New Yorkers Respond to Congestion Pricing

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Amina Srna: This is The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm producer Amina Srna filling in for Brian today. It's just over a month now that congestion pricing has been in effect in Manhattan below 60th Street, and there are signs it's winning converts among those who drive into the central business district regularly. Not President Trump, though, who told the New York Post he thinks it's horrible and that he might try to kill it. Even among those who agree with the president's assessment, a new poll finds that most voters across the state in agreement that the president shouldn't end it.

To talk about how congestion pricing is going and a bit about what the city should expect from the Trump administration, I'm joined now by Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, which represents many of the city's biggest businesses in their dealings with state and local governments. She was a member of the Traffic Mobility Review Board that was part of the toll setting process for congestion pricing. Welcome back to The Brian Lehrer Show, Kathryn Wylde.

Kathryn Wylde: Thank you, Amina.

Amina Srna: Let's talk about this poll and what it found about support for congestion pricing. It's a bit of a mixed bag with agreement that it's cutting traffic and that the president shouldn't stop it, but statewide, its detractors outnumbered its supporters. What jumps out at you?

Kathryn Wylde: Well, first of all, it's that the folks who actually are impacted by it-- who live in New York City, and who drive into New York City, are much more favorable toward congestion pricing. There is a visceral anti-tax position by everybody these days given the affordability crisis we're facing in the city and state. We found that the people who really don't like congestion pricing are people who live in Buffalo and will never have to deal with it, so it was positive direction. In terms of the people who actually are paying the toll and driving in, 66% said they support the program now, and that certainly wasn't the case before they had the experience.

There is demonstrably less traffic. Everybody agrees on that. There is much faster commute, and this includes particularly people who are finding that now the express bus is the most efficient way to get to work. We're seeing positive impact. More people are riding the subways, more people are riding the buses and the commuter rail, so everything is going in the direction that we most hoped, which is people are finding mass transit a great alternative. As soon as those funds start coming in from the tolls that we're collecting, you're going to see improvements in mass transit, which is the endgame here.

Amina Srna: Let's hear from some people. Listeners, one month on, have you changed your thinking about congestion pricing? If you've had to pay the toll, is it worth the price to spend less time in traffic? If you live outside the toll zone, are you seeing more or less traffic? Has it made a difference one way or another? Call or text us now at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Kathy, according to this poll, people in Manhattan seem to like it. Maybe that's because there's less honking or trouble crossing the streets, but also maybe there are fewer car owners in the transit rich borough, right?

Kathryn Wylde: Well, that is true. The quality of life has improved. I would also say that the people who work in Manhattan, who walk through Manhattan, the tourists who are coming to Manhattan, things that people worried about, congestion pricing, for example, they worried that Broadway revenues would go down, fewer people would come in to see shows. Broadway attendance was up 17% in this January over last January, so that just hasn't happened.

Similarly, would people not be around to shop in the stores in Manhattan? In fact, again, the foot traffic is way up in the Manhattan central business district. More people are on the streets and shopping in our local retail stores, so we've seen none of the negative reactions. The reason the Partnership, which is a business organization, has supported congestion pricing is because the cost of gridlock, the cost of excess traffic for New York City was more than $20 billion a year in terms of lost time, lost productivity, misspent fuel, overtime costs, health impacts of pollution. We have been arguing that this will save money, and improve our economy, and that is proving to be the case.

Amina Srna: I think you were just getting to this. In your position, advocating for policies that serve the business interests of the city, why is congestion pricing important to them, to the businesses specifically?

Kathryn Wylde: The business depends on New York continuing to have the most productive workforce in the world. Part of what slows down our productivity, slows down our economy is too much traffic, and so we're supporting this change.

Amina Srna: It is still very much opposed by Governor Phil Murphy in New Jersey. Suburban legislators of--

Kathryn Wylde: Who drove in every day to work at Goldman Sachs when he was employed in New York City.

Amina Srna: Suburban legislators of both parties, I think, also and President Trump, he told the Post he could kill the plan via the Transportation Department, but not exactly how. He has also appointed Marc Molinaro as the head of the Federal Transit Administration. He's the former upstate congressman who signed a letter calling on Trump to rescind the federal approval for the plan in January. What would be the effect of ending it?

Kathryn Wylde: The only option, really, aside from some huge penalties, discretionary penalties, the president could certainly put on New York. The only option would be to do something that President Trump has said he is very much against, which would be to increase regulation. They'd have to go back and say it was not good enough, the four years of environmental assessment that you did. You now have to go back and do an environmental impact study. This was what the case in New Jersey that Governor Murphy brought forward argued, that we hadn't done enough study after four years and 4,000 pages of environmental impact, environmental impact analysis.

It would be totally against President Trump's philosophy that we have to cut the intervention of government. It would be totally against his philosophy that states, not the federal government, should be making quality-of-life decisions and should be taking responsibility. It would be totally against his position that we shouldn't be raising taxes, because if we don't have congestion pricing tolls, which are user fees, discretionary user fees, you know the legislature is going to have to raise taxes again to support the MTA. In every respect, this is a policy that President Trump and the Republicans should be supporting.

Amina Srna: As is typically the case when we have segments on congestion pricing, our phones are pretty full and we have two interesting callers who seem to be on kind of opposite ends in their support. Let's first go to Gwyn in Morningside Heights. Hi, Gwyn, you're on WNYC.

Gwyn: Hi. Yeah, my name is Gwyn. I live in Morningside Heights and I walk every day to work. I go up near Grant's Tomb, and I have to tell you, the last time I walked up there, I thought, "Oh, my God, why is it so quiet?" Then I realized there's no cars. There's no cars on Riverside Drive. There's no cars on the West Side Highway. It's amazing. It's wonderful. I've been here 40 years. It's really such a different-- Even in Midtown. I was in Midtown the other day, walking. There's nobody. On 9th Avenue, the traffic was beautiful. That's what I'm going to say.

Amina Srna: Thank you so much for sharing, Gwyn.

Kathryn Wylde: I heard the same thing from somebody who lives on Madison Square Park in Manhattan central business district. She said she was being woken up every night at 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning by the kids coming in from New Jersey, racing through the streets and honking their horns and making noise. She said it's gone quiet, so I guess they don't want to pay the $9.

Amina Srna: I think we have some pushback from Trey in the Bronx, who I think is going to talk about how the traffic is being potentially offset. Trey, you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in.

Trey: Yes, good morning. Thank you, ladies. It's unfortunate that it's always about class and money. I don't know how much that lady that lives on Madison park has in her bank account, but I know how much the average person living in the South Bronx and on the Lower East Side, Avenue A, B and C. I'm telling you, it's killing us. Between the extra traffic, "Oh, it's so quiet in my neighborhood now," well, it ain't quiet in mine.

Amina Srna: Trey, can I ask just experientially what you're seeing? Do you feel that traffic is worse in the Bronx now?

Trey: The Cross Bronx is beyond. Okay? There's no parking anywhere on the Lower East Side. People have come now and they just park their car. They're not from there. I can't go visit my family on the Lower East Side. "Oh, I shouldn't own a car because I don't make $100,000?" I shouldn't own a car? That's what helps me to get to work. I shouldn't own a car? It's not right how you offset everything onto the poor, and that's what y'all do. Nobody cared about the South Bronx. Nobody cares about the Cross Bronx Expressway. Nobody cares if you make less than 50,000, how you're getting uptown and downtown. Nobody cares and we're tired.

Amina Srna: I hear your frustration, Trey. Thank you so much for your call. Kathy, how do you want to weigh in on that? Have we found that--

Kathryn Wylde: Well, in point of fact, we do have exemptions. If Trey is in fact a low income driver, he can apply to-- go on the MTA website, and there's a way to apply for anybody who's disabled, who needs their car, for anyone who's low income, who needs their car in, they can apply for exemptions and relief. We did care and that was taken into consideration. In terms of the Cross Bronx Expressway, the Cross Bronx Expressway has been a disaster forever. I don't think that anybody who wants to get anywhere efficiently is going on the Cross Bronx Expressway.

In terms of parking on the Lower East Side, in fact, it should be better as a result of congestion pricing because fewer cars. 1.2 million fewer trips were made into Manhattan by vehicles in the month of January, so there are fewer cars coming in. Maybe the neighbors on the Lower East Side are taking advantage of free parking in the streets, and that's the problem, but it's certainly not caused by people driving into the city.

Amina Srna: If you're just joining us, this is The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm producer Amina Srna filling in for Brian today. I'm talking to Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO for the Partnership for New York City, about congestion pricing and more. Kathy, as a member of the group called the Traffic Mobility Review Board that set the toll or the range for the toll, is $9 enough to fund the repairs and the projects that the MTA needs?

Kathryn Wylde: Well, frankly, we were worried whether $9 would be enough. The original toll was projected at $15 was the minimum we could get it down to, but the governor came back and said, "I think $15 is sticker-shock for too many people." The governor was able to figure out a way to arrange the financing so the MTA could still get the $15 billion over the next five years that would finance the bonds for improving the MTA services and maintaining the services of mass transit. She was able to do that at $9, which is terrific because it was going to be 15, and I think this gives everybody a break.

There's more of a break for those folks who are coming in through the toll bridges and tunnels so that in effect, they're getting very modest fee. Prior to congestion pricing, taxes on business and individuals paid for 44% of the MTA revenues. Fares by the riders paid for 27% of the MTA revenues. Tolls were only 13%, so this is really equalizing. I think we would all agree that the people who drive into the Manhattan central business districts are better off, have more resources than those who are taking subways and buses. In general, that is certainly the case, and this plan at $9 was designed to make sure it works for everybody, the transit riders as well as the truck and car drivers.

Amina Srna: When will we know how much money is being generated?

Kathryn Wylde: Well, we will know that in the next couple months. The MTA will have firm numbers at the end of March. They said it was three months to be able to have firm numbers of a regularized system. It takes a while to make sure what we're doing is working. Also, the MTA is now clamping down on those folks who have hidden their license plates and cost hundreds of millions in lost toll revenues. That's another thing that's happening right now to make sure that we're not losing that revenue.

Amina Srna: Let's take another caller, I think from the driver's perspective. Seth in Jersey City. Hi, you're on WNYC.

Seth: Hey, thanks for taking my call. Real quick, I just want to push back on the thing your guest said about people driving in being more well off than people that take the subway. I mean, you find me a three bedroom apartment that I can buy within on a subway going into Midtown, in downtown Brooklyn or anything, or in the Upper East Side, Upper West Side. People who take the subway, many of them are very, very well off.

What I called in to say is that I live in Jersey City, grew up in Hoboken, lived in Weehawken. I've always been in a New York City adjacent area. I'm a stagehand, and so I'm generally coming in early in the morning and getting out late at night. Sometimes the buses just are not running frequently enough for me to rely on public transit as much as I would like to, so I end up driving in. While I was originally really in opposition to congestion pricing because I didn't want to pay more, the fact that traffic has reduced so much getting in and out of the city and just within Midtown has really brought me around to it.

Well, I don't really want to pay the extra 4.50, which is what I'm paying based on where I'm coming into the Lincoln Tunnel, with the E-ZPass. I don't want to pay the 4.50, but at the same time, it's probably saving me 15 minutes either way. The one thing that I'm still upset about is the fact that all these dollars are just going to the MTA and just New York City public transit. While I understand it has its deficits and needs that money, I think that with so many New Jersey residents paying the toll, more of that money should be going to increasing public transit options for, specifically, I care about residents of Hudson County.

Then there was also a rumor that Phil Murphy refused to go deeper into negotiations with New York legislators to try to get more money for just those kinds of projects that I would like to see, like money towards rebuilding the Port Authority Bus Terminal that so desperately needs it or, I don't know, more bridge and tunnel options for folks that live in New Jersey. I'm wondering if there's any truth to that.

Amina Srna: Seth, thank you so much. Kathy, a couple of things Seth laid out there.

Kathryn Wylde: I got it.

Amina Srna: I do want to clarify that I believe our caller had said that people driving in tend to be higher income, which is, I believe, also true. Kathy, where do you want to come in on Seth's points?

Kathryn Wylde: Well, I want to thank Seth for his thoughtfulness and I think that he is evidence of the fact that people value their time highly and are glad for the time savings that we have realized with congestion pricing strategy. I also want to confirm that New York was attempting, Governor Hochul was attempting to negotiate with Governor Murphy in terms of providing some support for both mitigation and transit support for New Jersey, and that was not taken up. I'll also say that New Jersey is spending a lot more money on improving and expanding its turnpike than they're spending on their mass transit system, and that should be corrected.

I think I agree with Seth on virtually most of his points. I do think, again, the statistics show that the average driver is earning substantially more than the average subway rider, but that's not without its exceptions.

Amina Srna: Senator Gillibrand was on the show last week and Brian asked her about her skepticism on congestion pricing and she echoed the survey in saying the president should not interfere, but suggested that many more people should get waivers. There's a new push for exemptions happening in Albany right now, firefighters leading that effort. There are very few exemptions allowed by the governor. What happens if the governor or if the lawmakers add to them?

Kathryn Wylde: Well, on the mobility board, we set out that there would be very few exemptions because once you start having exemptions, the toll for everyone else goes up and it becomes much harder to enforce the program. It's been proven that once you have a lot of exemptions from a lot of different people, you can have an increase in evasion of the tolls. What we're trying to do is be as fair as possible. The argument of the firefighters in particular is if they drive into the city and they get reassigned to a firehouse during the day, they need to take their equipment there.

It's unclear to me why the fire department, which has plenty of vehicles, all of which are exempt from the tolls, can't provide them that transportation. I have not heard an argument and we heard arguments. I think 117 different groups made strong cases that they should be exempt. We really found only very low income people that have to work in the central business district, and people with disabilities who cannot negotiate our subways until we invest in greater accessibility, which is part of what congestion pricing will pay for. We agreed that those were the only exemptions aside from government vehicles on government duties like sanitation trucks plowing the snow and police vehicles, but no private cars.

We have a situation in New York where city workers alone, 95,000 of them have parking placards on their private cars that allow them to park with no charge. That's why it's such a big shock to so many of them to pay $9 to come in. They've been coming in and not having to pay $50 a day in parking lots like others who drive in and commute to the city have to pay. The system has been unfair, but it has been beneficial to a few people. Those people would like to keep coming in and out of the central business district for free, but they're costing the rest of us a lot of money in excess congestion.

Amina Srna: To an earlier point that you made, I will note that the MTA chief, Janno Lieber, was on the show and pushed back on the firefighters, similar to what you were saying or anyone whose boss is telling them to drive in saying it's the company that should pay the toll. We have a yellow cab driver calling in. Custodio in the Upper West Side. Hi, you're on WNYC.

Custodio: Good morning. Thanks for having me on the show. I just want to support the program and say that as a yellow cab perspective, the traffic is working perfect in Midtown. I mean, you go in and out, no traffic. I heard other previous calls say the same. You go 9th Avenue, you zip, you downtown, you come uptown, especially on the bridges, bridges and tunnels, it's amazing. It's a complete 360 degrees-

Amina Srna: Thank you so much.

Custodio: -for better. I think the program, it should continue. The only issue I have on the program on driver perspective, I wish they could like lower the price in terms of the car service just to make more appealing for the people to get into the cab. As it is right now, it's a little bit expensive in terms of the fares. That could work out for lower for the car service, that will be even much better. In terms of traffic, the way the goal of the congestion price is working perfectly and I'm so surprised that you can see the effects of the problem very quickly.

Kathryn Wylde: I think you should know that your union, the Taxi Drivers Alliance, was very effective in getting the final program down so that the taxi drivers did not have to pay every time they came into the central business district, but rather had a modest fee that their passengers pay and that has really worked out very well and thank your union had a major role in making sure that happened.

Amina Srna: Let's go to one more caller. Allan in Brooklyn, I believe, has a suggestion. Hi, Allan, you're on WNYC?

Allan: Thanks for the opportunity. Thank you. I am not against the congestion pricing as a means toward the total goal of improving our system in the state. Part of the burden, now that we've burdened drivers, should now be extended to the specially benefited zones of real estate in Manhattan that would be totally non-functional without subsidized transit. As it happens right now, they're paying far less than the windfall profit they make on buildings that could not be filled without subsidized subway service. A special assessment, something like a business improvement district, can now be superimposed on areas that have had that free transit access for decades.

The model has already been set that drivers who had free access to public streets are now being taxed for something that once was free to them, so what's good for the goose is now good for the gander. The precedent of unfurling new programs that take back entitlements should be applied equally to drivers and to benefited real estate owners in those intense dense zones, without which there'd be no congestion and without which the city's economy would not run. They are recipients of an unusually special windfall and they should be asked to pay a greater share than current real estate taxes imposed on them.

Amina Srna: Kathy, do you have an opinion on what Allan is proposing there?

Kathryn Wylde: Well, as I mentioned before, the largest contributors to both the capital program and the operating funds of the MTA are business taxpayers, including the commercial real estate industry, as well as corporations through the payroll mobility tax. That is fully 44% of MTA revenue, so I think it's important to recognize there's already a contribution being made, but as conditions improve and as property values go up, in fact, the real estate industry will be paying more because that's how we reassess properties. I think that your point is well taken and that the industry that you're talking about will definitely be contributing more in the future as we see improvements in the Manhattan central business district.

Amina Srna: Janno Lieber was in Albany last week calling on the legislature to change the way the MTA's capital plan is funded. Their five year plan got killed days before it was to have taken effect on January 1st by the Assembly and Senate leadership. Does the partnership agree there's a better way to keep the trains and stations repaired?

Kathryn Wylde: Well, I think that the case Janno was making is that we don't need money just for expansion of the system. We need money to upgrade the existing system to buy new equipment. $11 billion of the capital plan is going to buy new cars for the subways and the commuter rail, where we've got 50-year-old equipment, so there are many ways. Upgrading the signaling, upgrading accessibility, these are all pieces of the capital plan, so we're not just talking about building new subway lines or creating new bus lines. We're talking about really upgrading what we have so people can rely on it. That's very important.

In terms of how we finance that effort, we've got to be thinking about two sides of that coin. One side is how do we create a more efficient, cost-effective system? I know that that's something the MTA has made some progress on and is continuing to work on. How do we collect the 800 million a year we're losing from fare evasion? That is a top priority that both the governor and the mayor have targeted as something we have to work on because that will help fill that gap. Then finally, we're going to have to find new sources of revenues to support the system. I think, again, as we see the benefits of congestion pricing and we see values in the central business district increase, it's a lot easier to make that case that, yes, everybody's got to pay a little more.

Amina Srna: As we run out of time in this segment, I want to end by going back to President Trump, whether or not he can rescind the permission for congestion pricing. Incoming Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said their grants would prioritize, "Communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average," and localities that, "Require local compliance or cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and not imposing vaccine and mask mandates." That doesn't sound promising for this area. Are the businesses that you represent concerned about the change in federal funding along these lines, and what would it do for our infrastructure and our budgets?

Kathryn Wylde: The employers in the city, the businesses in the city, are absolutely going to be advocates for continued federal funding of the city, and for support for the right of our state and city to make our own rules in terms of how we function and how we raise local and state funds to support our infrastructure. The businesses will be working in lockstep with the governor and the mayor in making the case to Secretary Duffy and to the president, the White House staff, that New York represents a large percentage of our national economy.

We have to keep New York City strong. We have to support the city in every way possible. Whether it's London or Paris or Beijing, our competitors' cities have the full support of their federal government. We need the same, and so we're confident that we're going to be able to make that case to the president because he wants to preside over a strong and growing national economy, more jobs. We have to keep New York strong in order to achieve that.

Amina Srna: We'll leave it there for today. A big thank you to Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO for the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit representing many of the city's biggest profit-driven businesses. Thank you so much for joining us.

 

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