As is often said of the government, they do things “bass ackward.” Example: one arm of the government is implementing a plan to reduce traffic congestion while another arm is increasing congestion.
Mayor Adams, while well-intentioned, is making a mistake by removing the cap on Uber, Lyft, Revel and other rideshare companies as long as the added vehicles are electric powered. The restriction was implemented in 2018 by Mayor Bill de Blasio after the surge of rideshare vehicles soared to more than 100,000, crippling vehicular traffic, decimating the taxi industry and eight drivers died by suicide. It is also the wrong time as the MTA’s congestion pricing program is expected to start in less than a year and, as history shows us, these additional vehicles will worsen congestion.
A much better plan would be to ease the replacement of gas-powered app-based cars (apps) with electrics through financial and other incentive programs. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), which represents drivers, agrees with that approach, saying the city “is breaking a life-saving cap set in place after drivers died by suicide from despair caused by oversaturation of cars + at a time when @MTA is looking to reduce congestion and car pollutants… The city is addressing climate change by flooding the streets with more cars.” NYTWA sued the city last week.
As transportation economist Charles Komanoff points out, “adding space-hogging vehicles — of any propulsion — takes us backwards. Not just in terms of worsening … gridlock but because the added congestion ensures increased emissions from the combustion vehicles still on the road.”
Back when I was the city’s traffic commissioner in the 1980s, I studied Midtown traffic extensively. I found weak correlations between vehicle speeds and the volume of traffic entering the zone. But I did find a close correlation between vehicles in motion (VIM) i.e. taxis, livery vehicles, and black cars (low cost limos) and traffic speeds, which was published in The Institute of Transportation Engineers Journal in September 1982.
Mayor Ed Koch wanted to increase taxi availability by adding medallions, but my work showed that adding taxis would, counter-intuitively, make them less available at key demand times since traffic would be slowed so much that fewer people could be served. As an ex-cab driver in the 1960s and early 70s, I knew why. I could usually do 30 trips/shift, but when traffic was jammed maybe only 25. Sadly, now many “yellows” are struggling to get 15 trips/shift.
We need not look back 40 years to see the impact app-based cars have had on congestion. In the decade preceding COVID, 2010-2019, the number of motor vehicles entering the congestion pricing zone, (Manhattan south of 60th St., the Central Business District, CBD) dropped by 64,000 vehicles daily. One would therefore expect a concomitant decrease in congestion, but almost incredulously, traffic speeds in Midtown dropped to their lowest level in a century: just 4.7 mph. How could traffic volumes drop and congestion increase?
Studies by traffic planner Bruce Schaller found the apps congregated in areas where traffic was already the worst and where transit was the best (and where people had the highest income). Not only were the apps adding cars to the most crowded streets, but they were largely taking people out of transit. An interview survey conducted by NYC DOT found that the app-riders largely came from transit (40%) and taxis/liveries (35%). Only 10% came from cars. Overall traffic volumes in the CBD went up by 7%.
In addition, Schaller found that for every passenger mile the apps transported they had to drive 1.6 miles since they usually arrived empty and left empty. And, when they are not moving, I have observed many parking in truck loading zones forcing trucks to double park, further worsening traffic flow.
Disturbingly, the city is proceeding with a program to add thousands of cars to its busiest district without any kind of environmental study but rather, as Komanoff puts it, a meager five-page study. A close read actually makes an argument to not increase the numbers as city-wide wait times are near historic lows of 4.7 minutes (the historic range is 4.5 to 6.6 minutes). Furthermore, the city reports, “monthly Midtown traffic speeds, which rose in 2020 in the wake of the pandemic, have been decreasing year over year, reaching pre-pandemic lows in Fall 2022.” A new slow-speed record is in the making.
Contrast this five-page report of a plan that increases congestion by thousands of vehicles hourly and therefore harms the environment, with the 4,000 page MTA Environmental Assessment for Congestion Pricing that reduces total traffic but shifts at most a few hundred vehicles/hour.
The mayor is to be commended for wanting to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases. But this is not such a plan.
Schwartz is a former NYC traffic commissioner.
Are more EV cars good or bad?: Raising the Uber/Lyft cap is a mistake
11
1
06.11.2023
As is often said of the government, they do things “bass ackward.” Example: one arm of the government is implementing a plan to reduce traffic congestion while another arm is increasing congestion.
Mayor Adams, while well-intentioned, is making a mistake by removing the cap on Uber, Lyft, Revel and other rideshare companies as long as the added vehicles are electric powered. The restriction was implemented in 2018 by Mayor Bill de Blasio after the surge of rideshare vehicles soared to more than 100,000, crippling vehicular traffic, decimating the taxi industry and eight drivers died by suicide. It is also the wrong time as the MTA’s congestion pricing program is expected to start in less than a year and, as history shows us, these additional vehicles will worsen congestion.
A much better plan would be to ease the replacement of gas-powered app-based cars (apps) with electrics through financial and other incentive programs. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), which represents drivers, agrees with that approach, saying the city “is breaking a life-saving cap set in place after drivers died by suicide from despair caused by oversaturation of cars at a time when @MTA is looking to reduce congestion and........
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