Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Get Ready For A Push To Price Congestion

The Campaign For New York's Future cares a lot about our growing city, so much so that they are going to advertise on thousands of subway cars, Metro-North trains and the like this coming spring. With a million new people forecasted to be in the city by 2030, something definitely needs to be done, but can the Campaign and their brethren at the Empire State Transportation Alliance influence enough of us to get the message across and the plan in effect?

From The Daily News:

With the March 31 deadline for legislative action on the modified congestion pricing plan looming and the MTA poised to release its capital plan this week, the pro-pay-to-drive Campaign for New York's Future and Empire State Transportation Alliance have launched a TV and print ad campaign designed to build support for the proposal among commuters.

The TV ad that appears below (made by Mark Guma, a political consultant to Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who's going to have to round up congestion pricing votes) starts running today on cable and network TV and will remain on the air for at least the next several weeks.

sneakers ad

There's also a series of three print ads, created by the Connecticut-based firm Robbert Advocacy Media, that will be posted on 4,000 subway cars, 4,518 buses and 870 commuter trains through the end of March. One version (the "sneakers" ad that appears here) will also run in Spanish.


There are certainly a lot of local groups behind the effort, far more than the opposing side. Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free will still be working hard on their ground game to keep congestion pricing on the drawing board and off the streets. The spokesman claims that congestion pricing advocates don't give any answers, but what exactly is he contributing to the debate besides more of the same. NYC needs something for the population growth we are going through and the plan is better than nothing.