Nightlife, Pedicabs, and the N-word
Angry pedicab drivers booed and hissed from the balcony at the city council's biweekly stated meeting on February 28th. What was being voted on was important to them. Other actions were important to nightclubs, and to tax preparers and their clients, and to those who care about civil rights. Indeed, in the end, the council passed eight new bills and two resolutions, including one that Councilmember Lew Fidler described as the most important resolution he had ever voted on, and Councilmember Albert Van described as "the beginning of a movement."
PEDICAB REGULATIONS
Over the last four years, the number of pedicabs on the street has more than tripled, to about 350 on any given night, according to the New York Pedicab Drivers Association. These oversized tricycles carry a driver in front and up to three passengers, and are most common in Midtown, the Village, and areas between. Increasingly, tourists and residents alike are seeing the vehicles as a novel and speedy way to get around - Councilmember Rosie Mendez says she regularly rides one because a knee problem makes it uncomfortable to walk. But others complain that pedicabs add to traffic congestion, and need to be regulated because of safety concerns.
"Every other vehicle that transports people for hire on the streets of New York -- cabs, black cars, carriage horse drivers -- all of those vehicles and their drivers operate in a regulatory structure," said Council Speaker Christine Quinn. "The pedicab drivers have no structure at all."
With the mayor's blessing, the council passed a bill ( Intro 331-A) that would regulate this industry for the first time. This bill would cap the number of pedicabs allowed to operate in the city at 325, and make drivers disclose the methods by which they determine fares. Drivers would be required to obtain licenses and purchase insurance. The pedicabs themselves would have to meet certain safety standards such as having lights, seatbelts, and brakes that met certain requirements. The bill would also ban the use of motors on pedicabs, such as the small "electric assist" motors that some drivers now use to get an additional push.
Pedicab drivers themselves have said they want some rules governing their industry because its recent growth requires quality control. But drivers attending the stated meeting did not like the regulations they got. A loud group voiced their discontent on the steps of City Hall before the meeting, then moved to the balcony of the chamber, where they cheered for council members who agreed with them and booed and hissed at those who didn't.
The critics took issue with the idea capping the number of pedicabs in the city. The drivers present estimate their numbers at about 500 citywide, meaning that many would lose their right to operate under the new regulations. A cap would unnecessarily distort the market, they said. Some also argued that the city is asking for pedicab drivers to spend an unreasonably large amount on insurance. That, coupled with the cost of the other improvements, will make their businesses unprofitable, argued Mega Martinez, a pedicab driver in attendance.
Several council members had harsh words for the bill, echoing the criticisms made by the drivers.
"This is supposed to be a capitalist society --- even though I am a socialist -- and there is supposed to be free enterprise and competition," said Charles Barron, to the delight of the crowd in the balcony. "The taxi and limousine businesses want to put the pedicabs out of business."
Supporters of the bill responded by noting that the cap will be reconsidered in 18 months. The council will have to renew the bill six months after that.
"Is 325 the right cap? I have no idea," said Councilmember Oliver Koppell, who voted for the legislation. He said the cap would actually help the complaining pedicab drivers by cutting down on their competition, allowing them to increase their income and offset the increased costs associated with regulation.
The bill passed by a vote of 38 to 7. Council members Tony Avella, Charles Barron, Letitia James, Rosie Mendez, Hiram Monserrate, Annabel Palma, and Albert Vann voted against it. Four more council members abstained - Gale Brewer, Alan Gerson, Diane Mealy, and James Sanders.
NIGHTLIFE BILLS
The council also passed three laws and a resolution related to nightlife safety, a focus of the council since Imette St. Guillen was abducted and murdered while she was having a night on the town about a year ago.
Intro 442-a- would require clubs with cabaret licenses to install security cameras at all entrances and exits. Speaker Quinn said this was intended to serve as a deterrent and also would provide evidence in the case of a crime. Several council members expressed their concern over privacy issues, particularly for gay and lesbian patrons who may be especially wary of being captured on film at certain establishments. Still, the bill passed unanimously.
Intro 440-a require establishments with multiple or serious violations to hire safety monitors instead of being shut down. These monitors would cooperate with police to try to improve the clubs' behavior. Critics of this bill worried that it would be used to harass legitimate social clubs in minority neighborhoods. The bill passed by a vote of 46 to 3, with council members Charles Barron, Letitia James, and Diane Mealy voting no.
Intro 484-a would give the city the power to shut down stores that sell fake IDs under the city's nuisance abatement law. Another bill, Intro 515-a, would have also used the noise abatement law to close down bars or clubs where multiple violent crimes have taken place, but the council couldn't reach an agreement on the shape of the bill, and the vote was delayed.
Finally, Councilmember Melinda Katz sponsored a resolution calling on the state to address clubs that require patrons to buy entire bottles in order to enter. So-called bottle service, Katz argues, means leaving an unattended bottle of alcohol at a table, making it easier for underage patrons to drink and encouraging customers to drink excessively. She introduced a resolution that would have asked the state to ban bottle service altogether, but it never made it to a full council vote. Instead, the council passed a resolution on February 28 asking the state to require a waiter to oversee bottle service, rather than just plunking the bottle on the table.
"Clearly we don't have the power to pass these things in the city council, so we need the state legislature to step up," said Katz. The resolution passed unanimously.
Speaker Quinn stressed that these laws will be followed by additional measures concerning nightlife. Members of the council said they would continue to push for tougher restrictions on fake IDs, and would consider the industry's request that City Hall establish a mayor's office of nightlife, based on the office of film and broadcasting.
Another measure mentioned was paid detail -- when off-duty police officers are posted outside clubs at the owners' expense, armed and in uniform. Industry representatives are in favor of such a plan, saying it will improve security. The police department, however, is resisting, arguing that it may create a conflict of interest for the officers involved.
THE "N-WORD"
On the last day of Black History Month, the council unanimously passed a symbolic moratorium on the "n-word."
The effort was spearheaded by Councilmember Leroy Comrie, who was distressed at the casual use of the word by teenagers in his Queens district as they gathered after school. He hooked into a movement to ban the slur that his staff found on the Internet. Over the last month, Comrie has written letters to the Grammies and BET asking them not to feature hip hop artists who use the word (he has not heard back). Over 30 middle schools in the city participated in an essay contest where students described what the word meant to them; the 17 winners were given free tickets to the Universal Soul Circus.
Comrie's original intent was simply to introduce the legislation as a way to spark discussion at a time that people are talking about black history. The council has been mocked for its resolutions in the past, and council members now say they are reticent to pass what are essentially statements of official opinion. But the momentum that has built up around Comrie's campaign warranted an exception, said numerous council members. Councilmember John Liu called the slur "the vilest word in the English language," and Councilmember Lew Fidler said the resolution was the most important one the council has considered in his five-year tenure.
Comrie takes pains to note the symbolic nature of the resolution. Some others have called for the word to be removed from the dictionary, but he believes it should stay there for historical purposes.
"I'm not interested in creating an opportunity to eliminate words," he said. "That's a slippery slope to go down."
WETLANDS, TAX SCHEMERS, AND $1.9 BILLION
Several other pieces of legislation also passed the council by unanimous votes.
Intro 505 extends the life of the city's Wetlands Task Force, which is examining the feasibility of transferring city-owned wetlands to the Parks Department for preservation.
The Tax Preparation Consumer Bill of Rights (Intro 81-a) would require tax preparers to give their customers information on fees, interest rates, and other "unfavorable charges." Last year, Earned Income Tax Credit recipients - workers whose income is so low that they qualify for tax relief - spent $325 million last year for tax preparation, according to Councilmember Eric Gioia, the bill's primary sponsor.
The council also passed a resolution (Resolution 729) known as a budget modification, which officially acknowledges that the city has $1.9 billion in unexpected tax revenue this year. Speaker Quinn said that City Hall would use the money to prepay expenses in fiscal 2008, which starts July 1. But she also called for the state to change the law that prohibits city officials from putting money away for lean years in the future.
"We would be in a more thoughtful place right now in city government if we could make a decision whether to prepay expenses or to take those funds and put them aside in a long term rainy day account," she said.
Other members said that the extra surplus indicated that it was time to re-examine the city's tax code. A recent report by the Independent Budget Office showed that New Yorkers carry a much heavier tax burden than residents of any other large city in the country. Councilmember Fidler called for a further reworking of the city's property tax system. Republican Minority Leader James Oddo said officials should look at income taxes, the major reason for the disparity.
"Let's bring in experts" to examine the fiscal implications of a cut, said Oddo. "They can pooh-pooh it, they can praise it, they can say it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I think it's incumbent on us to analyze it."
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Sustainable Transportation for 2030
Transportation plays a central role in all three of the central challenges that Mayor Michael Bloomberg said face the city over the next quarter century, as he explained during a speech that outlined his plan for New York in 2030. New York City faces:
• the addition of a million more city residents (a projection that some dispute, according to the land use topic page by Tom Angotti) -- How will a million more New Yorkers move about the city without overtaxing the roads and subways?
• an aging infrastructure -- How will the aging infrastructure of roads, bridges and subways be brought to a state of good repair?
• environmental risks -- How can motor vehicle emissions be reduced to reach environmental sustainability goals?
As the city administration scurries to publish a detailed “sustainability” plan in March, it faces a challenge all its own: How can Bloomberg make his long-term plan have lasting impact when he has less than three years left in his term of office? Will the new sustainability plan be itself sustainable into the next mayor’s term?
BIG IDEAS, DIFFERENT CHALLENGES
The mayor and his chief aid working on the plan, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, are clearly attracted to big ideas. Doctoroff championed bringing the Olympics to New York long before he imagined being a City Hall insider. Bloomberg has successfully pushed for taking control of the city schools. Bloomberg also sought and achieved major rezoning on Manhattan’s far west side and the Brooklyn waterfront that will shape development of these areas for years after he leaves office.
There is no shortage of big ideas in transportation -- subway expansions…. congestion pricing in Manhattan …a freight rail tunnel connecting Brooklyn to the mainland United States. Getting big ideas implemented in transportation presents different challenges than in schools or zoning, however, with important implications for how to design a successful approach to transportation issues.
Possible Last-Minute Derailment
For one thing, to quote Yogi Berra, it’s not over â€till it’s over. With control of the schools or rezoning, once the Legislature or City Council acts, the deed is done. Change may come slowly to the school system, but the mayor will be in control. Development may take many years on the west side, but the new zoning will continue to encourage it.
Big ideas in transportation, in contrast, can be derailed at the last minute. The Second Avenue subway will not be assured of construction until the financing is committed. If the mayor proposes congestion pricing, his successor could scuttle the scheme if it is not actually implemented by the end of Bloomberg’s term in 2009.
Vehement Defense Of Status Quo
Another big difference between zoning and transportation is the prominence of defenders of the status quo. The West Side rezoning, for example, affects relatively few residents or offices. With transportation, changes to the use of roads are most critical where there are the most users: in the Manhattan business district, for example, and on congested highways and roads throughout the city. There are plenty of people, some within the mayor’s own administration, who will vehemently defend maintaining the chaotic status quo.
Reliance On Other Levels Of Government
A final major difference is that the mayor controls only pieces of the transportation infrastructure. He does not control the subways, bus operations or state-owned highways. Yet his goal of reducing commute times, for example, necessitates close cooperation and coordination with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
THREE SUGGESTIONS
Given the nature of the challenges, how should the mayor proceed with the transportation components of his sustainability plan? Let me offer three big ideas: fix the skewed economic incentives to drive, implement targeted transit improvements throughout the city, and make more efficient use of the limited street space in congested areas.
Create Economic Disincentives To Drive
Transportation can very much benefit from the mayor and Doctoroff’s penchant for big ideas. Current economic incentives are skewed in favor of driving since motorists do not incur the cost of delay they create for others, and many do not even pay for the bridges or tunnels they traverse or the value of the real estate they park on. Too many motorists drive simply because it IS more comfortable and convenient, and they create real costs for the city’s economy and quality of life.
The economic signals need to fixed. That means congestion pricing for the Manhattan business district. Pricing should be applied as narrowly as possible, affecting only those motorists who by driving at the busiest times and places most contribute to slowing down everyone else. I’ve outlined a plan for peak period charges inbound to Manhattan in the morning peak period, outbound in the evening peak period, and for driving anywhere in the business district midday.
The mayor has expressed worries that congestion pricing is too unpopular to get it approved. My research shows that a targeted plan, combined with other steps I’ll describe below, can win public support on the basis of being effective and fair and offering choices to motorists. Congestion pricing is a big idea which has been successful in London, Stockholm and Singapore. If tailored to New York’s needs, it can create a legacy for the mayor in transportation in New York.
The main problem with congestion pricing is the tendency to think that this one big idea is sufficient. New Yorkers are actually very sophisticated about the multifaceted nature of the traffic problem. They know that traffic congestion has many causes, and that it’s a citywide problem, so congestion pricing by itself is not enough.
Target Improvements Throughout The City
What else needs to be done? The key to making congestion pricing work is to bolster the public transportation system, especially in areas where many people use their cars. That means far better express bus service from outlying areas of the city. It means figuring out how to make the commuter railroads a meaningful part of the city’s transit system. It means adding options for drivers such as park and ride lots. And it means spreading pricing strategies outside Manhattan, in particular, through tolled express lanes on outer borough highways.
The growth of the city also means adding rail capacity to handle the additional riders. While the Second Avenue subway and #7 extension will add new track mileage to the system, cost makes system expansion an inherently limited approach. Through technology such as computer-based train control systems, however, the effective passenger capacity of existing lines can be enlarged by increasing the number of trains that can be operated through the system. The MTA is slowly implementing these new train control systems. Speeding up that implementation could expand capacity of overcrowded lines in a matter of years instead of decades.
All of this will take money, lots of money, and that’s where the second big idea comes in. The mayor will need to make a grand deal with the MTA and Port Authority on how the congestion fees are collected, who gets them, what it pays for and how the use of the money is guaranteed for the promised purposes. That grand deal would be another Bloomberg legacy.
In the most congested parts of the city from the Manhattan business district to downtown Brooklyn to Flushing, a complete package of transportation improvements should include giving priority to the most efficient uses of the public space. New York needs to accommodate growth not only underground, but also above ground. That means priority for buses, pedestrians and cyclists. The city Transportation Department declares in broad policy terms its support for new paradigms in looking at these issues, but in practice it is either slow to implement changes, or lets its historical mission of moving motor vehicles hold sway. The joint city/MTA project to implement five bus rapid transit lines, a noble effort, has been slowed by traffic engineers worried about the impact on traffic movement.
Finding the right balance is difficult, but studies aimed at finding that balance too easily lead to paralysis by analysis. The city has shown it knows a better way, as when it has implemented traffic plans for a limited period such as during the holiday season, and during the transit strike, or in a limited area such as the initial Midtown commercial parking Muni-meter program. The genius of these plans is that they are either temporary or limited in scope, so they do not undergo the time-consuming reviews to which more ambitious plans are subject.
Set In Motion Small But Efficient Steps
The mayor’s sustainability plan could expand this approach. Why not try some seemingly good ideas on a pilot basis? Measure the outcomes. Then decide whether and where to apply them permanently. Armed with real-life results, the required studies should go faster and be more credible.
A host of initiatives are amenable to this approach:
• Raise the price of metered parking to encourage turnover and expand the availability of on street parking.
• Try to make bus lanes actually exclusive to buses by installing “soft” barriers like bollards and truncated domes and “quick curbs.”
• Beef up enforcement of traffic rules like don’t-block-the-box and, for taxis, pick up and drop off only at the curb.
• Close Broadway to traffic on Sundays in the summer.
• Even restrict Broadway traffic throughout the week (my favorite idea is to alternate one-way northbound with one-way southbound operation, allowing local traffic but eliminating through traffic.)
The pilots could also lead into some of the bigger projects that are still on the drawing boards. Take, for example, the well-known bottlenecks on First and Second Avenues where the M15 bus idles away much of the day. Why wait for the end of a multi-year study of bus rapid transit to deal with this? Pilot a truly exclusive bus lane to speed the buses through that morass. Measure the results, make adjustments as necessary, and fold the changes into the bigger bus rapid transit program.
So the third big idea in the mayor’s sustainability plan should be to set in motion a series of smaller steps that will gain a momentum all their own. As New Yorkers see the benefits of these pilots, they will demand them for their own neighborhood. It’s a viral approach to transportation improvements that worked with bus rapid transit and high-tech traffic signals in Los Angeles. It’s also an approach that can make the mayor’s sustainability plan self-sustaining.
Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting, which provides research and analysis about transportation. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University.Â
Confronting the Congestion Crisis
By Gale Brewer
Two pedestrians were killed in my district on the same day last October, one by a city bus, the other by a truck. When I arrived at the scene, I was immediately struck by how the two intersections where these tragedies took place – Amsterdam and West 74th, and Broadway and West 73rd – exemplify the problem of traffic and congestion in our city. They are thronged with vehicles day and night, at levels that seem only to increase. One the one hand, some say this shows how New York is thriving; on the other, so much traffic causes inconvenience, harm to the economy and the environment and, on some days, death.
Eight in ten New Yorkers see traffic jams on city streets as a problem; half believe congestion is already unacceptable. More people are driving, and traffic in the central business district is higher than it was before 9/11, according to the Department of Transportation. Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall says that this is not a crisis, but rather a "challenge." I do believe traffic congestion is at crisis levels. To confront this, I have introduced legislation that would require city officials to set concrete goals for reducing its ill effects, and then measure how well they are doing to meet those goals.
THE COST OF CONGESTION
Increased congestion is a well-known drain on both citizens and economies. It is worse here than almost anywhere else in the country. According to the Census Bureau, New Yorkers endured the second-longest commute in the nation in 2006, and spent an average of one hundred hours a year just getting to work.
The Department of Transportation reports that, while more people are using private vehicles, there has also been a increase in the use of public transportation. This is good news. But public transportation is not immune to traffic congestion, despite city officials' attempts to improve bus lanes. As of October 2006, nine bus routes in Manhattan had average speeds below five miles per hour. The most laggard is the M14A, which crawls crosstown on 14th Street at 3.9 miles per hour – slower than most of New York’s fast-paced pedestrians.
But traffic congestion is not only about wasted time and lost productivity; congestion also degrades air quality. Motor vehicle emissions are the main contributor of hazardous air pollutants on an average day in Manhattan. Diesel emissions are known to be especially harmful, and there are many studies linking high concentrations of diesel-powered vehicles with increased respiratory disease, especially asthma. Recent studies have reported that areas of the Bronx with a high volume of diesel-powered trucks are experiencing almost epidemic levels of asthma, especially in children.
There is a way to ease such damage. A well-cited study from Atlanta reports that when the Atlanta Olympic Games prompted the city to reduce its auto use by 22.5 percent, asthma admissions to municipal hospitals simultaneously decreased by 41.6 percent, revealing the strong likelihood of a correlation between respiratory health and vehicle emissions.
The quality of social and cultural life in the city may also be threatened by traffic congestion. Transportation Alternatives, a non-profit group promoting biking and cycling in New York City, recently released a survey on " traffic's human toll," showing that residents in high-traffic neighborhoods, beset by unbearable noise, pollutants, and dangerous intersections, have a perception of their blocks that is more negative than residents of adjacent areas, and they also have fewer relationships with their neighbors, and spend less free time outdoors.
These conditions call for decisive action, but we must select carefully among many proposed solutions. That means getting a full picture of the issue at hand.
SETTING GOALS AND MEASURING PROGRESS
So what can be done to reduce congestion and the ills that it causes? First, we should initiate a well-publicized, open public debate on traffic congestion, and especially on its impacts on health, land use, housing, and economic development, and quality of life.
Reliable data will be critical to this informed discussion. City officials lack the basic information necessary to redress the current gridlock, much less plan for future growth, according to a recent report by transportation consultant (and Gotham Gazette columnist) Bruce Schaller. This information gap should be immediately addressed by wide public input, and studies and metrics of better design and implementation.
I have introduced New York’s “Traffic Information and Relief Bill” (Intro. 199), that if adopted by the City Council, would develop the metrics needed to set reasonable congestion relief targets. This way, city officials would have set goals in terms of congestion reduction, and clear ways to measure their performance in meeting these goals.
Under its terms, the Department of Transportation would adopt measurable goals in terms of commute time, pollution and noise reduction. They would constitute the core of annual performance measurements: the Department of Transportation would report twice a year to the mayor’s office and the City Council on its traffic relief efforts and achievements. The updates would also be readily accessible on New York City’s public website. The adoption of such good government practices for an urgent problem like congestion should be a standard practice of the city, an objective shared by Mayor Bloomberg in his PLANYC 2030 sustainability plan.
In addition to measuring progress on primary goals, collecting this information would give officials a better picture of the overall, helping us improve safety conditions for bikers and pedestrians by revealing weaknesses in traffic enforcement, or by telling us where to create protected bike lanes and adjust pedestrian crossing times.
CHANGES WE CAN BEGIN MAKING TODAY
Traffic relief must become a top priority for New York’s sustainability and development. We already know many incremental changes that could be started on immediately, forming part of a strategy for long-term traffic relief:
• Better street design is key, especially as the city’s senior citizens and the disabled are increasing; they will need improved street safety and access strategies.
• Larger, cleaner sidewalks with increased numbers of curb cuts are reasonable expectations for all our citizens, and have a direct impact on street safety.
• Encouraging office buildings to set aside space for bike parking, providing safe bike parking elsewhere, and creating and maintaining genuinely safe and dedicated bicycle lanes would doubtlessly foster bike riding.
Such measures should not be underestimated. While they will not alleviate the massive congestion that defines life at the city’s core, they are achievable now, cost little, and will involve citizens where they live and work. They are a simple and practical way to engage the public, to make congestion issues an everyday concern. They can show the way toward a long-term, more comprehensive approach to congestion and the city’s wellbeing.
Gale A. Brewer represents the Upper West Side in the City Council. Fabrice Aubert, a policy aide to the council member, assisted in writing this article.
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