Congestion Pricing and its Impact on Queens--5 Pros, 5 Cons

A Guest Post by Mr. Ambivalent

There's a popular Israeli idiom that says "for every two Jews there's three opinions." The history is there; the Talmud is basically one large argument. It must be in my genes, because I was raised basically without any religion, coming from an Armenian father and a Jewish mother, whose own Jewish mother's secret to great soup was to throw a ham hock in it. So, for my fellow Queens residents, I present to you five reasons you should be in favor of PlaNYC's Congestion Pricing Plan for Manhattan. And five reasons you should oppose it.

One the one hand...

1) Queens retail businesses will see an uptick in sales. For every person who thought "hey, let's have a nice lunch in Manhattan," only to see that lunch's check rise by eight dollars for the privlege of eating in the snob-beset inner borough, they'll start taking their lunches locally. For everyone who wants to just go shopping for a few hours, but daren't brave this week's 7-train debacle? Another local tchotchke shop goes ka-ching.

on the other hand...

A) Other Queens businesses will be hurt. Those lighting trucks that come from Silvercup studios? The guy who delivers fish, eggs, butter, milk, ANYTHING from Queens? Their price to just do business in Manhattan, their bread and butter, just went up 21 dollars per vehicle per day. That means you'll pay more from your lunch in Manhattan, and whatever else you might buy on your lunch hour. And smaller businesses who only do a little business in Manhattan? The location scouts, the attorneys visiting their clients, the accountants, the computer guy who's helping out his friend's father? Ow.

B) It may not help congestion that much. NINETEEN THOUSAND GOVERNMENT VEHICLES have free parking in Manhattan. Are their fees going to be waived? Seeing as it's legal to smoke in Congressional office buildings, but nowhere else in DC, do we really expect the Watchmen to be Watched?

but on the other hand...

2) A lot of money has disappeared from transportation coffers since the Commuter Tax was struck down. Wouldn't it be nice to see that all that beautiful money that's lying around in SUVs end up in a cleaner, safer, more effective public transportation system?

3) And speaking of cleaner, there's the big reason to support congestion pricing - less smog, less damage to city streets, more space for bicycling.

and then, there's that fourth hand...

C) In Western Queens, we have some very fine subway service. But Queens is a huge borough. What about the cop who lives in Little Neck? The cleaning lady who car-pools with her fellow cleaning folk and her equipment from College Point? Can she really afford the extra tolls? It's great for the publishing people in Long Island City, the attorney who could afford that nice house in Woodside, the investment banker who works in midtown, but as with any tax or charge, it's the little guy who will get hurt.

and like a many-armed Shiva,

4) those same little guys will benefit from faster bus service, not to mention actually have their lives saved when their ambulance isn't stuck in gridlock and they die on their way to the emergency room.

And yet...

D) Don't we already pay a kind of congestion pricing through all the tolls we pay in the Tunnel? Why not just add EZ-Pass kiosks on Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queensboro Bridges? I mean, Manhattan's an Island, right?

E) And I don't want to have little cameras always pointed at my license plate. My wife doesn't need to know I'm at the hotel with my mistress! Congestion pricing in London means those little cameras. What about our privacy? Don't we have privacy rights?

But still there's --

5) the fact that Congestion pricing in London actually *works.* The streets are safer, the economy in London is booming from found efficiencies in increased traffic movement, and the extra public services paid for by Congestion Pricing income also help most local businesses, even as it hurts the few who depend on travel to central London. Even the Economist, which while calling itself a liberal newspaper happens to be a conservative magazine, EVEN the Economist admits, and even now enthusiastically endorses congestion pricing for the London area. And getting the Economist to admit that Red Ken Livingstone, London's Mayor, has done anything right is a feat of Sysiphisian proportions. Congestion pricing, despite being put into place by a socialist mayor, is a very capitalist idea: you want it? You pay for it. Lots of people want it? You pay more for it. Simple supply and demand, and that's why in the end, I think it will work for New York. It abides by natural economic law, and uses our habits to raise money, while changing our habits with usage fees.

Congestion pricing, at its worst, will be an ineffective, needless, pricey tax on the poor. At its best, it'll make life better for New York City residents in all sorts of ways, improving their bottom line. God, and the devil, are in the details. If they actually improve infrastructure, like more park-and-ride for outer-outer-borough residents, give us a 7 train that's not always under construction, actually enforce congestion pricing for ALL New Yorkers, then we'll get a cleaner, more prosperous city. If they give us just another tax that ruins the lives of the lower-middle-class, Manhattan's going to speed up its transition to the Giant Mall Across the East River.

-Jeremy Kareken is a playwright, actor, the researcher for Inside the Actors Studio, and the administrator and moderator for the SunnysideNY yahoo group.