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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. On Wednesday, the MTA board approved New York City's congestion pricing plan. The plan will soon alter the dynamic of driving in Manhattan, at least that's what proponents hope. Advocates and opponents have some lingering questions though. The main one depending on which side you're on, is does congestion pricing go too far or does congestion pricing go far enough? Will it unfairly penalize drivers on the Jersey side of the Hudson River as Congressman Josh Gottheimer and others have declared? Is it a good first step towards unclogging Manhattan streets?

Will it divert even more truck traffic and therefore pollution and asthma rates in the Bronx, negating its own environmental benefits? The plan is expected to generate $1 billion a year for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, one of the biggest reasons for congestion pricing at this point to enhance mass transit for the future. What about all those people who already tamper with their license plates to evade speed and toll cameras, will they get out of it, negating the impact?

Last December, The New York Times reported that obstructed plates cost New York City agencies $100 million a year in lost tolls and fines. Now, they have just started one more 60-day comment period on the latest version of congestion pricing. Gothamist reports that don't expect it to be tweaked very much after this though, and it's likely to go into effect in the spring. Let's go over the details, hear those arguments from you one more time.

We'll tell you how you can still have input, at least theoretically. We'll try to answer some of those lingering questions with Sam Schwartz, former longtime Gridlock Sam columnist at the Daily News, former New York City Traffic Commissioner, president and CEO of Sam Schwartz Pedestrian Traffic Management - yes, that's a company - and author of No One at the Wheel: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future. Sam, always great to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Sam Schwartz: Thank you, Brian. Always wonderful to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, questions, comments, complaints, happiness, 212-433WNYC. 212-433-9692. Call or text. The $15 price point is what the headlines have been, Sam. Does it apply to everybody at all times?

Sam Schwartz: It applies to passenger vehicles and not at all times. Passenger vehicles from 5:00 AM to 9:00 PM, which is considered the peak. I know it goes beyond what most people would consider the peak. From 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, it drops to $3.75.

Brian Lehrer: Wait, wait, wait, wait. I think you might've said something wrong.

Sam Schwartz: From 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM.

Brian Lehrer: Right.

Sam Schwartz: From 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM.

Brian Lehrer: In the late night and over night. 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM, it drops to what?

Sam Schwartz: $3.75. The same thing on weekends, it's $15 from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM. It is $3.75 on the weekends from 9:00 PM to 9:00 AM. I know it's very confusing. There are a lot of nines there. The thing is if you're [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Let me drill down on that weekend number, which I actually personally know. 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM on Saturdays and Sundays, the $15 congestion fee still applies. It's not just about people commuting to work.

Sam Schwartz: That's right. It's 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That's the set price. Now, the MTA can play with some of that, and in fact raise it during gridlock alert days.

Brian Lehrer: The MTA projects congestion pricing will generate $1 billion a year in revenue. Should we take that figure with a grain of salt given the prevalence of license plate tampering?

Sam Schwartz: That's a good question. The way I look at it, the MTA needs to raise about $1.2 billion to mete out $1 billion a year. It needs about $200 million to run the system. I've seen numbers as high as 20% in Toronto of people playing around with their license plates. In New York, it's exceeded 7% already. They may have to issue as much as $1.5 billion to get that $1.2 billion I'm talking about if people are playing around with their plates, which they are. We see them. We see them everywhere. We see, all of a sudden, a lot of people from Texas moving to New York City. We see a lot of paper plates. We see lots of threes becoming eights on license plates. Somebody's got to clamp down, otherwise everybody pays more that wants to follow the law.

Brian Lehrer: Who is exempt in whole or in part under this, what might be, final version of the plan?

Sam Schwartz: The exemptions in the legislation are for people that are taking the FDR Drive its entire length south of 60th Street. The same thing for the West Side Highway. Let's say you're coming over the George Washington Bridge, come down the Henry Hudson Parkway, and you go all the way the length of it to the West Side Highway, go out the Battery Tunnel, you don't pay anything.

Even if you go around the horn and come out the Brooklyn Bridge in Lower Manhattan, the Battery underpass, you don't pay anything. Same thing, same person coming down from let's say Connecticut, comes over the RFK, and comes down the Harlem River Drive into the FDR Drive, goes all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge, doesn't pay. That's exemption number one. Another exemption--

Brian Lehrer: Just so people understand why that is, the point is they want to tax people who are driving into the city streets below 60th Street, not just people who are passing through to get from one other place to some other place, right?

Sam Schwartz: Yes, exactly. If your tire touches the city street, south of 60th Street, other than West Street, 11th, 12th Avenue as it changes its name, then yes, you will be charged. They have sensors not just at 60th Street and not just at the bridges and tunnels, but also within. If you think you escape by going around and then coming interior, there's a lot of interior cameras that are going up.

Brian Lehrer: Any other exemptions? We had a clip of Mayor Adams whom earlier in the week saying yellow cabs, not Ubers and Lyfts, but yellow cabs should be exempt.

Sam Schwartz: Yellow cabs are going to be charged $1.25 per trip and the Ubers and the Lyfts $2.50 per trip south of 60th Street. That's on top of the $2.50 and $2.75 charge they have for south of 96th Street. As an old cab driver, I drove in the '60s and '70s, I think yellow cabs are part of our public transportation system and shouldn't be charged. I agree with the mayor there. In terms of school buses, absolutely, I agree with the mayor.

Brian Lehrer: Also they got hit so hard with the value of their cars, the so-called medallions, when the city suddenly let all these Ubers and Lyfts flood into the city and compete with them in ways that weren't anticipated. It's a little bit of a reparation for the yellow cab owners, right?

Sam Schwartz: Yes. Also, I have to disagree with the mayor's policy on increasing the numbers of for-hire vehicles, Ubers, Lyfts, Revels, and others if they submit for an EV. They're not replacing the gasoline cars. They're doing this on top of that. Here, we have one part of government trying to reduce congestion, while the other part of government will be increasing congestion with more Ubers, with more Lyfts out on the city streets.

Brian Lehrer: Did they, in this final version, come up with a plan to keep even more truck traffic from flowing into and through the Bronx? Of course, so much of the city's truck traffic already flows through the Bronx, Cross Bronx Expressway and elsewhere. That's one of the factors in the high asthma rates in that area, and especially around Mott Haven, where it's known as asthma alley. That was one of the concerns about the congestion pricing fee in the earlier drafts. Does it look to you like they addressed it?

Sam Schwartz: They partially addressed it. I called for no extra charge for people coming through tunnels. They have reduced that to trucks so that all these trucks would have to come through a port authority crossing and pay a toll so that the small trucks will get a $12 credit against the $24 charge, and the larger trucks will get a $20 credit versus the $36 charge. They did partially address that, and that will help in the Cross Bronx.

I know the MTA is spending a fair amount of money for the South Bronx to try to reduce the impact. My solution to that is cap the Cross Bronx. We're seeing highways capped all over the place. In fact, right here at the FDR drive, I was involved in the capping of parts of the FDR drive with the hospitals and Rockefeller University. We also have buildings over the extension of the George Washington Bridge of Manhattan, the Trans Manhattan Expressway.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. Do you need to clear your throat for a minute? That's okay. We have a couple of callers who live in the district with a similar question. I'm going to let Lydia in Manhattan represent. Lydia, you're on WNYC with Gridlock Sam, Sam Schwartz. Hi, Lydia.

Lydia: Hi, Sam. Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I don't understand the thinking behind exempting areas north of 60th Street versus where I live on 20th Street. I don't consider Chelsea the central business district, yet I feel like I'm being penalized when I come home where someone who lives in expensive area in the 80s on the east side gets a pass. What is the thinking behind that?

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Lydia.

Sam Schwartz: Lydia, the thinking behind that is where do we have the most congestion? It is south of 60th Street. Where do we have the most transit service? It goes also south of 60th Street. You need two ingredients. You need congestion and you need great transit, and that's what you have in south of 60th Street.

Brian Lehrer: What about the people who live in the district? If they have cars, they're only driving to leave the central business district, but then they have to come home. Do they get a break?

Sam Schwartz: No, they don't get a break unless they come back after nine o'clock. Then it's down to $3.75. People within the district, if they follow normal commuting patterns, go out to Brooklyn and work, and then come back and it's before 9:00 PM, they will be charged the full fare.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have an opinion on that?

Sam Schwartz: For people within the district, there really is terrific transit service. I think my opinion is that we should look to a smarter system. Now, this is a system that had to be explained to a lot of elected officials and others, so it's a dumb system. You enter, you pay, you don't pay when you leave the-- If we look at Singapore and other places, they're looking at charging you more based on the time of day.

Not just big bulks of 5:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Based on the roads that you use, based on the amount of roads you use. If Lydia is just going right out the Harlem Tunnel and she drives for 1 mile, she's going to be charged for 1 mile. The technology is that good, but we've got to get over the hurdle of having a system in place, and then we need to perfect the system.

Brian Lehrer: Stewart in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Stewart. Stewart, are you there? Is it real [crosstalk]--

Stewart: Yes, I am. sorry.

Brian Lehrer: Ah, there you are. Hello, you're on the air.

Stewart: Hi. Thanks for taking the call. I guess this is a similar question. I live in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. I usually take mass transit, but I do have a car, and occasionally I will want to go into the city with a car if we're going to be in there late. All I'm doing is coming across from the Brooklyn Bridge. Am I going to be charged the same way as somebody from New Jersey or Connecticut is? I'm already paying city taxes. I'm already paying real estate taxes. I'm supporting the infrastructure. Do I need to be charged extra when I live here and I'm paying into the system?

Brian Lehrer: Now, of course, people from New Jersey are saying, do we have to pay the same as people who come from Brooklyn because we're already paying a toll to come across the bridge of the tunnels? Sam, how would you answer either question, Stewart's actual question, or what I posed from New Jerseyans?

Sam Schwartz: Remember the goal here, the goal is to reduce congestion, so Stewart driving on occasionally is contributing to congestion, or that person from New Jersey is contributing to congestion. We have really good transit going from Carroll Gardens to lower Manhattan or anywhere in midtown Manhattan. Many people can take the transit system. If you can't take the transit system, there's a charge. By the way, Stewart, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, and the Queensboro Bridge all had tolls until Mayor Gaynor removed them in 1911. I wasn't around then. I've been around a long time, but that was a mistake by Mayor Gaynor.

Brian Lehrer: Stewart, thank you. I know it's not the answer you were looking for, but there's the answer. Do Jersey drivers who are paying a toll to cross the river get any discount as a result of that?

Sam Schwartz: Yes, they do get a discount, but it's not what I would have done. I would have had every single entry point be exactly the same charge to come in. New Jersey only gets a-- All the four tunnels, the Queens–Midtown Tunnel, the Battery Tunnel, the two Jersey tunnels get a $5 discount during the peak times, so that means instead of $15, it's $10 for them. They're already paying about $15 to come in.

I won't have charged them anymore. Otherwise, this will still lead to bridge shopping, particularly along the East River where people may take the Brooklyn Bridge or take the Williamsburg Bridge over one of the toll crossings. All entry points should be equal. When I created the New York plan, that was the theory behind it. The Traffic Mobility Board decided to go another direction and offer a discount, but not a full discount.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, you mentioned the Queensboro Bridge, AKA the 59th Street Bridge, AKA the Ed Koch Bridge. We had a caller the other day who said, it's unfair to certain people from Queens who never actually enter the business district except to go home. Here's the story that he told. If you come in from Queens over the Queensboro Bridge, you actually exit above 60th Street, so you don't pay the toll just to come in on the 59th Street Bridge, even though it's called the 59th Street Bridge, not the 61st Street Bridge.

Tell me if you think that's wrong. Then he says he could park above 60th street, not pay the congestion pricing fee, take the subway downtown, then go back up to get in his car, but aha, you get in your car in order to go back to Queens on the 59th Street Bridge, you do actually have to go to 59th Street, and so he'd have to pay the congestion pricing fee just to cross on 2nd Avenue from 61st Street to 59th Street just to get out of the borough. First of all, is that geographically accurate, and is that actually the case?

Sam Schwartz: Yes, it's geographically accurate. You can go north, coming in, you can take the upper roadway or even the lower roadway and take the outer roadway and go to-- The outer is closed now, but you can go to 61st Street. If you're coming south, what I advise him to do is to take 2nd Avenue. There's going to be all these little tricky things to avoid the toll. I believe the cameras are set up just south of that to avoid that. If he takes the 2nd Avenue entrance, which is north of 59th Street, he should be okay. I'll have to check that out with my colleagues at the MTA. To come across 59th Street, yes, he's [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, the 2nd Avenue entrance is still above 60th Street.

Sam Schwartz: It's above 59th Street. If they were smart, they would put the cameras at that location, not to catch all the people that are taking the Queensboro Bridge and barely using any of the streets of the central business district.

Brian Lehrer: We'll take a few more calls for Gridlock Sam in just a minute, but Sam, you know what I'm curious about, who drives into Manhattan for work anyway at this point? I'm not talking about truckers and other people who are going from place to place. I mean the old fashioned you have a 9:00 to 5:00 office job in New York and you're coming in from the island, or you're coming in from New Jersey, you're coming in from Westchester. Who anymore actually drives to their job on 42nd Street or their job in the financial district?

Sam Schwartz: There's about 700,000 motor vehicles that come in every single day. More on Wednesdays now and less on Fridays, which used to be the peak day, but people are still doing it. They're driving in from the suburbs. Most people are taking transit, especially from New Jersey. It's in the high 80% for the commutation to work. We also have a lot of people that come in for other purposes, for entertainment, and they're driving right now down 5th Avenue at 1 or 2 miles an hour to observe the tree.

There are people that are married to their cars or, for whatever reason, need a car, people with disabilities. One group that we can really knock out, my old colleagues, government workers, everybody's got a placard now to drive in. We could probably knock off between 5% and 8% of the traffic or about half of congestion pricing if we took away all those permits for government workers.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Let's take another call. Let's get a Connecticut driver in here. Todd in Hamden, you're on WNYC. Hi, Todd.

Todd: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Hi there.

Todd: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Todd: I come into New York City for music concerts and other arts. I wish there was a place I could drive down and park my car, and then I could just Uber around and take taxis to get to my destination down in Manhattan.

Brian Lehrer: You can. You can, above 60th Street.

Todd: All right. Then that's what I'll do. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: That was easy. Kelly in Sullivan County, you're on WNYC, in the Catskills. Hi, Kelly. Kelly, you're there? Kelly is [crosstalk]

Kelly: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, there you are. Hello.

Kelly: How are you doing? First time, long time. I was-

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on.

Kelly: -telling the screener that in terms of food access, the farmer committee I'm on through Green Market, which has a number of farmers' markets in the city, we advocated to have ag vehicles exempt because our destinations are often below 60th Street. We do pay tolls as a standard. We use the roads, but in terms of having food access in a place that can't otherwise provide for itself, we've tried to advocate unsuccessfully for ourselves to be exempt so far. I just wondered, any thoughts about exemption for food access. Thanks.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Sam?

Sam Schwartz: We have a long history with tolls. I mentioned 1883 we had tolls on the Brooklyn Bridge. We now have 15 toll crossings in New York City or budding New York City; 6 from the port, 9 from the MTA. We don't offer any exemptions for any of these 120 different groups that have asked for exemptions. Once you open the door for one exemption, it's a very slippery slope. There are lots of good reasons for exempting a particular service, a particular person. I think it's best to keep with what we've been doing at those 15 facilities for more than 100 years now.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to run out of time in a few minutes. I want to get at least a couple of other things in here. One, on those people who are still driving to work in the business district for regular weekday business jobs, are they mostly fairly affluent? I'll admit that I'm shocked as somebody who hasn't driven a car into the central business district in working hours in, I don't know, maybe ever, I hear the traffic reports in the morning. It's still like, it's all jammed up on the LIE and all the Henry Hudson, and all that. A lot of people are still driving in in the seven o'clock, eight o'clock hours in the morning. Do they tend to be the wealthiest workers in the business district?

Sam Schwartz: Yes. The tri-state transportation campaign looked at people driving from different sectors. This was, I think, in 2015 or 2016. Those people in those days had income $40,000 to $50,000 more than the people that were taking the subways. Subways move the bulk of the people. You bring up another good point, Brian, and that is post-pandemic traffic is actually worse than pre-pandemic for a few reasons. Some of those people that were in transit are now driving in. Also, we're getting far more truck deliveries. While traffic is at 100% of 2019 levels, trucks are at 110% of 2019 levels because we all got into the habit of just ordering things. If people think traffic is worse now on many of these places, especially expressways,-

Brian Lehrer: It's the trucks.

Sam Schwartz: -it is.

Brian Lehrer: On the income I see that there are discounts in this plan for drivers with household incomes of less than $50,000 a year. How are they going to measure it?

Sam Schwartz: I believe it's $60,000. I believe it's when you file your income taxes, you'll be able to get a credit for those charges. I don't think we have a lot of people who are making less than $60,000 and driving, other than billionaires that are probably reporting zero income losses. That's what I worry about.

Brian Lehrer: Through their illegally overvalued corporate towers. I won't mention any names. If you do make under, you said $60,000, I think it's under $50,000 a year, and you prove that however they want you to prove that, then it somehow gets attached to your license plate, and so the toll reader would charge you something less than $15?

Sam Schwartz: I believe you'll get it all back. I believe it would be a full exemption.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I see.

Sam Schwartz: I don't know. I thought it's $60,000, but in the legislation.

Brian Lehrer: You're probably right. I see. You get it back at year's end. Final question then. There is a 60-day comment period that I guess started Wednesday. How can people make their voices heard, even if it's probably only minor tweaks that they're still going to make at this point?

Sam Schwartz: Go on to the MTA website, and they'll give you all the information. They'll have to keep a record of all comments, oral, written comments. Things can change. I think things may change. There's some tweaking that I would like to see. As I mentioned, the taxis shouldn't be charged. When I look at this, I see more than $1.5 billion collected. I think they added a little fat knowing that they'll have to probably trim it a bit as they get into the final plan.

Brian Lehrer: Gridlock Sam, you knew him as when he was a Daily News columnist. He is president and CEO of Sam Schwartz Pedestrian Traffic Management, and the author of No One at the Wheel: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future. Sam, thanks a lot. Very clarifying.

Sam Schwartz: You're quite welcome, Brian. Anytime.

 

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