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Community Board 7 forum on Congestion Pricing/PlaNYC
March 6, 2008

Around 40 people attended tonight’s forum, including Assemblyman Jim Brennan, Council Member Bill de Blasio, and representatives from the Mayor’s office, the Dept. of Transportation, Dept. of Parks. The meeting was hosted by of Community Board 7 and moderated by Randy Peers, Chair of Community Board 7.

Brennan reported that the MTA just submitted their capital budget to the legislature. Their plan includes the spending of $30 billion over the next five years but they haven’t identified where $10 billion of that money will be coming from. Brennan backs congestion pricing (C.P.) because the MTA is relying on the income C.P. will generate to fund advancements in the mass transit infrastructure.
He has a negative view of residential permit parking (RPP) because it restricts access to public spaces and doesn’t want it to pit neighborhoods against each other or give certain neighborhoods special privilege. However, he feels that if C.P. is approved, the City Council and not the Dept. of Transportation should be in charge of how it is structured.

De Blasio discussed how C.P. would be a change in decades of traffic policy in NYC yet there hasn’t been much public process: “The process has been flawed; the plan is flawed.” He discussed exemptions which need to be written into the plan to cover groups such as seniors needing to go into Manhattan for medical care or low income workers needing to drive into Manhattan for work. On RPP, he feels this is something which should be offered across the board and each neighborhood should be allowed to decide whether they want to opt in.

James Hicks from the Mayor’s office gave a presentation on PlaNYC, the Mayor’s plan to make NYC the first sustainable city in the U.S. and to plan for the 1 million additional residents projected to live in the city by the year 2030. PlaNYC is made up of 127 separate initiatives in the areas of water, air, land, transportation (including C.P.), energy and climate change. The city will receive $350 million federal dollars if the city decides to vote in favor of C.P. in the next few weeks. The over $400 million per year that C.P. will generate will go into improving mass transit.

CB7 District Manager Jeremy Laufer raised an interesting question: There is a lot of discussion of the construction of the 2nd Ave. subway and the extension of the #7 train. But what percentage of the incoming capital money is slated for Brooklyn? The DOT said they have not had a chance to analyze the MTA’s budget yet but hope to have this information very soon. The WTA will also try to gather this information and post ot on our site.

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