The big news last week from Albany was that key legislators (ahem, Sheldon Silver) decided that the Assembly would not even bother voting on the congestion pricing. That effectively killed it without anyone having to be accountable to their constituents for voting either way for the controversial bill. It would have been a start to (even if somewhat flawed) fixing our region's gridlock that so desperately needs help. Well Federal Transportation Administration head James Simpson came up to NYC to talk about the problem and where to go from here.
From The NY Daily News:
Speaking in Manhattan this morning, Federal Transit Administration chief James Simpson took the Assembly to task for its decision last week not to act on Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan -- calling it "very disappointing as well as short-sighted."
Apparently some lawmakers view congestion pricing as an “elitist” approach to addressing a problem that has reached crisis proportions, and is only expected to get worse as time passes.Well, there is nothing “elitist” about miles of gridlock at rush hour. It affects virtually everyone – commuters, truck drivers, taxi drivers, buses, and even straphangers crammed onto the subway. It affects the air we breathe. It affects this region’s ability to provide the mobility that’s so vital to keeping New York a workable, livable community. And it affects our productivity and our quality of life.
Simpson, addressing the New York Building Congress and Construction Industry breakfast, said the feds remain committed to helping fund major N.Y.C. projects, such as improving East Side access and building the Second Ave. subway, but raised concerns about the financing:
First, only a limited number of firms have the capacity required to bid and construct these projects. That raises concerns for us about limited competition, which has implications for how jobs are priced.Second, we’re concerned about how difficult it is to create accurate cost and performance estimates for these complicated, multi-year transit projects, given the continued escalation of commodity prices. The risk of under-estimating costs -- and incurring additional debt obligations -- is very real.
Basically what he is saying is that New York should have passed congestion pricing to back up the spending from the transportation fuel tax fund. There are still a ton of projects that need to be completed and the cost of these are only going to go up because construction prices continue to skyrocket thanks to the unabated commodities market in addition to the huge building boom that continues throughout the country. He then chides dissenters by talking about the congestion pricing successes in Europe and imagines what the revenue streams would be to build mass transit if we had congestion pricing in our top 100 cities.
So pretty much, he says were screwed unless we change our ways. Um, Mr. Simpson.....duh.
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