Staten Island's New Decongestant Plan
While New York City is known as the transit capital of the country, sections of the city are primarily dependent on the automobile. This is most notable in Staten Island, the eastern half of Queens, the northern half of the Bronx and sections of Brooklyn that are beyond subway lines – all areas where (as Census data show) the majority of workers commute by car.
No borough of the city is more car-dependent than Staten Island. Rapid population growth has combined with high rates of car use to create traffic congestion that rivals northern New Jersey and other areas around the country where traffic congestion has become a political issue. Staten Island’s congestion is made worse by a confluence of unfavorable forces. Among these is a lack of new roadway capacity despite population growth and the borough’s position as a through route for trucks and autos traveling from the mainland to Long Island. Thus, drivers can run into traffic jams not only at rush hour, but almost any time day or night, weekday or weekend.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in his State of the City speech earlier this year, charged his commissioners of transportation and of city planning to report back with a plan within 60 days to tackle Staten Island transportation needs. In March, the mayor announced 40 recommendations to relieve congestion bottlenecks, improve traffic enforcement, move forward with construction projects, improve mass transit and strengthen cooperation between city and state agencies.
Short-term steps, to be completed within a year, include:
- adjusting signal timings
- increasing turn-on-red opportunities
- reducing parking at intersections
- completing construction projects at two key intersections
- adding limited stop bus service
- increasing frequency on the Staten Island railway
- reactivating a north shore rail track to remove trucks from roadways
Longer-term plans include considering bus rapid transit on Hyland Boulevard – part of a citywide bus rapid transit study – as well as road widenings and realignments and new park and rides and stations for the Staten Island railway.
The Bloomberg transportation plan for Staten Island reflects the consensus for addressing traffic congestion that is seen both inside and outside of New York. There is a strong emphasis on public transportation as well as traffic-related initiatives. The traffic aspects of the plan emphasize operational improvements -– getting better use of existing lanes -– rather than building new highway or street capacity. The plan thus considers numerous steps that each have fairly small impacts but together can noticeably improve traffic flow.
There is also an emphasis on community involvement and consensus building. The mayor acknowledged in announcing the plan that the “lack of community consensus” had stymied previous attempts to deal with transportation needs. To help get everyone on board, the mayor’s task force included elected officials and community boards as well as city and state officials. Implementation of the proposals will depend on a continued high level of involvement and engagement by the local communities.
The plan also perhaps inadvertently underscores that just as there has been a neglect of elements of the physical infrastructure ranging from potholed streets to the obsolete Goethals Bridge, so has the operational infrastructure been neglected. Why, for example, are there so many major intersections in need of re-timed signals? Why is it novel for the City Planning Department to coordinate adjacent parking lot designs to allow cars to move between parking lots without re-entering the roadway?
In pledging that city agencies will focus on ensuring that capital projects proceed on schedule, the plan acknowledges that without special attention, project schedules may easily lag.
The plan also puts off some very contentious issues. Reconstruction of the Goethal’s Bridge, first recommended in a 1987 study conducted for its owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is listed as a long-term goal.
The mayor’s plan lightly touches on transportation impacts of land use decisions, a hot topic in much of the country. A short term goal is for the city Transportation Department to be consulted “early in the process” when builders apply for permit waivers –- presumably to look at traffic impacts of larger-scale developments.
Finally, it is notable that while promising action, the mayor’s plan does not promise results. There are no estimates of how much congestion will be reduced or traffic speeds increased –- no doubt at least in part due to how rapidly the plan was put together. Staten Islanders and others traveling into or through the borough can only wait to see how the administration’s new focus on transportation improvements will bear fruit.
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
Congestion Pricing
Most people would surely agree that the snail’s pace of traffic in the Manhattan central business district is a pain. But there is much disagreement over whether the benefits of speeding up that traffic are worth the costs, or even what the costs would be.
Although only one of many ideas to ease traffic, the flash point for this debate is congestion pricing. Many people in both London and New York view as a great success London’s ÂŁ8 ($14) a day congestion charge for weekday travel in central London, which was instituted three years ago. When the idea was raised in New York City after the mayoral election in November, however, a Bloomberg administration spokesman said the administration wasn’t interested. Nevertheless, congestion pricing made headlines again in February with the release of two reports and continued mixed signals from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Whether congestion pricing itself is ever implemented in New York, this debate may yet improve mobility in the Manhattan central business district (referred to as the CBD, and defined as from the Battery to 60th Street).
How Would Motorists Respond?
The core of the congestion pricing debate revolves around the question of how motorists would respond to a congestion charge. The Queens Chamber of Commerce released a report in late February titled, “A Cure Worse than the Disease? How London's 'Congestion Pricing' System Could Hurt New York City's Economy." The report estimates that with a congestion charge similar to London’s, 40,000 fewer people would enter the Manhattan central business district each weekday, resulting in a loss of $2.7 billion in economic output. The report says that working-class and middle-class car commuters from Queens and the other outer boroughs would be especially hard hit, as would small to mid-size businesses that need to go into Manhattan frequently.
The Queens Chamber of Commerce report came on the heels of a Transportation Alternatives report (conducted by me), titled, “Necessity or Choice? Why People Drive in Manhattan.” This report argued that very few people would stop coming to Manhattan with congestion pricing or other steps to restrict car use in the central business district. Many assume that most people who drive into Manhattan do so because of poor or nonexistent transit access. Yet Census data show that 90 percent of auto commuters have access to buses, subways and trains. Not even the length of the commute need deter auto commuters; 80 percent have a transit alternative that offers travel times within 15 minutes of their car trip.
The report also pointed out that London experienced only a two percent decline in the number of people coming into central London as a result of its rather steep charge. (The Queens Chamber of Commerce assumed, without explaining why, that 14 percent would be deterred from traveling into Manhattan.) In London, the number of trips taken in vehicles subject to the charge dropped by 31 percent, but the number of people coming into central London declined only slightly because most diverted auto users switched to transit, including expanded bus service.
For the Manhattan business district, congestion pricing would reduce congestion, speed bus and taxi trips, reduce noise, afford more space for pedestrians and make the borough a more attractive -- not less attractive –- place to work, live, shop and be entertained. That’s been London’s experience and there is every reason to expect it would be New York’s experience.
Benefit To Outer Boroughs
Not just Manhattan would benefit. The outer boroughs would benefit from beefed up transit service that could be funded by the congestion charge, as London has done. The outer boroughs would also benefit from less traffic passing through outer borough neighborhoods on the way into Manhattan. In Long Island City, 57 percent of traffic entering the area during the morning peak hour is bound for the Queensboro Bridge. Wouldn’t getting some of those cars off the roads be good for Queens? Likewise in Brooklyn, traffic bound for the East River bridges accounts for 43 percent of all vehicles entering downtown Brooklyn during the morning rush hour and 45 percent during midday.
Reducing traffic would also seem to benefit those small to mid-size businesses that need to go into Manhattan frequently. These folks presumably charge for their time and would benefit from having to spend less time in traffic. Given what they bill on an hourly basis, a plumber or electrician or computer repairman needs to save only a few minutes to recoup a congestion charge.
Recent comments by Mayor Bloomberg have been both hot and cold toward congestion pricing. The businessman in him seems to understand the logic of reducing traffic by charging for use of the streets. But the mayor has also become an astute politician. That part of him knows how he has been hammered on the issue each time it gets raised. Thus, after commenting in February that congestion charging “is certainly something that we should be looking at,” his spokesman said he was not “loosening or easing up” on the position he took last November.
Other Ways To Improve Movement
While discussions of traffic in Manhattan turn toward congestion pricing, in fact there are many ways to improve pedestrian, bus and bicycle movement in the business district. City traffic planners need to be freed from their fear of impinging on the prerogatives of that sacred cow, the American automobile. The city would then be open to dedicating more street space for buses and bicycles and wider sidewalks. Traffic might not improve – it probably takes pricing measures to reduce congestion. But the 86 percent of trips to Manhattan central business district destinations taken by modes other than the auto would be easier to make. That would make life more livable in Manhattan.
Different Kinds Of Congestion Pricing
There are also many different ways to institute pricing strategies. San Diego pioneered the so-called HOT lanes along one of the major highways leading into the central part of the city. Motorists have a choice: pay nothing and sit in traffic, or pay a toll and zip into town. Tolls are increased as traffic volumes go up in order to maintain free-flow conditions on the tolled lanes.
HOT lanes overcome people’s resistance to forcing everyone to pay while also using pricing to give those who are willing to pay a speedier option. The same concept could be applied in New York City by tolling selected lanes on bridges and selected avenues into the central business district. E-ZPass could be used to pay the tolls, avoiding the need to install the elaborate camera system used to read license plates in London.
Let’s hope that the debate over congestion pricing does not lead to another dead end for the goal of improving mobility into and within the Manhattan business district. Even if New York is not ready for a full plate congestion pricing, there are plenty of other effective ways to give a little relief to pedestrians, bus and bicycle riders, and even to motorists who would rather pay than sit.
Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting and a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University.Â
Regulating Rickshaws
Anyone who associates bicycle cabs solely with the streets of, say, Hong Kong or New Delhi would have gotten a shock if he had dropped by New York City Hall on the last day of February. It was standing room only as the City Council’s Committee on Consumer Affairs held what promises to be the first of several hearings on regulations for pedicabs. Many of those attending were my fellow pedicab owners and drivers who have made the bicycle rickshaws a staple of the Midtown streetscape.
The packed meeting room, respectful testimony from city officials, and supportive words from various City Council members indicated that pedicabs are increasingly seen as an integral part of New York City’s transportation system. On a typical Thursday, Friday or Saturday evening in the spring or autumn last year, approximately 350 pedicabs -- large tricycles that sport a driver in front and a carriage for passengers over their rear axle rolled around Manhattan. This represents almost a five-fold increase from just three years previous. More than 500 people annually now work full or part time as pedicab drivers.
But while pedicabs — or cycle rickshaws, as they also are known – have many fans, including those of us in the industry as well as environmentalists, city planners, animal rights activists, and almost every customer we have ever had, opponents recently have been making some noise as well. Such parties include auto-taxi owners, horse-carriage drivers, Broadway theater owners, and even the police.
Due to the local pedicab industry’s growth over the past 10 years, most participants, including myself, today agree that some regulation is desirable to raise the bar for drivers, owners and customers, and for others who share city streets with us. Yet we want also to ensure that, as Councilmember Charles Barron put it, “when people find a legitimate way to generate income, [city council members] don’t legislate them out of business.”
WHY PEDICABS?
Neither transit strike nor blackout nor terrorist attack nor oil crisis nor gridlock has kept these human-powered people-moving machines from making their rounds. Pedicabs increasingly impress even hardened skeptics as they quietly move around Midtown through one motor vehicle traffic jam after another.
With their slim wheelbase (typically 48 inches), sharp handling, and solid speed, pedicabs have become a hit in midtown Manhattan — and not just with tourists. The offer of “10 minutes or less anywhere in Midtown, or the ride is for free” — the mantra of many veteran drivers — is making its mark on both locals and out-of-towners. Many who used to turn up their nose when a pedicab pulled up now glance around furtively, hop in, and call a friend to declare with glee, “I couldn’t find a cab, so I’m taking one of those bike taxi things!”
Try to get, say, from Grand Central to Penn Station via surface transport at 5 p.m. on a Friday. With any other mode, you will either be still waiting in the taxi line or be stuck in an automobile traffic jam 20 to 30 minutes later. A veteran pedicab driver, meanwhile, completes the journey — with you and yours along for the ride — in eight minutes. Typical fees for this run ranges from about $15 to $25.
The overall efficiency of pedicabs is nowhere more obvious than in Midtown. Pedicab speeds in Midtown average six to ten miles per hour, compared with automotive speeds of about seven miles per hour according to the Department of Transportation. Pedicabs also are narrow enough for most motor vehicles to pass. Passengers typically get to enjoy a pleasant conversation with the pedicab driver en route. The city benefits as well, since pedicabs do not create pollution, are quiet, and have no impact on street infrastructure.
Pedicab drivers are an amazingly diverse bunch: The majority includes artists, actors, students, immigrants, disaffected tour-bus guides, PhD dropouts, and former taxi drivers. The industry offers entrepreneurial opportunities and potential for living wages to this quixotic crew, who may possess little more in common than strong quadriceps, a serious work ethic, a solid sales pitch, and street savvy.
CONFLICTS
Like almost any successful new industry, opponents have cropped up to challenge us.
Horse carriages, which make their living primarily from Central Park South passers-by, sometimes complain that pedicabs “steal” their business. Yet pedicabs cannot compete with the romance of a leisurely carriage ride. During most of the year, horse carriages have more business than they can handle. While most pedicab drivers are happy to show passengers New York’s most charming spots (including lengthy Central Park tours of our own), our primary job is providing quick, clean Midtown travel with a personal touch.
Pedicabs have also been unfairly lumped with so-called “party bikes” or “conference bikes.” These vehicles, which carry up to six riders who sit in a circle pedaling while a driver steers from the rear, usually operate in the Times Square area. People board these sizable contraptions for a good time — not for real transportation — and the police department has made known its disdain for them.
More significantly, the taxi industry is also challenging pedicabs and their right to operate. Taxi medallion owners charge that, since potential passengers can hail the bicycle rickshaws on the street, the pedicabs are illegally picking up street hails. All medallions, however, must be affixed to a motor vehicle and may not be affixed to a bicycle, which a pedicab is under state law. In addition, auto taxis handle over 170 million rides a year; pedicabs, on the other hand, hit the one-million ride mark for the first time last year, and many of these rides were tours. Overlap is virtually nonexistent. The taxi lobby nevertheless feels the current situation is unfair, as pedicabs do not now have to pay a license or any other fee to operate.
REGULATING THE PEDICAB INDUSTRY
The city seems to be coming around to the idea that pedicabs are here to stay. The council is considering a bill proposed last year by Councilmember Alan Gerson. The bill, Intro 75, would require driver and owner licenses, liability insurance, and regular pedicab inspections, among other things. The Bloomberg administration has indicated it supports efforts at regulation, and most pedicab owners and drivers also endorse Gerson’s bill or some variant of it.
Rules such as those proposed by Gerson would further legitimize pedicabs on our city’s streets and make the experience even safer for those who use them. We agree with Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall that, while “we simply cannot wait for a tragic accident involving a pedicab.”
A majority of owners already have been responsible enough to secure insurance and operate safe vehicles. In fact, a group of businesses with a total of over 200 pedicabs recently formed the New York City Pedicab Owners Association to implement the best practices industry-wide.
There has never been a serious bicycle rickshaw injury in New York City. Despite that, Councilmember John Liu has wondered whether pedicabs should come equipped with helmets and seatbelts. But some experts believe this would make the cabs less, rather than more, safe.
Many details of the legislation still need to be worked out. Even some involved in the pedicab industry differ over whether drivers, as well as operators, should have to get a pedicab license. Toole has mentioned that the legislation needs to define better what exactly a pedicab is and questioned how to fairly manage fees charged by pedicabs. For now, the driver proposes a fare on the spot based on the distance traveled, the number and weight of the passengers, and even the weather. Toole suggests that driver and passenger be required to agree on a price before the ride begins.
Liu and some pedicab operators have also raised concerns about insurance. Coverage for drivers in fleets is extremely expensive except for insurance provided by Lloyd’s of London, and a few owners have chosen to forgo insurance altogether.
Most attendees at the recent City Council hearing reveled in the enthusiasm of my fellow pedicabs drivers. Long-time driver Craig Molino, for instance, likened driving a pedicab to “spreading a trail of good karma all over the city.” Driver Melissa Ludwig said that she had an epiphany the first time she saw a woman driving a pedicab in New York: “She pedaled with style and grace, and I knew that was my calling as a biker, a woman, an artist, and a New Yorker.”
But if you don’t believe me or my fellow drivers, then go for a ride yourself. It is truly the only way to understand the phenomenon of the urban pedicab, today’s sustainable solution to Midtown congestion.
Gregg Zukowski is owner and driver for Revolution Rickshaws, L.L.C. and acting secretary of the New York City Pedicab Owners Association.
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