N.J. Transit Sees Future - In the Past, The New York Times, December 30, 2001
A rational look at transit, The Seattle Times, December 21, 2001
Terror Attacks Emphasize Need for Re-Examination of Transportation Priorities, Alliance for a New Transportation Charter, December 13, 2001
Think transit is expensive? Check out the cost of cars, Seattle Weekly, November 15-21, 2001
New Jersey Transit Fiscal Crisis, Newsday, November 14, 2001
Drivers Ready To Ride The Train, PLANetizen, November 4, 2001
Enlightenment on Energy The New York Times, October 22, 2001
Permanent Driving Restriction Into Manhattan Is Considered The New York Times, Ocotber 17, 2001
Giuliani Puts Brakes on Car Culture Newsday, October 1, 2001
Nation in a Jam, New York Times, May 13, 2001
Local transit options include rail line, Princeton Packet, April 20, 2001
N.J. Transit Sees Future - In the Past
Resurrecting Old Track And Laying New LinesBy CAREN CHESLER
New York Times, New Jersey Section, Sunday, December 30, 2001, p. 6.
In 1865, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad carried anthracite from Scranton, Pa., to Hoboken. The freight of coal moved easily through Pennsylvania, but once it crossed the Delaware River, the trains had to slow down for the next 40 miles as the track undulated through the mountains and lakes of northern New Jersey.
Vowing to make the line more efficient, the railroad's president, William Haynes Truesdale, is said to have stood on the line's highest point and told builders to construct the straightest route possible. If hills and lakes got in the way, the builders were told to build over them. Huge viaducts of reinforced concrete were erected, scores of bridges were built and 15 million cubic yards of fill were used to make the line level. When it was completed a decade later, the line was 11 miles shorter and hailed as an engineering marvel.
But then the Depression came, and the region's reliance on coal diminished. Increasingly, manufacturers began transporting freight by truck and the 40-mile stretch of track-dubbed the Lackawanna Cutoff -was eventually taken out of service in 1979.
State officials now want to bring it back. In May, New Jersey Transit purchased the line for $21 million with the hope of reintroducing rail service to northern New Jersey, where the population is exploding and the roads are reaching capacity. And it is only one of several train lines transportation officials are dusting off to alleviate traffic. New Jersey Transit plans to spend about $9 billion over the next decade to resurrect old rail lines, lay new track and add trains with the goal of moving 69,000 people off the highways and onto the railroad.
Transit officials plan to resurrect the New York, Susquehanna and Western Line, between Sparta and Paterson. There are plans to use a strip of the old Jersey Central Railroad in Monmouth and Ocean Counties for commuter rail service. And a 21-mile stretch of the track between West Trenton and Bound Brook may also be resurrected.
New Jersey Transit also plans to convert nearly half a dozen light rail lines. The Hudson Bergen Light Rail is already operating between western Jersey City and the Newport Center mall, but it will be extended to the Hoboken PATH terminal by late 2002 and eventually into the interior of Bergen County. A light rail system is being built in South Jersey, between Camden and Trenton, and another is being built in Newark, connecting the city's two business districts. There are also plans for a light rail line in Union County, connecting downtown Elizabeth with Newark International Airport.
A new train station will also be opened in Secaucus, enabling 32,000 passengers to commute directly into Manhattan and shave 15 minutes off their commute. Morris and Essex Line passengers would get off the train at Secaucus and transfer to the Northeast Corridor or North Jersey Coast Line, the only two lines that go all the way into New York.
The theory is that if the commute is made easy, the riders will come. Still, they may not get a seat, says Jeffrey Warsh, executive director of New Jersey Transit. Many trains are already operating at 130 percent capacity, and once the Secaucus station opens, seating will only get worse. The agency hopes to ease the problem by running trains with 12 cars instead of 10. And it also plans to purchase 200 double-decker train cars.
"They will not get a seat in the short run," Mr. Warsh said. "But we will be returning 10 hours a month to people's lives at a time when that time couldn't be more precious."
But if state officials build everything that is now on the drawing table, seating will not be the only problem. Transit officials will have to contend with train traffic waiting to get through the one tunnel.into New York, and Mr. Warsh says another is needed if the state wants to continue to expand rail service.
"Once we squeeze all the juice out, that's it until we have a tunnel," Mr. Warsh said. "We will have done everything we could possibly do to address the capacity by 2005."
For now, state officials propose building a new tunnel underneath the existing one, at a depth of 145 feet. A second tunnel would run underneath Manhattan, connecting Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal. A third tunnel underneath the East River and into Queens would then be needed so that trains could turn around before returning to New Jersey. Mr. Warsh said the project-currently in the fact-finding stage-will cost from $3 billion to $5 billion.
Mr. Warsh remains optimistic, saying all the projects will eventually be built after obtaining federal funds and overcoming local opposition. He cited the Montclair Connection, a 1,500-foot strip of track linking the Montclair branch to the Boonton line. The project was started in 1992 but was stymied several times by local residents because it required the destruction of several homes. It will finally be completed in the next couple of months.
Douglas Bowen, vice president of the New Jersey Association of Rail Passengers, a grass roots organization, said the opposition often came from people in the suburbs who want access to the inner cities but do not want the inner cities to have access to the suburbs.
"They think if you build light rail, people will steal their TV's and get on the light rails," Mr. Bowen said. "It's suburban folklore."
Others fear-incorrectly, in many cases -that train lines lower property values, Mr. Bowen said. People who live along Essex Street in Jersey City, where the Hudson Bergen Light Rail has been re-established, were convinced the line would destroy their neighborhood, he said.
"I couldn't buy what those places are going for now," Mr. Bowen said.
Copyright: The New York Times Company 2001
Editorials & Opinion : The Seattle Times, Friday, December 21, 2001
By Glenn Pascall
Special to the Times
Seattle has a new mayor. King County has a newly re-elected executive. And the governor has a legislative majority of his own party.
All this adds up to politically stable leadership and a chance for rail transit to get back on the positive side of the public's mind. Yet, big questions remain. Among them:
· Will Sound Transit's current light rail receive federal funding so it can start construction on time?
· Will rapid bus service recapture political momentum if Sound Transit is unable to launch its south route with federal funds?
· How will continuing concerns be resolved over bus-versus-rail use of the downtown transit tunnel?
· Will the popular Monorail plan cause Seattle voters to approve taxes that shift resources from light rail?
Meanwhile, Congress is moving ahead on high-speed rail legislation. If passed and co-funded by new revenues from the state, this will increase the focus on improved Amtrak service, Sounder commuter rail and the waterfront freight problem.
Bus advocates talk about immediate relief of congestion. Rail advocates speak of the need for high capacity and dedicated rights-of-way. How can citizens sort out the options, especially the relative emphasis on bus-versus-rail transit?
Choosing from among these systems involves both technical and political decisions. For at least two decades, advocates have debated the costs and benefits while exchanging charges of hidden agendas, zealotry and wrong-headedness. The debate confounds taxpayers, who have sent one clear message: Do something.
Cities across North America have adopted rail systems. Portland opted for "light-rail transit" (LRT), an updated version of old-time streetcars. Vancouver, B.C., went with a starter system of heavy rail similar to New York and the Bay Area.
Both systems are successful and popular, refuting the notion that rail transit is inherently flawed and cannot be cost-effective.
But critics have their own strong point. Rail's enormous construction costs dry up precious tax dollars that could have been used to do something else. The critics have forced rail advocates to sharpen their case and be more specific with their plans.
Consensus among the two camps is not likely - in part because each technology has its unique set of costs and benefits. But taxpayers can learn much from their arguments, which boil down to a short list of issues.
Here's what I learned:
· Construction costs: Rail costs are huge, but they must be compared to the alternative cost of new highways and other modes of transit, especially to serve peak commute hours.
Despite our experience with Sound Transit, rail projects in the U.S. and Canada are no more prone to cost overruns than other transit systems. They get more expensive per mile when they go underground, and they are cheaper when existing right-of-way is available.
· Operating costs: Rail transit has the advantage of linking multiple cars with a single operator, which reduces labor costs. Critics charge that the level of operating subsidies does not square with this assumption. What's crucial is the average ridership in rail cars.
Overall, costs per passenger mile are similar for auto, bus and rail. Each mode is heavily subsidized, in more obvious ways for transit (taxes) than for cars (personal and social costs).
· Impact of rail on total transit use: Opponents say rail systems degrade bus service, which leads to a decline in total transit use. But experience in most cities suggests that light rail attracts commuters who won't use buses. Part of the reason is that most bus routes have no dedicated right-of-way so buses get stuck in traffic.
Ultimately, many experts believe bus-rail conflicts are less important than trying to maximize transit benefits by utilizing the strengths of each mode; for example, rail's high capacity and guaranteed speed, and the route flexibility of buses.
· Rail's impact on poor people: In Los Angeles, a conflict between the cost of suburban rail service and inner-city bus service led to a suit by the NAACP that resulted in a court order putting more buses back on the street. Rail foes rightly point to this example.
Yet, it's also true that an extensive rail system can expand opportunities for inner-city residents by helping them reach jobs throughout the metro area more smoothly and with fewer transfers than can often be done by bus.
· Speed, safety and reliability: Transit doesn't have to go faster than cars to attract riders, but the time difference must be modest or transit won't be competitive. More important than speed are on-schedule departures, on-time arrivals and frequency of service. Combined with safety in transit stations and on transit vehicles, reliability provides what people need before they will leave their private vehicles for public transit.
· Measures of market share: America's increasingly complex trip patterns cannot be covered by rail. Where rail shines is in serving major centers of jobs, shopping and entertainment. Opponents note that rail's share of total trips in a metro area will always be low. But rail's share of trips along major corridors to downtown can be much higher, and dense downtown conditions make rail a competitive investment.
· Energy use and air quality: There is wide variation in estimating pollution per passenger-mile by car, bus and rail. The crucial factor is the average number of people on transit vehicles. Rail transit advocates argue that the issue is more basic. Since high-capacity transit supports high density, it creates "transit leverage" - the ability to reduce miles traveled per day by the average resident. This lowers fuel use and air pollution.
· Transit-oriented development. Rail can support wise land use - if land-use policy supports rail. Foes charge rail cannot recreate the 19th-century city, but rail advocates don't seem to have this as their goal. They aim for rail-oriented development around stations, to add a lifestyle option even in cities that remain largely auto-dependent.
In conclusion, many regions including Seattle face big decisions on investments in transportation. The arguments in the rail debate reveal many complexities and tradeoffs. Yet, as rival claims are traded by advocates, the debate often fails to fully present the issues and charges are made without back-up data or analysis. We need to raise the bar on the quality of information in this crucial arena.
It's time to reframe the questions. Done right, rail makes sense. It's time to get off dead center and move on to the specifics. There are plenty of knowledgeable people out there who can help. As we make our transit choices, let's seek them out and tap into their experience.
Glenn Pascall is senior fellow for transportation at the Cascadia Project of the Discovery Institute, Seattle.
Copyright © 2001 The Seattle Times Company
Terror Attacks Emphasize Need for Re-Examination of Transportation Priorities
Thursday, December 13, 2001
More Than 300 Organizations Call for a More Diversified Transportation System; New Report Released
Washington, D.C. - Members of the newly-formed Alliance for a New Transportation Charter say that the terror attacks of September 11th show the urgent need to diversify the transportation system.
September 11th showed both the costs of relying on a single transportation mode and the benefits of providing alternatives. The crisis was heightened by the shutdown of the airline system, which left thousands of travelers stranded without alternatives to get home. At the same time, the variety of transportation options available in Washington and New York helped ease evacuations and travel in both cities. In both cases, the presence or absence of alternatives ultimately affected the economy.
"Transportation systems do more than provide mobility: they affect everything from our waistlines to our wallets," said David Burwell, President of the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), the organizer of the Alliance. "Alliance members from developers to ministers agree that our transportation investments are not doing enough to meet these community goals."
The Charter calls for using transportation investments to enhance public health, safety and security, promote social equity and a better quality of life; sustain economic prosperity, and protect the environment while saving energy.
The Alliance includes health, environmental, business, social equity, and other groups that have agreed on a four-point Charter to improve communities through better transportation investments. Some of the national endorsers include the American Public Health Association, the American Heart Association, the National Wildlife Federation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSME), and USAction. More than 300 diverse state, local and regional groups from around the nation also signed on as founding endorsers.
STPP released a new report in conjunction with the introduction of the Alliance. Ten Years of Progress: Building Better Communities Through Transportation profiles more than 70 innovative transportation projects around the country. It provides a summary of national statistics documenting how transportation has changed since passage of the landmark federal transportation law ten years ago. The report also documents polls indicating that transportation reform has become mainstream. Moreover, the report underscores the need for broadening participation among organizations whose voices may not have been heard in previous
transportation debates but whose constituents have been directly affected by transportation policy decisions.-MORE-
"Our nation needs expanded investments in public transit and rail as essential steps toward securing greater social equity," said Sonny Hall, president of the Transport Workers Union of America and a member of the Alliance. "We need to more fully recognize the connection between the good jobs throughout our economy that are supported by sound transportation systems and good jobs and careers in transportation industries.
"Community design and transportation policy have such an impact on physical activity, obesity, heart disease, and stroke, that the American Heart Association simply must support public policies that make walking, bicycling, and other forms of physical activity the easiest travel choices for Americans to make," said Rich Hamburg, Director of Government Relations for the American Heart Association.
Examples of some of the affected sectors and their concerns include:
Advocates for low-income Americans see how the near-necessity of car ownership prevents movement from welfare to work and inhibits the ability of working families to save money for buying a home. Most American families spend more on driving than on health care, education, or food.
Real estate developers are recognizing a growing market of homebuyers who want walkable neighborhoods and convenient transit options.
Businesses are realizing that transportation decisions can make or break their ability to attract and retain workers.
Community groups are realizing that poor transportation investments can sap community vitality through long commutes that keep people from volunteering and by dividing neighborhoods with high-speed traffic. People who live on streets with high traffic know fewer of their neighbors than those on streets with less traffic.
The full text of the New Transportation Charter, and a list of endorsers so far, can be found at www.transact.org. The 48-page, full-color Ten Years of Progress report is available through STPP, at (202) 466-2636. An indexed version can be found at STPP's website, www.transact.org.
Think transit is expensive? Check out the cost of cars.
BY KEVIN FULLERTONPublished November 15 - 21, 2001
SO YOU'RE a do-good liberal who always supports public transportation with your vote, but some days you read the newspaper and feel like a schmuck. Cost overruns, inexplicable planning, lack of ridership--we spend so much on buses and rails, and seem to get so little. You're tired of the smirks you get from the cynics when you bring up the social costs of preserving our car culture. But are the bleeding hearts the only ones who can justify the costs of public transit?
Absolutely not, say researchers who analyze the comparative costs of public transportation and car commuting. Even the barest of financial comparisons, they say, show that each dollar spent on public transit gives back much more than a dollar invested in highways and other car-conducive infrastructure. Think of it this way: Public transit may be the hard-luck brother who hits you up for the occasional loan and embarrasses you at polite gatherings, but driving a car is like having a drug habit. Addicts never count the costs of their habit because that would be far too depressing.
The Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) says we spend about $26 billion locally, or 25 percent of our personal incomes, just for the privilege of moving around. And it's not light rail that's eating a hole in your pocket. We each paid about $5,400 in 1998 to drive a car, but only $690 to fund buses, ferries, and other public transit, the PSRC calculates.
Think the price is worth it for all that individual mobility? Those numbers don't even begin to get at the real costs of cars, says PSRC's Ralph Cipriani. "We pay for unprecedented mobility, comfort, and privacy in ways that are not always apparent," says Cipriani. "Most [people] generally consider the costs associated with maintaining and improving roadways, building sidewalks and bike paths, buying buses and operating transit routes. . . . In fact, these direct public expenditures by government are only a small portion of the total cost of transportation."
Parking is one of the biggest hidden costs of driving. In many cases, your car costs more sitting still than it does running down the street. A 1996 report from Northwest Environment Watch estimated that a parking space adds about 10 cents per mile to the cost of a daily commute. A typical commercial development dedicates more space to parking than it does to offices and stores. That drives up construction costs, in some cases as much as 18 percent, which means your rent, plate of pasta, and coffee cost more. But the cost of parking gets even more personal: Chances are your employer could pay you as much as $2,000 more per year for what it costs to hold a parking space for you.
Drivers can't even enjoy the smug satisfaction that they themselves are paying for the convenience of their cars. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that roadway-user fees and taxes (such as the gas tax and vehicle registration fees) pay for only about 60 percent of public expenditures for roadway construction and repairs. The rest has to be paid for by the public at large through sales and property taxes.
Residents of cities that have made heavy investments in public transit, such as New York City, pay $2,500 less per year for mobility than do residents of car-dependent cities like Houston, points out Peter Hurley of the Transportation Choices Coalition. Seattle's per-household costs are closer to Houston's than New York's.
Cipriani says the road warriors are losing the battle to provide an urban infrastructure that allows us the freedom of movement we cherish as Americans. "The current system of financing transportation, both roadways and transit, is not serving us well. It is an overly complex and inefficient financing system, which does little to provide the public sector with adequate resources to expand and improve all forms of transportation," says Cipriani.
Any way you slice it, says Transportation Choices' Hurley, it's far cheaper to add a bus or rail rider to the daily commute than another driver. "People who tend to be ideologically opposed to paying more for public transit don't have good economic arguments that stand up," says Hurley.
Copyright 2001 Seattle Weekly
New Jersey Transit Fiscal Crisis
Date: 011114
From: http://www.newsday.com/REPORT BLAMES CHRONIC UNDERFUNDING, AMBITIOUS EXPANSION PLANS FOR NJT FISCAL CRISIS
By Amy Westfeldt, Associated Press Writer, November 14, 2001
Newark - A decade of underfunding, failure to raise fares and ambitious expansion plans have helped put New Jersey Transit into a fiscal crisis that threatens the agency's existing bus and train services, a Rutgers University transportation expert said Wednesday.
Martin E. Robins, director of the Transportation Policy Institute at Rutgers' Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center, said in a 38-page independently funded study that NJ Transit is diverting 70 percent of funds meant to maintain and replace buses and trains to operate the agency.
NJ Transit, which has projected a $1.5 billion deficit over the next five years despite steady ridership increases, could soon reach the point where it is forced to cut back its services because it won't have the money to provide them, Robins said.
"I think that they're running out the string," Robins said. "You can only do that for so long and then you begin to pay a serious price."
The 10-month, $35,000 study, funded by the J.C. Kellogg Foundation in Elizabeth, was harshly critical of most aspects of the agency's spending and budget decisions, its reluctance to raise fares since1990 and its plans to go ahead with nearly a dozen new rail projects without the money to pay for them.
The report recommends asking the state Legislature and incoming governor to address decreasing state funding and to stop funding new rail projects.
NJ Transit Executive Director Jeff Warsh said he largely agreed with the report's conclusions, except to the suggestion that the agency stop planning new projects, like a planned light-rail line from Camden to Trenton; extending the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail line that already runs from Jersey City to Bayonne; and a Secaucus rail station scheduled to open sometime next year.
Other projects that have been researched but not funded include extending the Newark City subway, making a Newark-Elizabeth rail connection and expanding light rail into downtown Trenton.
"The people of the state of New Jersey need to see the horizon. They need to see where we need to be," Warsh said Wednesday. "That's a more important threshold question than how do we afford it."
Warsh agreed with the report's conclusion that the agency can't continue to use federal capital funds to make up chronic deficits in its operating budget. The report said that NJ Transit uses a greater percentage of those funds to pay operating costs than seven other major cities, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston.
Warsh said the agency needs more federal and state aid, which fell from $300 million in the 1993 fiscal year to $149 million -- all from the state -- in the 2000 fiscal year, according to the report.
Incoming Gov. Jim McGreevey's staff has asked NJ Transit for detailed information on the agency's finances, but gave no indication on whether the state would increase funding, Warsh said.
McGreevey spokeswoman Jo Glading said Wednesday that the governor-elect hasn't reviewed the Rutgers report, but that NJ Transit "will obviously be a very critical part of the budget review he began
yesterday."The report said the state could have reduced its deficit by $150 million a year if it had raised fares slightly each year since 1990 rather than keep them unchanged. Warsh said fare increases are worth
discussing, but can raise passengers' expectations for service improvements that may not come."People are going to assume that if they pay more in fares, that suddenly they're going to have every seat that they need," Warsh said.
The report said it could not assign blame for the crisis solely to the agency, past administrations or state lawmakers. Of the projects that Robins contends are spreading the agency too thin, he said,
"There's a different person responsible for every project that is on that list."But he said the four civilian members of NJ Transit's seven-member Board of Directors have lost significant power to make the budget, instead deferring decisions largely to the agency's staff, the state
treasurer and the governor. He suggested the next governor appoint a citizens' panel to examine NJ Transit's budget and make the agency more accountable to the public.On the Net:
Transportation Policy Institute
New Jersey Transit
October 22, 2001
The events of Sept. 11 have inspired some serious rethinking of a whole range of issues, from airline safety to intelligence gathering. On the face of it, this should also be the perfect time for a measured reassessment of the nation's energy strategy. Turmoil in the Persian Gulf and Middle East has again raised fears about disruptions in the oil supply while providing yet another reminder of the country's increasingly precarious dependence on imported oil. Regrettably, Congress and President Bush, transfixed by the notion that America can drill its way to energy independence, are in danger of letting this opportunity for enlightened policy-making slip away.
Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, has actually been forced to go to great lengths to prevent his colleagues from making the country's energy policies worse than they already are. Fearful that a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats on the Energy Committee would approve a bill authorizing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Mr. Daschle took the bill away from the committee with the promise that he would write a more balanced measure and present it to the Senate in the coming months.
Congress's basic problem is that it tends to look at only one side of the energy equation - the supply side - while giving short shrift to the demand side. That means giving the oil and gas industries more money and broader license to punch holes in the ground, while shortchanging investments in energy efficiency. Lawmakers have also shown little interest in the development of alternative energy sources. In August, for example, the House approved an alarmingly one-sided bill that contained $27 billion in subsidies for traditional energy producers and only $6 billion for conservation.
That is neither a sensible energy policy nor the right strategy for reducing our reliance on imported oil. Since the first oil crunch of 1974, America's dependence on overseas oil has grown. Imports account for 60 percent of daily oil consumption today compared with 47 percent 10 years ago. A bit less than one-quarter of that imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf, and the volume is growing. In 1974 America imported 1 million barrels a day from the Persian Gulf; now the figure is more than 2.5 million.
Proponents of Arctic drilling say that the wildlife refuge alone could make up a good part of this deficit - 1.5 million barrels a day at peak production in, say, 2020. That is a significant amount of oil. It also assumes the discovery of 15 billion barrels under the refuge's coastal plain, which the United States Geological Survey regards as an extremely remote possibility. Official estimates of "economically recoverable" oil are in fact much lower than 15 billion barrels. Yet even if the most optimistic estimates prove to be right, the Arctic reserves - or any other major domestic discoveries, for that matter - would not guarantee anything approaching energy independence. The reason is simple: the United States, which accounts for about 25 percent of global oil consumption, has about 3 percent of proven global oil reserves.
Plainly, the road to reduced dependence leads in a different direction - toward conservation (meaning increased efficiency) and development of non-oil energy sources. Increasing fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles to 40 miles per gallon - a reasonable expectation, even with existing technology - would save about 2.5 million barrels a day by 2020. That is considerably more than the refuge can be expected to yield in the same time frame. As it happens, 2.5 million barrels is just about what we are now importing every day from the Persian Gulf.
In addition to making conventional cars and trucks more efficient, there is much more we can do to reduce our dependence on imports - including a serious national effort to develop hybrid cars or cars powered by fuel cells. The House bill pays no attention to ideas like these. It is to be hoped that Mr. Daschle will include them in his. What is needed here is a sense of history. The oil shocks of 1974 led not only to the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve but also to the first set of fuel economy standards. This crisis should lead to equally enlightened results.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
October 17, 2001
NOTEBOOKS
Permanent Driving Restriction Into Manhattan Is Considered
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
t has been a near-constant refrain since Sept. 11: "Life will never be the same." And yesterday, city officials raised the possibility that one inconvenience, the partial ban on single- occupancy vehicles entering Manhattan, might become permanent.
"It's an intriguing question," said Iris Weinshall, the transportation commissioner. "Have we thought about it? Yeah."
Ms. Weinshall, who appeared at a news conference with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, made her comments while announcing that the restrictions, in place since Sept. 27, would be loosened today. Instead of prohibiting single-occupancy vehicles from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. on weekdays, the ban has been shortened by an hour, to end at 10 a.m.
Vehicle counts in the area affected - below 63rd Street - have shown a 23 percent reduction in traffic, Ms. Weinshall said.
Making the current restrictions permanent might be easier said than done, since they were enacted under emergency powers granted to Mayor Giuliani since Sept. 11 and without the special consent of the State Legislature. City motor vehicle laws are subject to state oversight, and such consent would be required.
A ban "is something the next mayor should take a hard look at," Ms. Weinshall said.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
Giuliani Puts Brakes on Car Culture
By Charles Komanoff
Charles Komanoff is a trustee of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a non-profit group.October 1, 2001
RUDY GIULIANI has had a lot of surprises for us in recent days. His ban on solo car commuting represents a particularly bold break with conventional thinking about the place of automobiles in New York City.
Banning single-occupant vehicles from lower and mid-Manhattan crossings was visionary. The mayor has done more than ease the current traffic crunch. He has pointed the way to curing our region's chronic traffic congestion, once and for all.
With one stroke, Giuliani has eliminated gridlock's No. 1 culprit: the single-occupant vehicle.
It wasn't easy. The "right to drive" - anywhere, anytime - is ingrained in contemporary culture. In life's frantic scramble and struggle, a vehicle of one's own has come to be seen not as an indulgence but a refuge; not as a luxury but a necessary convenience.
But with more and more cars on the road, "convenience" has lengthened from minutes to hours, making solo commuting very inconvenient - indeed, a luxury we cannot afford to provide.
The numbers make this clear.
Single-occupant vehicles make up more than half of Manhattan-bound morning traffic but they transport fewer than a third of all highway commuters. In other words, a minority of solo drivers is taking up an absolute majority of road space.
The resulting congestion ensnares everyone from car-poolers and bus riders to the solo drivers themselves. Vans carrying tradespeople and trucks laden with goods the city needs to keep its economy going have been especially hard hit.
Think of all eight crossings into Manhattan as a 20-lane highway. Single-occupant vehicles, accounting for 53 percent of traffic, occupy 11 lanes but they deliver only 30 percent of commuters - just six lanes' worth.
That's five lanes wasted by solo drivers - the equivalent, say, of closing both the Queens Midtown Tunnel and the Brooklyn Bridge. Radio traffic reports call it "congestion," but it's really just inefficiency.
Following the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks, road closures and police searches constricted highway capacity as never before. Under these circumstances, the wastefulness of solo driving became untenable.
There is one thing about Rudy Giuliani that his harshest critics would concede: He isn't afraid to act. And act he did. By sacrificing the luxury of solo driving, he enabled the people and firms that really needed to make it across - needed it enough to double up or take transit - to do so.
Despite dire headlines and indignant protests, the mayor's bold stroke seems to have been accepted. And it is working. Traffic tie-ups eased not just on Thursday, a Jewish holiday, but Friday as well, prompting the mayor to extend the ban into this week.
Eventually, one hopes, the police checks will lessen, in effect restoring missing road capacity. What should Giuliani or the next mayor do?
Three things.
First, don't go back to the status quo. Keep the car-pool rule. All the evidence indicates that keeping single-occupant vehicles off the roads during busy times of day will benefit many more people through time savings and travel predictability than it will inconvenience.
The details may need tinkering, but the basic policy is sound under "normal" conditions as well as in emergencies.
Second, upgrade the alternatives. For starters: simple and flexible car-pooling via real-time computer matching; universal van and bus service within a short walk of home; more off-peak train and subway service; bikeable routes to train stations and between towns.
For the long haul, we'll need to build new strategic rail lines and connectors, such as the Second Avenue Subway and an East-Side terminal for the Long Island Rail Road.
Third, start the transition to variable, non-stop tolling on all city bridges, tunnels and highways.
It will take some study and experimentation to establish the exact shape of such a system. But we know that road pricing is the ultimate gridlock-buster. After the Port Authority switched its Hudson River crossings to time-of-day pricing, a significant number of trips moved out of the peak hours. And tolls can be collected electronically, without slowing cars - indeed, without toll plazas altogether.
Road pricing is also a way - perhaps the only way - to finance the ambitious new rail and road infrastructure for making commuting easier and better.
Mayor Giuliani has been clear-sighted and brave enough to do the right thing.
Now it's up to us to build on his vision.
Copyright 2001 Newsday
RECKONINGS
By PAUL KRUGMANWhen asked whether Americans should make any changes in their lifestyle to address energy problems, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, waxed eloquent: "The American way of life is a
blessed one. We have a bounty of resources in this country. What we need to do is make certain that we're able to get those resources . . . into the hands of consumers so they can make the choices that they want to make as they live their lives day to day."So now we know how they're going to play it. Over the next few months Dick Cheney and friends will insist that their conservation-is-for-wimps energy policy isn't about defending business interests; it's about freedom - and anyone who disagrees is an elitist who doesn't trust Americans to make their own choices.
But you don't have to be an elitist to think that the nation has lately been making some bad choices about energy use, and about lifestyles more generally. Why? Because the choices we make don't reflect the true costs of our actions.
Consider, for example, the problem of traffic congestion.
Last week's Urban Mobility Report by the Texas Transportation Institute got a lot of well-deserved press attention. The report showed that it's not our imagination: traffic really has gotten much worse over the last few years. What it didn't say, but clearly implied, was that there is a growing disconnect between private incentives and public consequences.
When you or I decide to drive during "congested time" - what we used to call "rush hour," but which now lasts about six hours every day - we make that congestion a bit worse, and thereby impose a
cost on all the other people who are trying to get somewhere. (And they do the same to us - we are all both perpetrators and victims.) That's a very real cost, in time and money; but it's a cost we as individuals don't take into account.How big is this hidden cost? I've made some rough calculations for greater Atlanta, which has come to epitomize urban sprawl. In 1999, the average Atlanta resident lost 53 hours to traffic delays, compared with only 25 hours as recently as 1992. Over all, traffic congestion cost Atlanta $2.6 billion in 1999; had delays been no worse than in 1992, that cost would have been $1.4 billion less.
Why did Atlanta's traffic get so much worse? The main answer is that despite billions spent on highway construction, the roads have been clogged with ever more cars: between 1992 and 1999 vehicle registrations rose by 550,000. Not all of those vehicles were used during congested periods; I would guess that an extra 400,000 cars were actually driven during peak times. Those 400,000 cars were responsible for the extra congestion cost.
Do the arithmetic and you find that each individual's decision to commute by car in Atlanta imposes congestion costs of $3,500 per year, or $14 per workday, on other people. These are costs over and
above the costs actually paid by the driver himself - that is, they are costs that drivers don't take into account. And this number does not take into account environmental impacts (air quality in Atlanta is steadily deteriorating).Suppose for a moment that anyone who chose to commute by car in Atlanta actually had to pay $14 per day for the privilege. No doubt some people would still choose to live in distant suburbs and drive
long distances - and that would be their right. But as it stands, driving in Atlanta - and to a lesser degree in every other American metropolitan area - is in effect heavily subsidized, because people
don't have to pay for the costs they impose on others.Which brings us back to the administration's energy policy.
George W. Bush, according to Mr. Fleischer, "believes that the American people are very wise and that, given the right incentives, they will . . . make their own right determinations about how much
they can conserve. . . ." Unctuousness aside, he has a point. Right now, however, our system doesn't give people the right incentives. So you might imagine that an administration seriously concerned
about the nation's future would give a high priority to getting those incentives right - to making Americans take into account the costs their actions impose on other Americans.Oh, never mind. Cost - economic and environmental - is no object when you're defending a blessed lifestyle, especially if it means burning more fossil fuels.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times
Local transit options include rail line
By: David M. Campbell, Staff Writer April 20, 2001
A forum considers improved public transit to stem predicted traffic growth.Extended bus lines and train service to Trenton, and a possible light rail system through Princeton and the surrounding region, could stem traffic growth by 60 percent, according to a proposal delivered Thursday at a meeting of the Central Jersey Transportation Forum.
The forum, held at Bristol-Myers Squibb offices in Hopewell Township, is part of an ongoing program sponsored by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission to help community leaders in central New Jersey address transportation issues in light of current and planned growth, primarily along the Route 1 corridor and the surrounding region.
The proposal Thursday is the outcome of a November meeting in which members considered a number of transit alternatives to building roads to meet traffic growth. A prior traffic study estimated that traffic in the region will triple in volume by 2020.
"The transit option has never been fleshed out in this amount of detail," John Coscia, the planning commission's executive director, said of the proposal Thursday.
Transit alternatives include light or heavy rail lines that would run parallel with Route 1 and link a proposed park-and-ride station in Lawrence with another park-and-ride near exit 8A of the New Jersey Turnpike, at Route 130. It would make stops at Quaker Bridge Mall, Carnegie Center, the Princeton Junction train station, Sarnoff Corp., FMC and the Princeton Forrestal campus, with additional stops in between.
Another rail line would extend from the existing "Dinky" line and serve downtown Princeton and Palmer Square, ending at The Medical Center at Princeton.
The rail lines would accommodate plans by Sarnoff to build a 2.17 million-square-foot office and research campus in Penns Neck, and Princeton University's plan to build a 2-million-square-foot office complex in the Forrestal campus as part of a general development plan with Plainsboro
Township.The proposal also calls for improved bus service linking the Princeton Junction train station with new park-and-ride lots in Hightstown; a NJ Transit train line linking Trenton with Hopewell; and the extension and increased service of existing bus lines throughout the region. The plan also calls for van pool and shuttle services serving major employers in the region.
Princeton Borough Mayor Marvin Reed advised fellow mayors not to approve new general development plans that integrate the transit alternatives until the financing and acquisition of rights-of-way for those alternatives have been finalized.
Mayor Reed also said the proposal links area employers but fails to address the problem of commuting by local residents.
"It won't deal with the fundamental problem of where commuters choose to live and how they get to their place of employment," he said. "I have to question whether even if you build it, it will pay for itself, and even if you build it, it will even solve the problem."
In addition, Mayor Reed expressed concern with development plans by Sarnoff and the university, saying they "would exacerbate the congestion problems in downtown Princeton."
Princeton Township Mayor Phyllis Marchand said that "any kind of enhancement to public transportation will be beneficial," but she said she has reservations about whether a change of mindset among some commuters is possible.
"My reservations have to do with the human aspect of it," she said. "We have got to change our mindset and rely less on our own cars - and that's going to be the big challenge."
Mr. Coscia said the proposal is "feasible," but added that specifics such as cost and whether rights-of-way would be granted had not yet been addressed.
©The Princeton Packet 2001
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