
conclusion really applies, as well, to the parking fee concept that was
tested in the focus groups.

So given these results, it raises the question of why a concept
like express lanes with tolls attracts broad support, even from those who
would pay the tolls, while other pricing concepts that we tested received
very mixed results.

What are the ingredients that must be present in a successful
road pricing program?  When looking at the reaction to the three concepts,
we identified six factors that underlie or that drive the public response
to road pricing.  And so one of our basic conclusions here is that in
thinking about road pricing, one needs to look at these six factors and
give basically a positive answer to each of the questions posed.

First, people have to believe that pricing will, in fact, induce
fewer people to drive.  Now, this may seem sort of obvious, but it's a very
important point.  For example, many auto users expect, thinking about this,
they expect, well, I'm going to continue to drive.  I like the comfort, the
convenience of my car.  It's a hassle to take public transportation from
areas like eastern Queens, the outer parts of Brooklyn, and Staten Island,
into the Manhattan central business district.

So if I'm going to continue to drive, so will other people.  So
pricing won't affect congestion, and that's what makes it a task.  It
becomes sort of a mandatory feel with no benefit to me.

Drivers from eastern Queens, outer parts of Brooklyn, and Staten
Island were particularly adamant in this view, as were the delivery company
owners who make deliveries in Manhattan, who felt bad, given trucks,
commercial vehicles, taxicabs being predominant in mid-town during the day.
 Those vehicles need to be there.  There won't be much impact of pricing by
reducing congestion in that situation.

Second, pricing needs to lead to improvements in people's day-to-
day experience of the transportation system.  So, for example, a subway
commuter may be, at best, lukewarm toward pricing, unless it addresses the
problems they personally experience in terms of things like subway
crowding, which conceivably pricing could even worsen in delays on subways
and buses.

Third is the concept of improving transportation choices, not
just the mode that I'm using now, but the choice that I have to select
from.  We saw the drivers support the express lane concept, because it
gives them a new choice.  When they're in a hurry, they can choose to pay a
toll to have an uncongested, a faster trip.  At other times, if they don't
want to pay the toll, ,they can do the same thing they do now, in terms of
being in general purpose, more congested lanes.

A fourth consideration is the impact on other New Yorkers.
People don't just think of the impact of pricing on them personally.  They
think-in discussing this, focus group respondents thought about particular
types of people who would be affected by a charge.

They thought about the working person, parents dropping off kids
at school, the elderly going to medical appointments in the Manhattan
central business district, and, of course, commuters who lack viable
transit options.

The impact of pricing on these groups may lead transit users, as
well as auto users, to oppose pricing.  That's what we saw particularly in
the transit user focus groups.

Next, it's also important that the program is enforced and that
revenues be used for the purposes that they're intended, mainly public
transportation, and also road improvements.  People cited things like OTB
and the lottery as cases where revenues raised by that were promised for
one thing, but in their perception, were actually used for something else.

And finally-and Kathy emphasized this, and I also want to
emphasize this-non-pricing steps should encourage the use of public
transportation and address the very many and varied causes of traffic
congestion.

Pricing does not solve all problems, by any means.  So you have
the impact of deliveries in commercial areas, the impact of taxicabs
picking up and dropping off at places other than right along the curb.  You
have so many people crossing the street, blocking movements of cars trying
to make a turn.

There's many causes of congestion.  People in the focus groups
were very sophisticated about all the things that contribute to congestion
and the need for a comprehensive set of programs.  No one program will do
the trick.

So what would be a sensible and effective plan that meets the
public's needs, that answers these questions?  Our conclusions come in two
parts:  first, a specific plan for road pricing that I'll set out for
discussion purposes, as a basis for discussion; and then secondly a road
map for moving from where we are today toward a consideration of road
pricing in New York.

The first element of the plan is a targeted form of congestion
pricing.  It's a targeted form, because the charges apply only at the times
and places that congestion is most severe.  And I think we all know what
those are.  It's coming inbound into the Manhattan central business
district, the area below 60th Street, coming inbound in the morning rush
hour; mid-day throughout the Manhattan CBD; and then leaving the CBD in the
afternoon rush hour.

So rather than having one relatively large charge that would
apply from 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning until 6:30 at night, the way that
London has done, our plan has three smaller charges that are targeted at
each of these key times and places, each of these types of trips.

So first there'd be an a.m. cordon fee, which would apply to
vehicles entering the central business district below 60th Street in
Manhattan in the a.m. peak.

The fee might be variable, so it might start lower and then rise
over this time period, as traffic builds.  Motorists driving into the CBD
would pay the fee as they cross the Hudson River, or the East River, or as
they cross 60th Street.  Those driving out of the CBD would not pay, so
reverse commuters would not pay, nor would anyone that's simply making a
trip from one place to another within the CBD in this morning peak period
time.

Second, there'd be a mid-day fee that would apply from, say,
around 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  This fee would apply to any vehicle driving
in the Manhattan CBD, whether the trips are within the CBD coming in or
going out of the CBD.

Then there would be a p.m. cordon fee, which would apply to
vehicles leaving the CBD in the afternoon peak.  Like the a.m. fee, the
p.m. fee would not apply to vehicles going in the reverse direction, nor to
vehicles simply traveling within the CBD.  So each of these targets, the
times and places the congestion is most severe.

For the discussion, we suggested that each of these fees would
be $4.  In addition to the CBD fees, the plan includes express lanes on
selected major highways throughout the city.  Express lanes would be open
to vehicles that would pay a toll for the use of them, as well as to high
occupancy vehicles, and buses, and the like.

An essential part of this is that the fees would vary by time of
day.  It would be highest when congestion is most severe, which might be
rush hour, might be mid-day, might be throughout all those periods,
depending on the highway.

On the other hand, there would be no fee for using the lanes,
the express lanes, when the general purpose lane is uncongested.  Express
lanes would be implemented on major highways, as practicable, given the
physical and operational constraints which are quite considerable.  An
upcoming study for the New York State Department of Transportation will
help to identify feasible highway corridors.

And then the final part of the plan is to pilot a parking fee
program on selected blocks in commercial areas.  And here I've just tried
to indicate with my little boxes the selective nature of it.

The charges would be set to achieve a reasonable level of
vehicular turnover, in order to demonstrate to people the effectiveness of
this approach in increasing the availability of parking.  People in the
focus groups were very skeptical that any type of parking pricing would
actually make it easier to find a spot.  And so I think the first step is
to do a pilot that shows people that this would, in fact, be the case and
provide a basis for further discussion.

How would this plan affect various types of trips?  Well, let's
take a few examples.  The rush hour commuter who drives over the Brooklyn
Bridge would pay $8 in fees per day, $4 inbound in the morning, then park,
and then $4 outbound in the afternoon.  The same commuter who goes home
late in the day would pay the a.m. fee of $4, but no p.m. fee, if they're
going home after 6:30 p.m.  So, again, it applies to each trip.  It sort of
has an incentive to go home later.  It doesn't apply if you go later.

A salesperson who commutes into Manhattan and then drives around
during the day making calls would pay $12, the most that anyone would pay
per day.  Motorists would receive a credit on the a.m. and p.m. cordon fees
for any bridge or tunnel tolls that they might pay.  Thus, a rush hour
commuter from Queens who uses the mid-town tunnel would pay the tunnel fee,
the tunnel toll, as they do now, but would not pay a cordon fee.

A number of drivers would pay no fees; for example, the janitor
who works midnight to 8:00 a.m.  These are groups of people or categories
of people that in the focus groups expressed particular concern about:
someone driving in for a Broadway show, driving in the late afternoon; the
CBD resident who's out commuting to Queens; or the parent, say, who lives
on the Lower East Side, and drops off the kids at a downtown school and
parks by 10:00 in the morning.

The plan we recommend recognizes that traffic congestion is a
citywide problem.  I think Kathy's slides show that very well, and we have
maps, as well, in the report.

So the express lanes are one method of providing citywide
traffic relief.  The CBD cordon fees also reduce traffic, not just below
60th Street, but in downtown Brooklyn, Long Island city, on the Upper East
Side, and Upper West Side, and many other parts of the city, as well,
because fewer motorists would be driving into the Manhattan CBD.

This plan particularly helps downtown Brooklyn and Long Island
city by removing the incentives for motorists to use the free East River
bridges in order to avoid the tunnel tolls.  The plan targets road pricing
to the times and places the congestion is most severe; thus, as we've seen
from the examples, minimizing the effects on motorists who are not really a
part of the congestion problem.

This is a plan for all of New York.  It selects the best
practice elements from London, Stockholm, and Sweden, in terms of express
tolls from other parts of this country, to meet the needs of our city and
provide citywide traffic relief.

So that's the pricing part of the plan.  Now I'll just briefly
go over the equally important non-pricing elements of the plan.  I'm being
thrown hints to speed through this.

First, revenues from fees and tolls should be used to improve
transit and roads in the city.  Most of the funds should be allocated to
improvements in public transportation, especially to areas where people
drive because they're not well-served by public transportation.

The first map here shows that the heaviest concentrations of
auto commuters to the CBD live in eastern Queens, Staten Island, and
interestingly, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.  These areas need
faster and more reliable transit service to the CBD, which could be paid
for using congestion fees.

Now, I saw in the papers this week that people talk about folks
in eastern Queens as not having subway service, and so the assumption is
that they all drive into the CBD.  In fact, this isn't the case.  The next
map shows that there is no area of the city-you can put your finger
anyplace in the city, and you will not be able to put your finger on any
place where most people going to work into the CBD are driving.

Anyplace you look, most people are using public transportation
or other means to get to work.  So if you look at eastern Queens, for
example, by a two to one majority, CBD commuters from these areas already
use public transportation.  They would be helped by this plan, assuming
that the revenue is used to improve their commutes.

Other key elements here, the allocation of revenues to public
transportation and roads needs to be guaranteed through some appropriate
mechanism.  This needs further discussion.  People are very concerned about
what will actually happen to the revenues.

There needs to be a carefully designed array of non-pricing
congestion reduction steps, as we've discussed already.  And overall,
really, that's a part of it.  It's essential to show that things are moving
in the right direction by implementing short-term programs currently in the
planning stages, like bus rapid transit.

And finally, there should be a public dialog about
transportation problems, the importance of doing something about them, the
advantages and the disadvantages of a range of both pricing and non-pricing
solutions, and the impact of alternative solutions on congestion, equity,
and other considerations.

New York needs to have a broad discussion about how traffic
congestion affects the economy and our quality of life and what we want to
do about it.  This study and our discussion today are intended to
contribute to that dialog.

Now, in closing here, I'll say that there are clearly many
challenges to pursuing the plan that we recommend.  The details need to be
discussed and refined.  There are substantial institutional hurdles.  There
are substantial challenges in terms of just getting the technology right.

But despite these challenges, at this point we are able to
answer a few key questions.  Can a plan that includes road pricing work as
intended?  Well, from the experience of London and elsewhere, we see that
the answer is yes.  Would it have a beneficial effect on the city's
economy?  From the partnership study, we see the answer is yes.

Would it improve the quality of life in the city?  From the
focus groups, we see very clearly that the answer is yes.  Can it gain
support from the public?  We see from this research, the answer is yes.
Thank you.  [applause]

SAM SCHWARTZ:  Yes.  Can you hear me?  Okay, I'll speak from
here.  If congestion pricing is such a good idea, and it was a good idea
back in 1980 and in 1970.  How come it hasn't been implemented?  What's
going wrong with congestion pricing?

Plans like this have surfaced in the past.  I think it's really
important to look at the history and then figure out is there a way we can
address the concerns?  I know Councilman Weprin has a lot of concerns, and
you're about to hear it.

How can we address the concerns of the people from Brooklyn, and
the people from Queens, and from Staten Island, and other boroughs in
dealing with this issue?

Looking at the history, we had congestion pricing.  We always
had, until 1911, there were tolls on the East River bridges.  Every way to
get into Manhattan was tolled.  After an assassination attempt on Mayor
William Gaynor's life, tolls were removed.  I'm told it was unconnected.
[laughter]  I'm still seeing if there was some connection and find the
guilty party.

In 1951, congestion pricing, the concept of using a capitalist
approach to traffic was conceived here by William Vickery, an economics
professor at Columbia University who went on to win the Nobel Prize.  I'm
so jealous that London did it first, when it was born here in New York.

In 1973, '71 to '73, I worked with Brian Ketchum on the
transportation control plan, and we had congestion pricing in the
transportation control plan.  We got it approved by John Lindsay and
Governor Malcolm Wilson, at the time.  And then we were beaten down by
Elizabeth Holtzman, a Brooklyn congresswoman, and Daniel Moynihan, with the
Holtzman-Moynihan Amendment.

Abe Beam asked me to look at it, and I came up with a conclusion
that it would work, and that report never got the light of day.  In 1980,
during the transit strike, in which we ran the city for 11 days, a much
longer transit strike than we just saw.  Post strike, we were hailed as
heroes, and we were asked, what could we do?  And we singled out the single
occupant car and said, if anybody should have to pay to come into
Manhattan, it's the single occupant car.

We got local laws saying the single occupant car must use the
toll facilities.  They couldn't use the free bridges from 6:00 a.m. to
10:00 a.m..  Ironically, we were sued by the Garage Board of Trade.  All
the garages practiced congestion pricing, and my friends and clients, I
hear, who are going to beat me up right after this.  But we were also sued
by the Automobile Club.

In 1976, under Ross Sandler, again, with Ed Koch, we released
what was referred to as the jerconian [phonetic] measures, including
congestion pricing.  We didn't call it the jerconian measures.  Others
called it that.

So we've gotten beaten up over the years.  I'm a veteran of
this.  I'd like to see it.  I think it has a lot of very positive effects,
but it's got to be a different program.

What we have in New York right now stinks.  We have the world's
worst pricing scheme.  We toll people to go from Queens to Queens and the
Rockaways, but we don't toll people to go from Queens into the central
business district over the Queensboro Bridge.

We toll everybody going from Staten Island anywhere.  We toll
anybody going from Queens from Councilman Weprin's district, going up to
the Bronx.

So my plan is to take the tolls, remove all the tolls from the
Verrazano Bridge, where they don't belong, from the Whitestone Bridge, the
Throgs Neck Bridge, the Gill Hodges Bridge out to the Rockaways, the Cross
Bay Boulevard Bridge, and only apply congestion pricing where you have two
things:  congestion and good transit alternatives.  So you apply that to
the central business district.

What does that do?  First of all, the program can't be viewed as
a tax.  That's what's killing it.  Tax, tax, tax.  What politician is going
to say I voted for a tax?  It should be a revenue neutral program.

TBTA collects a billion dollars now.  It should be a billion
dollars afterwards.  The Port Authority-by the way, everybody from New
Jersey faces congestion pricing.  The Port Authority collects-I forget-600
million.  It should stay at that level with some inflation thrown into it.
So it's not a tax.

Secondly, the people from Brooklyn and Queens would suddenly
have five river crossings that they wouldn't have to pay any tolls on.  And
the only place that they would pay tolls is not on the river crossings, but
when they get into the central business district.

If you want to ride, come over the Brooklyn Bridge, go on the
FDR Drive, go out the Willis Avenue Bridge to the Bronx, I would say no
toll.  You didn't set rubber in mid-town Manhattan.

So I think we need to re-think things.  We have to give
Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, a great deal in this.  We have to
recognize that we are dealing with drivers, and they are part of the
population.  I think those of us who have been advocating congestion
pricing for a long time have been talking to each other.  We've been
talking to people who ride the subways.  We haven't been talking to people
who drive cars.

We've got to, if we're going to make this work, make it real
congestion pricing.  London didn't set up tolls 20 or 30 miles out of
central London.  Their congestion pricing is in central London.  That's the
only place it belongs.

And if we do that, maybe we've got a chance, and I won't be back
here in 20 years.  I don't know if I've got that much longer in this
business to be talking about congestion pricing.  Thank you.  [applause]

DAVID WEPRIN:  I don't have any slide shows, and I don't have
the historical perspective that Sam Schwartz has, so I'm just going to tell
you a story.

I'm going to tell you story about a man who drives his Rolls
Royce into downtown Manhattan.  And he's about to go on a two-week business
trip.  And he goes into a bank in downtown Manhattan and asks for a $5,000
loan.  The loan officer comes out and says, "Do you have any collateral for
that loan?"  The man says, "Well, I have my Rolls Royce here.  It's worth a
lot of money."  "Okay, that works.  We'll take your Rolls Royce."

He took it in to the private parking garage underground for
senior executives of the bank.  And the man leaves it there, and takes his
$5,000, and goes to Europe for two weeks.  He comes back two weeks later.

He goes back to the same bank.  He goes back to the same loan
officer and says, "I'd like to pay off my loan."  So the loan officer says,
"That's fine.  It'll be $5,000 in principle and $15 in interest.

The man quickly writes a check for $5,015, and the loan officer,
before the man leaves, says, "Excuse me, sir.  We were just wondering, why
would a man who drives a Rolls Royce need a $5,000 loan?"  The man said,
"Well, I really didn't, frankly, but where else can I park my car in
Manhattan for two weeks for $15?"

That's a whole other issue, I guess, of what we'll get into.  A
lot has been said about eastern Queens, and I do represent a district in
eastern Queens.  And the nearest subway to most of my district is three or
four miles.  In some cases, it's about a mile and a half to the 179th
Street subway.  But we're also not accessible to bus lines, for the most
part.

So, really, most people who take public transportation in Queens
actually take their car to that public transportation.  The Queens Chamber
of Commerce did a study and showed about 40% of the people that actually
commute into Manhattan do actually come from Queens, and a lot of it is the
fact that they really have no choice for business.

And we do rely on those free bridges, because it gets expensive,
if you're talking about residents with relatively modest incomes.  You can
argue the statistics.  The Queens Chamber of Commerce did a study and said
that the average income of a Queens commuter was $42,000.  Kathy Wylde
actually grabbed me before and said, "That statistic is wrong.  It's really
$72,000 or $75,000."

Even $72,000 or $75,000, we're not talking about wealthy
individuals.  And when you're dealing with individuals who are middle class
and barely struggling to make a living, imposing what I consider a tax-and
it is a tax on those residents-is really not fair.

I know Sam Schwartz referred to making all the bridges free.
Using the hat of my prior investment banking career, there might be some
issues of outstanding bonds because, of course, you have 30 and 20-year
bonds outstanding, and there are certain covenants involving the revenue
earmarked for the debt service.

I'm sure there's some legal issues, but I guess it is an
intriguing possibility for future discussion.  But, as you know, this is
not a new topic, and Sam Schwartz will be the first one to tell you that it
isn't a new topic.

Frankly, I think there is a major problem with congestion, and
I'll be the first one to say that.  I don't think there's any question.
But I don't think the answer is to tax residents of Queens, Brooklyn,
Staten Island, and the Bronx.  I think the problem is enforcement of
existing traffic rules.

I've actually come up with about four or five different
suggestions of how we can actually reduce traffic with the current pricing
scheme.  Just offhand-and those of you that have driven in Manhattan, or
even those of you that have been taking taxis in Manhattan, know the
problem with double and triple parked cars all over Manhattan.  Really,
clearly, that is illegal.  There's no enforcement.  We have to really put
more resources into actually cracking down on enforcement of double and
triple parked cars.

Taxicabs very often, they're actually required to pick up and
discharge passengers at the curb or close to the curb.  How many times have
you been in the flow of traffic-I know I have-where a taxicab would stop
dead right in the middle of the road and cause major congestion, because
they're picking up a fare or discharging a fare?

We need additional public transportation.  I'm the first one
that'll say that I'd love to see a subway in my district.  I'd love to see
more express buses in my district, because even those are very limited.  We
have some express buses, but in recent years they've actually been cut
back, and we really need more express buses.

That's another way to deal with that issue.  But there's no
question that a lot of the congestion in Manhattan deals with traffic
problems and traffic enforcement of existing laws, such as double and
triple parking, such as taxicabs that are discharging and picking up
passengers illegally, as well as other, you know, violations of existing
traffic laws.

You know, if you're talking about the London experience-and a
lot of people have referred to the London experience-in some ways, the
London experience has been good, as far as reducing traffic, but there have
also been Chamber of Commerces in the London area that have disputed-not
disputed that the London experience has reduced traffic, but disputed the
fact that it's hurt the economy and hurt the economy significantly.

Just to cite a couple of statistics in the London experience,
750 businesses closed in one year.  84% of businesses experienced a drop in
sales.  62% of businesses reported a decline in customers.  And in the case
of the London experience, actually, the fees have gone up significantly.

Some people have talked about modest fees.  In London, they
started at 8.75 and actually went to $14.00 for the business district in
less than three years, and there's a proposal by the mayor to increase the
charge actually even higher than that.  And some different proposals range
from $17.50 a day to $48.00 a day.

There's no question that if we were talking about those type of
fees, it would really burden those individuals and commuters from the other
than Manhattan Boroughs.  I won't say outer boroughs, but the four boroughs
out of Manhattan that really do rely on their cars for business.

There's another issue with driving.  As I mentioned, there are
people that will end up, if congestion pricing is placed in, will drive to
other parts of Queens, other parts of Brooklyn, and then take the public
transportation.

But the problem is I'm not sure that those areas, those
neighborhoods could accommodate the additional congestion, one, getting to
those areas, and two, the actual parking situation and looking for parking
spaces in other places that are already a problem in parts of Long Island
city and other parts of Brooklyn.  You know, that would just be multiplied
significantly.

So just to sum up-because I know we want to hear from question
and answers, and I know everybody wants to participate.  I believe there's
no question that it's nice to use the word fee.  We do that in city hall,
as well, when we don't want to talk about taxes.  But this is really an
additional tax on individuals that really can't afford it.

Those residents that live in the outer boroughs, the other
boroughs and Manhattan, who are really middle class people, whether they're
making $42,000 a year or $75,000 a year, they're really not wealthy
individuals, and in most cases, they would not take their car, if they
didn't feel the necessity to take their car.

And you're also talking about a number of small businesses that
really do rely on their cars, and we don't want to price small businesses
out of the city.  Thank you.  [applause]

MS. COHEN:  Thank you all.  Because we're running a little
behind where I wanted to, I'm going to seed the moderator's prerogative.
I'm not going to ask the first question.  I'm just going to throw out some
things that I heard that might be particular areas to discuss.  One is
congestion as a citywide problem, not just in the Manhattan CBD.

Another is parking and all its implications.  And a third would
be what about-maybe it's related to parking-what about getting to public
transportation, where it's not immediately available and the burden on
public transportation if people left their cars.  Follow the mic.  Back on
the left.

WALTER McCAFFREY:  Thank you.  Hi.  I'm Walter McCaffrey.  I'm
from a group that has recently been formed called Keep New York City
Congestion Tax Free.  Bruce was absolutely right when he pointed out that
there, in any discussion, are critical assumptions, and there are two
significant floors in discussions that are going on.

One, in terms of the type of public support that's out there.
The tri-state poll, for example ended up judging on the basis that in their
assumption and their questioning that it was a $2 means charge.

Well, I've got to tell you, politically, having been a council
member for 16 years, that when it gets to be eight or ten times that, the
support isn't dead even.  It drops into the basement.  And so that's an
assumption that is out there, and it's an assumption that, for example,
you're going to have a mayor of the city of New York change what has been a
policy of the last five mayors not to take fees and to apply them
specifically to concepts out there, other than the general revenue.

I mean, the chairman of the finance committee will tell you that
that's the experience in the city of New York.  Mayors are loathe to do
that.  That's a critical assumption here, however, that money is going to
be generated first.  And we don't know, even if any of these estimates are
accurate, that they'll be sufficient funds generated to supply mass transit
improvements, as to whether or not they'll even be put into place.

And so those are some of the critical assumptions that are out
there, that until people can have some realistic discussion, not just
theoretical never-never land discussions, but real political legalities out
there, can a proposal ever move forward in that regard.

MS. COHEN:  I see that council member Weprin would like to
respond to that.

MR. WEPRIN:  Yeah.  Walter McCaffrey raises a good-can you hear
me-raises a good point as far as the revenue portion.

It's been my history, as head of the finance committee for the
last five years, that even when agency heads generate their own income,
they cannot spend that income, and there's a lot of historical reasons for
that, but the money does end up going into the general fund, and there's a
whole list of various priorities.

So, you know, there's no question about that, as well.  The
amounts of money we're talking about, in my opinion, again,
disproportionately affect those commuters that really do rely on their
cars.  But you do make a good point, which I don't think was raised before,
that there's no guarantee that the money will go into mass transportation,
affecting those individuals, certainly, that really would need it.

To do a subway system in Queens-how long did it take for the
Second Avenue Subway to actually get going?  And I guess we're getting
close.  That may help.  But if you were going to do a subway system in
Queens, I think you're talking about, you know, trillions of dollars over a
long period of time.

MS. COHEN:  I see our other panelists want to chime in here.  I
just want to urge everybody to be as brief as possible, so that we can hear
as many questions as possible.  Bruce and then Kathy.

MR. SCHALLER:  Just real briefly, I'm not sure about the tri-
state poll, but the amount of money we were talking about in the focus
groups was comparable to what I talked about in the presentation.  And
secondly, I know many city agencies collect money that's used only for
certain programs, their own programs.  That's a policy issue.  It's not
something that you couldn't do, unless you just didn't want to.

MS. WYLDE:  I was just going to say, Walter is right with
respect to the use of tax revenues, but not with respect to user fees,
which is what we're talking about here.  All the tolls for the bridges are
dedicated to pay for the transportation, for example.  There's no, I mean,
there's no precedent breaking thing here for user fees.  You're confusing
it with general tax revenues.  [inaudible response]  Hm?  [inaudible
response]

MS. COHEN:  Next question right on the left.

MALE VOICE:  Going back to the suggestion, you have to give
alternatives.  It might not be a bad idea to look at starting this off
with, number one, high user lanes, which are choices, and then perhaps if
you had a congestion fee, using your congestion fee only as it relates to
people who come in, in single vehicle occupancy, in single occupancy
vehicles into the city, which I think you'd learn pretty fast how quickly
that incentive changed behavior.

And it would perhaps start to answer councilman Weprin's point
that there are a very large number of people who are outside of the ability
to get to public transportation, because it would give them a choice of a
way to not have to pay any additional fee by doubling up with someone.  It
might be easier to get it through.

MS. WYLDE:  I think that number-it's a good point.  I think that
number is 40% of the vehicles coming in, so that's a very good point.

MR. SCHWARTZ:  I'd like to say that all studies that I've seen,
it's 60%, Kathy, so I don't know where you got that number.  But that
number alone, if you doubled up those people, you'd see the 15% reduction,
and that's why we singled that out in 1980.  But, as you know, we were
sued.  The city did, in fact, pass that rule.

MS. COHEN:  From now on, when you ask a question, if you could
just identify yourself and your affiliation.  Here in the front.

[END CD 1]

[START CD 2]

MR. DICK ANDERSON:  Dick Anderson, New York Building Congress.
I think we all know, the people in this room, that many factors drive
public policy.  And one of the things that drives public policy is crisis.
And I was trying to think of where the crisis is here.  Where's the crisis,
Sam, that would have brought us over the top with something like this?

The crisis I think that's coming, may be sooner rather than
later, is lack of money for the MTA.  Have you, any of you thought about
how that real crisis, where the MTA is going to be so starved for capital
and operating funds that that would really help in reaching a decision on
this?  Because we need the money.  It's not just that we have to deal with
congestion, but we need the money for public transit.

MS. COHEN:  Sam looks eager to answer that.

MR. SCHWARTZ:  Yeah.  I see a different crisis, Dick, and it's
here right now.  I represent lots of developers building all over New York
City.  Every community and group I go into, they say, what are you going to
do about the traffic?

How can we add another billion people?  That's going to affect
the whole building industry, our whole construction industry, our economic
engine.  We have a crisis today on fitting this additional million people
in, unless we solve our traffic problem.

MS. COHEN:  Don't worry.  It's a million, not a billion.
[laughter]

MR. STEVE STRAUSS:  Steve Strauss, New York City Comptroller's
Office.  I think it's interesting that some of the skeptics are opponents
of congestion pricing always like to play off four boroughs versus one
borough, but it's interesting.  If you look at the Nemtek [phonetic] cordon
counts, I believe the number is 37% or 38% of the people coming into this
central business district are coming from north of 60th Street and
Manhattan.  Some of them might be coming over the Queensboro Bridge.

So I don't think it's necessary-and then we have all these
people from New Jersey.  So I'm not sure that the burden falls so much on
Brooklyn and Queens.  And maybe Bruce or Sam may want to think about sort
of talk a little bit about the distribution of the people that are coming
into the Manhattan CBD and how many are from northern Manhattan, how many
are from New Jersey?

MR. SCHWARTZ:  I'd say four and a half boroughs, other than the
central business district.

MR. SCHALLER:  Just a comment.  Yes, obviously, Steve, they're
coming in from all over the city, from the north, as well as from the east
and west.  You know, I think it's really unfortunate that this issue
becomes Manhattan versus the outer borough issue, and it's unfortunate not
just because of the way it plays out in a political way, but it's
unfortunate because it doesn't solve the problem, and the problem is
congestion.

The problem is citywide, and I think we need citywide solutions.
 That's what I've tried to lay out.  And I think that making it into
Manhattan versus the outer borough issue may-there's obviously a political
advantage to that, but it's not serving people's constituents well, who are
in Queens, and Brooklyn, and other parts of the city, who are experiencing
congestion where they live every day and would like to see solutions.

And we saw very strongly that people are seeing all the condos
go up and see that as being a real problem.  That's the crisis, if you
will, and we'd like to see real solutions.  And I think that's what, you
know, pricing and non-pricing-not to distinguish and say either/or, but to
look at what combination of things makes the most sense and will be most
effective.

And the attraction to pricing is it's clearly the most
effective.  Enforcement by itself is not going to get us there.

MS. WYLDE:  And it raises money for transit.

MR. SCHALLER:  And it raises money for transit.  Yes.

MS. COHEN:  Way in the back.

MR. MILTON INGERMAN:  Hi.  My name is Milton Ingerman.  I'm a
private practitioner of medicine in the city.  I have been here for many,
many years.  While I was in the service down in Washington a number of
years ago, I noticed a system which I think should be considered.

At major intersections, the traffic light would turn red for
vehicular traffic in all directions, thus giving the pedestrian an
opportunity to cross again in all directions for a particular period of
time, 90 seconds, two minutes, whatever.

And after that, the normal pattern of traffic light again would
resume where the pedestrians cannot cross at all, and the vehicular traffic
would be free to go in the appropriate direction.

I think that would alleviate significant congestion.  If anybody
has ever gone done Fifth Avenue, or Park Avenue, up Madison Avenue, to make
a turn is ridiculous, and it's dangerous for the people, as well.

MS. COHEN:  That's clearly a traffic engineering question for
Sam.

MR. SCHWARTZ:  Yes.  And that wasn't invented in Washington.  It
was invented right here.  Henry Barnes did the bonds dance in the 1960s.
Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, among a number of other locations.  It still
exists at Vanderbilt and 42nd.  Broadway and Battery Place and about 17
other locations.

The traffic department deemed that there wasn't enough capacity
on some of the streets to have that additional phase for pedestrians.  If
we introduce programs like congestion pricing in our densest areas, I think
we can easily go back to programs like that, and I think we can easily
widen sidewalks and easily plant more trees in our city.  [applause]

MS. COHEN:  I see somebody.

MS. CAROLYN KONHEIM:  I'm Carolyn Konheim from Community
Consulting Services, a Brooklyn-based organization working with
communities.  And the most important principle that we have to employ is
equity, is the equal tolling of all crossings.  It's the inequality between
toll prices that distorts traffic patterns and causes the enormous
congestion around Long Island city, downtown Brooklyn, and every place
where people have a choice.  We have to equalize the costs.

MS. WYLDE:  Yeah, I'd like to just throw in a comment there-I
see the next gentleman with a question-and that is, in a sense, don't we
already see some congestion pricing at work, in the fact that on the East
River crossings, some have a fee and some do not, and doesn't that affect
what people choose to do when they travel and where they travel?

MR. SCHWARTZ:  Yeah.  You know, I agree with Carolyn.  This is
an absurd system where you can shop for a bridge.  We have sales on our
bridges.

If you're a trucker, and you have a choice of riding expressways
and going out the Verrazano Bridge and paying $40, staying on limited
access highways where you should, or we invite you to go through the
Queensboro Bridge for free and out the Lincoln Tunnel for free, so you can
travel and tour mid-town Manhattan.  It's absurd!  It's an absurd system.

MR. WEPRIN:  It's a different system.  I don't think it's an
absurd system, because I think you're giving consumers choices in some
ways.  My constituents that drive, myself included, make that decision each
and every day whether to take a free bridge or a toll bridge, depending on
where they're going.

I can't tell you how many times my constituents have used the
Queensboro Bridge because it is free, even though it may be closer to the
mid-town tunnel or closer to the Tri-Borough Bridge.

But that's a decision you make, and it's also based on how much
time you have to get there, whether you're going for leisure purposes, or
whether you're late for a meeting, whether you're early for a meeting.

But it really is a consumer decision that you make, and my
constituents and other constituents in other boroughs, in the four and a
half boroughs, make that decision, and in some ways it's an economic
decision, yes.  But, you know, I'm a strong advocate for not tolling the
free bridges.  So that's another fight.

Actually, the mayor brought it up when we had a fiscal problem
in 2002, and he realized that that 45/45 chart was much more 90/10 at that
point, from hearing from people about tolling the free bridges.

So we can debate that back and forth, but I think if you polled
all the 8.2 million residents in the city, you'd see overwhelming
opposition to tolling the free bridges.

MS. COHEN:  Kind of analogous to the express lanes that Bruce
was talking about, where you actually have a choice of spending more time
and less money, or more money and less time.  Kathy wants to respond as
well.

MS. WYLDE:  I just think that is a way to get popular responses,
your study pointed out, by providing consumer choice.  But I think what
gets lost in this discussion is we're talking about a limited public
commodity that is being subsidized by everybody.  And to talk about
consumer choice in that context, I think is kind of a false set of
assumptions.

MS. COHEN:  Sam, and then we do have the next question.

MR. SCHWARTZ:  Yeah.  I want to explain why I think the
councilman's choice is a bad choice for New York City.  What it results in
is that the Queensboro Bridge, which should have 110,000 vehicles a day,
has 150,000 vehicles a day, and those additional vehicles come from the mid-
town tunnel and come from the Tri-Borough Bridge, with no revenue stream to
fix the Queensboro Bridge.

It's been crumbling, and all of our bridges have been crumbling,
because there's been no revenue base.  So it's been bad for us to have that
extra 40,000 vehicles pounding the bridge with no revenue stream to
maintain the bridge.

MS. COHEN:  This gentleman has been waiting.

JOHN FALCOKI [phonetic]:  Yeah.  John Falcoki of Polytechnic
University.  And I think, picking up on what Sam said, I think we need a
compelling reason.  Actually, Dick Anderson said that we really need a
compelling reason for congestion pricing.

I don't think the case has been made.  I think you can develop
statistical data that shows how much delay we are experiencing that could
be avoided, how much this is costing us, and all of that.  And you can
build your arguments in a compelling way that way, but I don't think it's
compelling for decision makers to accept it as a real problem that needs to
be fixed.

We need money to upgrade our facilities, to maintain them.  How
do we get it?  Congestion pricing would be a source of revenue.  We need
better mobility.  Well, everybody needs better mobility, but right now
drivers of private vehicles or commercial vehicles, they are accepting
congestion by the cuing that they are willing to withstand every day.

I don't read any reports that say that the commuters by car are
demanding that something be done about congestion.  Everybody complains
about it.  The people on the Long Island Expressway, the longest parking
lot in existence.  They do that every day!  They are not, they are not
really irrational.  They are making choices, and those choices result in
the behavior they now exhibit.

So what's the compelling reason for congestion pricing?  I don't
think I've heard that yet.

MS. COHEN:  Anybody?  I thought maybe Kathy would want to say
something about that.  Maybe not.  Okay, then we can move on to the next
question.  Way in the back has been waiting.

RAMON CRUZ:  Hi.  I'm Ramon Cruz from Environmental Defense.
And something that often gets not mentioned in debates like this is a
compelling reason for traffic reduction that is the health effects of this
problem.

And, for example, tailpipe pollution is linked to asthma,
cancer, heart disease and other respiratory illness.  And more than 80% of
the cancer risk from toxic chemicals in the air that New Yorkers breathe
comes from tailpipe pollution.

I live just a few blocks from downtown Brooklyn, one of the
asthma hotspots of New York City.  And while I agree with many of the
traffic relief measures that council member Weprin mentioned, in order to
get 29% traffic reduction, as Ms. Wylde mentioned in her presentation, we
need 15% reduction.  No?

So I was wondering what other measures could have 15% reduction
that could help to solve the compelling-what we think is a compelling
reason to reduce the health effects of traffic congestion.

MS. COHEN:  Bruce, I think, do you want to talk about some other
things that can be done?

MR. SCHALLER:  Right.  Well, I'll just make a short point, which
is that there's a lot of non-pricing things that need to be done, and we've
talked about some in our report and the Partnership, as well.  But none of
them, to my knowledge, come anywhere close to the 15% or more that you
would get from pricing.

And just to go back to John's point for a second, the previous
question, is I think that it's very clear that New Yorkers do want
something done about traffic congestion.  It's very clear that it is a
problem for both motorists and everybody else.

The question is what are people willing to accept?  What should
the program be?  That's what we're here to look at.  But I don't think it's
a viable argument that people are happy with the way things are now.

MS. COHEN:  Way in the back.

MR. JOSHUA BEANSTALK:  Thank you.  I'm Joshua Beanstalk.  I'm
with the Queens Chamber of Commerce.  The MTA recently reported that
ridership is up in New York City 36% over the last ten years, while the
number of cars entering the central business district is relatively stable.

It seems like the solution is staring us all in the face, and
we're not focusing on it.  Councilman Weprin pointed it out.  If we improve
mass transit in those areas which are seriously under-serviced right now,
the people are going to come.  They've been coming over the last ten years.

They have been coming because the cost of gas has gone up, the
cost of maintaining cars has gone up.  But to punish the riders to achieve
the goal, who are the people going to be who are the 30% who no longer
drive into Manhattan?  Will it be the people driving their limos, or will
it be the average working person who says, the $1,700 more a year is just
too much for me to bear?  Are we going to make New York City even more
elitist than it already is?  [applause]

MS. COHEN:  Council member Weprin.

MR. WEPRIN:  Yeah, well, that's the argument I was making, that
the people that are driving in, whether it's 40% or 60% from Queens, and
then from the other boroughs, are not wealthy individuals.  We're not
talking about, you know, people that are coming in in limos.  We're talking
about people that feel an obligation to get to work and to get, you know-
because they're not located on public transportation.

There's no question that we need improvement of public
transportation, and hopefully the Second Avenue Subway will help
tremendously in reducing some of the subway congestion.

But if we all of a sudden put all of these people that drive in
on the subways-if you've taken the subway recently-and I do take it
occasionally-especially if you're coming from Queens, it's very, very
crowded, and you can't get a seat, and you can't even get on a train,
because you have to pass three or four trains in most spots, unless you're
starting at the first location.

If you get on, say, in Forest Hills, somebody drives you, which
is the way we commute in Queens to the subway is somebody drives you to the
subway or you drive to the subway yourself and park your car.  That's the
only way to commute to the subway in Queens in my area.

When you're driving to Forest Hills, and getting on in Forest
Hills, you have to let four or five trains go by before you get on, and
then when you get on, it's not always the most pleasant experience for
people, and people make those choices.  It may be quicker than driving, but
it may not be a very pleasant way to get to work, and you may not want to,
you know, start your day after that experience.

MS. COHEN:  Kathy wants to chime in, and then we have one last
question over here.

MS. WYLDE:  Yeah.  I just think that makes the point that takes
us full circle.  We all know we can't-our limitation on improving the
public transportation system is money.

And to generate the resources we need to improve it, we have to
raise taxes or we have to figure out other sources of revenue.  And so I
think this conversation is complicated, but we have to take the full
circle, and you have to finish the thought.

If we're going to improve the transit system, how are we going
to accomplish that?  And I think we all agree that that should be a top
priority.

MR. STEVE HAMMER:  Hi.  Steve Hammer from Columbia University.
Really fascinating studies that have come out recently, and one of the
things I'm very interested in is how they're going to link to other
research and reports, the sustainability plan, that we should expect to
hear something from the mayor, possibly as early as next week.

One of the things that has constantly been referenced is
London's congestion plan.  And for those of you who are not aware of it, it
is simply part of a much larger strategy that the mayor of London has put
into place to try and address this massive population growth that they're
expecting over the next 20 years.

And it's the land use strategy that also is seen as an important
part of how people are going to move around London over the next 20 years
by insuring that people are located near the transit hub itself.  That is
to say reshape the way the city looks, so that we densify areas near the
transit hubs.

We make it easier for people to walk to public transit.  We make
it easier for people to bicycle to public transit.  We promote alternatives
to vehicle traffic altogether.  And I'm wondering if this is part of a
larger conversation that we might expect to see tied into these kind of
discussions, these debates over the narrowly focused congestion plan.

And if you think, Kathy, and possibly Dr. Fukes [phonetic],
whether this is something that we can expect to see the mayor take on as
part of his larger long-term sustainability strategy.

MS. WYLDE:  I'll defer to Dr. Fukes.  [laughter]

DR. FUKES:  Just on the sustainability plan, that it will be a
holistic plan taking into account virtually every point that you said.  I
think the issue of pricing is hot, hot, hot, and it is going to be
considered.  It's not resolved yet, in terms of what will be the final
plan.

There'll be a speech by the mayor in another week, and that will
outline a framework, and then the debate will continue, which it should,
because everybody needs to engage this debate.  And in the final plan,
there will be-every single issue you mentioned will be addressed.  So
you're absolutely right.  I think that's an important point.

MS. COHEN:  Okay.  So that does sound like a good place to end
for today.  Thank you all for coming.  [applause]  Make sure you get a copy
of the report on your way out.  And if you're interested in these
infrastructure questions, again I remind you that we will be having another
very interesting program next Wednesday on electricity.

[END TRANSCRIPT]