BY MARK HALLUM
What would a $20 toll
for drivers traveling
into Manhattan’s
Central Business District do for
traffi c and the environment in
New York City?
A study from Cornell University
found that traffi c in Lower
Manhattan could be reduced by
40%, greenhouse gas emissions
could be reduced by 15%, and
ridership on mass transit could
bump by 6%.
“If we charge a high dollar
amount of tolls, we can decrease
the number of cars and taxis,
shrink gridlock, bring down carbon
dioxide emissions, and reduce
particulate matter,” said Oliver
Gao, director of Cornell’s Center
for Transportation, Environment
and Community Health. “This
is good news for the environment
and from a public health
perspective.”
In Cornell’s view, a toll set at
$20 would be enough to reduce
congestion and emissions by these
levels but prior recommendations
have estimated the price-point
should be about $11 for passenger
cars.
But it is not all about the
Study suggests $20 toll to
reduce Manhattan traffic
Canal Street on April 10. PHOTO BY MARK HALLUM
ridership boost or the extra capital
spending for the MTA.
The MTA sorely needs the
fi nancial boost, with the agency
offi cials announcing Wednesday
that bone-dry operational funding
due to reduced ridership
from COVID-19 translates to a
BY MARK HALLUM
As the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority (MTA) nears a $10
billion shortfall and CARES Act
funds running low, New York City Transit
buses will no longer remain toll-free as
they have over the course of much of the
pandemic.
Rear-door boarding on buses, implemented
to protect transit workers who
experienced heavy losses early on in the
crisis through social distancing, will end
in August after the MTA announced plans
Tuesday morning to erect barriers from
plastic curtains to sliding glass on all buses.
The acting president for the MTA Bus
Company, Craig Cipriano, is credited with
leading the effort to not only strategize
the barriers put in place but also says the
OMNY payment system will be available
across buses by the end of 2020. But
interim New York City Transit President
Sarah Feinberg said it was no easy process.
“This is not as simple as it seems, you’d
think we could just wrap that area but we
need the operator to have line of sight. We
need them to be able to see everything they
need to be seeing when the bus is on the
move, we need to make sure that we’re
minimizing glare,” Feinberg said. ” Part of
$10 billion if the federal government
does not come through
with $3,9 billion in the Heroes
Act, yet to go to the Senate fl oor
for a vote.
While agency Chair Pat Foye
said recently that funding lined up
in the congestion pricing plan will
Time to pay up again: MTA unveils plan
to resume NYC bus fare collections
The MTA will install either glass or vinyl barriers on buses in order to protect
riders and begin charging fares again in August.
this is we’ve got to get back to a place where
we’re able to collect fares. It’s no surprise
that the MTA’s fi nancial situation is dire.”
According to Cipriano, the fi rst row of
only be for capital improvements,
not operations, even those are just
a pipe dream without some fi nal
approvals from the Federal Highway
Administration — which has
not budged on getting an environmental
review kickstarted for the
tolling program.
PHOTO BY MARK HALLUM
seats will still be restricted to ensure the
safety of drivers, but it is not like prior
precautions that did not allow passengers
on the fi rst three rows of the bus. He said
“Given the far more pressing
matter before us related to the
federal government’s inaction
on determining the form of
environmental review we must
undertake, we are not yet ready to
discuss potential toll rates,” MTA
spokesman Aaron Donovan said.
“We have met with them more
than a dozen times over the past
year and they have had all the
information they requested since
this past January, and still we have
not received an answer on how to
proceed. Without federal action,
all other questions at this point
are, unfortunately, moot.”
This week the agency said
they would not be pushing ahead
with the 2020-2024 capital plan
packed with $51 billion worth of
projects to turn the aging New
York City Transit system as a
modern transportation network.
The plan was adopted in January
only to be blindsided the COVID
19 which brought ridership
on the subways and buses down
by over 90%.
Even as ridership on New York
City Transit has improved by an
average of 3 million riders per
weekday, the MTA will run out
of the $3.8 billion provided in the
CARES Act in April.
barriers will act as an immediate and longterm
solution.
“One is a polycarbonate slider the other
is a sliding vinyl curtain. The full-length
polycarbonate slider is being installed on
local buses,” Cipriano said. “We’ll be installing
these protective barriers fl eet-wide
on 4,800 buses by the fall and starting this
week we will install the vinyl on all 1,000
Select Buses.”
Feinberg could specify how much money
had been lost since rear-door boarding had
been implemented since riders were not
being accounted for through the farebox.
She added that the MTA would be putting
into place an information campaign to let
riders know it is time to start paying their
fares again.
Earl Phillips from the Transport Workers
Union Local 100 said this is a work
in progress and that they will observe the
process of implementing these barriers
after the loss of over 130 transit workers
across the entire MTA system.
Masks are still required on all trains,
buses, and stations.
12 July 2, 2020 Schneps Media