By now we should all know about the two last-ditch efforts to improve transit — by deterring automobile traffic: The recent “veto” of Lower Manhattan’s congestion pricing program, and the mandating speed-warning system proposed for the installation of all non-emergency vehicles in California – in half these vehicles by 2029 and in all by 2032. At the time of this article’s writing, the New York City measure was squashed by politics; the California measure may have been as well.
Before describing these measures and their failures and potential success, respectively (again, at this time),it is worth nothing that these measures reflect our failures to do anything to improve any form of public transportation. Many forms of it not only gets worse and worse, but some of the most heinous are mirroring the worst characteristics of the others: At least one non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) broker, acquired by yet another non-transportation conglomerate 2 ½ years ago, is beginning to reshape part of its structure to resemble that of TNCs. (More about that in an installment down the road.) Talk about the worst of both worlds!
Manhattan and Congestion Pricing
After enormous amounts of money were spent on creating infrastructure to facilitate the operation of a congestion pricing program in roughly a 1000-square-block area of Manhattan –including $507M paid to a Nashville company — New York governor Kathy Hochul effectively withdrew her support for the program several weeks before it was about to go into effect. Eight serious protests – including some huge lawsuits – were part of the impetus. Ms. Hochul’s excuse was that cancellation of the program was crucial in light of the lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic on working families and New York City’s economy (NYTimes, June 5, 2024); I’m guessing she failed to also mention the lingering effects of the Great Depression. American listeners have become so immune to lies and preposterous nonsense from its politicians that Governor Hochul could have said almost anything. Closer to the facts was the multi-state and fellow-borough rebellion against the program from all sides, including and reflected by the eight lawsuits – including one from New Jersey Governor Philip Murray and one from the New York Trucking Association. Had he been around, I suspect she would have received some push-back from Jimmy Hoffa.
Making New York City a laughingstock among public transportation professionals, Ms. Hochul claimed that without the estimated $1B that would have gone to the city’s transit agency, the New York MTA could quickly fall into crisis (NYTimes, June 5, 2024). How anyone sane could not consider the City’s transit system already deep in crisis is hard to imagine. But the notion that $1B could cure it is even more preposterous. In terms of City spending:
Last Year the City capped the number of Ubers allowed to operate at 60,000 – first allowed to dribble into the City in the early 2010s, with 15,000 of them by 2015 (see Bad Regulations and Worse Responses – Part 1; Bad Regulations and Worse Responses – Part 2; Bad Regulations and Worse Responses – Part 3; Bad Regulations and Worse Responses – Part 4; Bad Regulations and Worse Responses – Part 5; Bad Regulations and Worse Responses – Part 6 and Bad Regulatiosn and Worse Responses – Part 7) – without paying the going rate of taxi medallion (then roughly $1.1M), and destroying the lives of thousands of taxi drivers and their extended families in the process (see NY Times -How Reckless Loans Devastated a Generation of Taxi Drivers).
- There was obviously no demand for a fleet this size, and a few thousand vehicle owners might have likely paid this fee – intead of the City taxi’s fleet expanding equally as far (a fleet now frozen at roughly 13,500, as it has been for years (TNCs paying no medallion fees stopped taxi growth in its path, and the owners cannot sell their medallions a bargain basement rates, since they must compete with TNC’s paying nothing, with nearly five times as many vehicle available, and thus better/shorter response times).
- A decade ago, the New York/New Jersey Port Authority spent $4B upgrading the World Trade Center PATH station — quadrupling the time from the street to the train platform. For less than $6M, China built more than 400 miles of heavy rail, through six countries – including all the branch lines and all the stations.
- About two years ago, this same Port Authority spent $16.4M adding lanes, and widening approach lanes to the tunnel’s Armada of EZ Pass booths – a project that did not add a single car’s worth of capacity to the tunnel, and thus had no impact on tunnel speed (other than perhaps increased merging time for the great number of vehicles now approaching the tunnel from more lanes) or reducing traffic congestion.
The point is that in this context, gouging motorists entering Lower Manhattan (below 60th St.) by at least $15 (for a simple car) where they already pay about $17 dollars (round trip) in bridge and tunnel fees, and where parking costs are typically $70 for a full day (and nearly $50 for a 90 minute stay) makes the Boston Tea Party sound like a High School prom. The City’s income tax rate tops out at 3.876 percent, and the State’s tax rate at 10.9 percent. Of course, those people who earn serious money do not pay these rates. So it would seem that the City – unable to craft a coherent public transportation system — has few choices other than more regressive taxes – none more harmful to public transportation than charging 57-passsenger motorcoaches bridge and tunnel fees (my biggest pet peeve as a former New Yorker for 23 years).
Enforceable Speed Limits
At the other end of the spectrum one might think these measures already exist. But other than in small communities, and in Hollywood movies showing a high-speed chase on a freeway, they do not. Never mind that the serious problem California’s newly proposed measure (see California Cars and Speeding (NYTimes, June 9, 2024) ignores is the excessive speeding coupled with merging and weaving without signaling – a behavior that could effortlessly and cheaply be picked up by a skyful of low-flying drones, with no danger to police officers chasing perpetrators or causing them to endanger other motorists by their evasive movements. Instead, California’s milquetoast measure will presumably deter motorists from exceeding any speed limit by five or 10 mph. And instead of mounting such equipment in the operating environment, the California measure (if passed) will require all vehicle manufacturers to install this equipment into 50 percent of all vehicles (except emergency vehicles) produced by 2029, and in 100 percent of them produced by 2032. Once this speed limit is reached, the car’s interior will beep and flash – presumably encouraging the motorist who hasn’t quickly purchased shooting-range-quality noise-deadening headphones and dark sunglasses to slow down or suffer this constantly-annoying beeping-and-flashing environment. As one might expect, such technologies have been used in the European Union for years. Their installation in new cars became a requirement this July, 2024. A small measure, perhaps, in the broad scheme of things (I suspect it would encourage more weaving). But it will limit a dangerous excess, the installation costs should be moderate, and enforcement should be effortless since the data will automatically be sent to law enforcement agencies, and there should be no way to defend oneself against the evidence the perpetrators receive in the mail.
Unlike congestion pricing, this measure will product no revenue. Just the same, opposition is mounting, and opposing parties want more “study” before this measure is implemented. So Senate Bill 961, which lost passage by a narrow margin last month, is now before the State Senate, which must make a decision on its passage before the end of this August. In the “car country,” motorists want the freedom to kill and maim. They do not want their exposure to loud rock-and-roll compromised by “no stinking alarms.”
Getting Serious
It is clear from all these experiences that, as in the past, Americans do not want to make any compromises to safety – just as no public transportation modes (with the exception of schoolbus service, and some taxis and limousines) want any interference with what they doing – including electronic logs actually contributing to their trips’ safety, since unlike the shenanigans exercised with paper logs, electronic logs will hold motorcoach drivers accountable.
Americans want speed and money. Risks to fellow motorists, passengers, pedestrians and bicyclists be damned. And when the worst happens, they’ll likely win their lawsuits – or settle them for peanuts as their cheap, lazy lawyers settle cheaply and easily – because many or most make money “by volume.” I myself usually avoid such attorneys – and they have learned to avoid me. But having worked on what must be 700 lawsuits by now (including at least a tenth on the defense side, none of which I ever lost), I have no doubt about the typical dynamics. So knowing this – as many motorists do – and aware that their insurance carriers will pay for all the carnage, whatever it is [I have experienced a few exceptions], the worst that can happen to most of these motorists is paying higher premiums, often with different companies and less coverage. Occasionally a driver or motorist – operating a personal vehicle, bus, coach or anything else – may find him or herself in prison for a few years. But this is only in the obvious cases where police were called to the scene, and the evidence was simple enough for almost any juror to understand – even without an expert, personnel rarely engaged by criminal attorneys.
Perspective without Patience
Given even this short overview of the motorist control landscape, Americans should have little or no hope that their transportation systems will become safer in any way (other than new technologies that keep the vehicles safer).
These dynamics are rarely political issues. Those appointed to the highest positions at USDOT often begin their short tenures knowing the difference between a rear axle and the neck of a giraffe, but not much more. Many are smart, and learn what they can “on the job.” But among what they learn is that the majority of constituents do not want change of any type. And they do not want any rights or freedoms constrained. And their political representatives know this too well, and keep this agency’s decision makers on a rope the length of a key chain.
This does not mean that there are not innovations one can add to manufacturers and converters that will add to safety. Last year a National Bus Trader installment defined the characteristics of a much more comfortable (at least) motorcoach that could compete with many mid-distance flights at a fraction of the cost and time (see Survival and Prosperity – Part 2 and even suggested where to most profitably deploy them (see Survival and Prosperity – Part 1). But National Bus Trader can only offer ideas: We do not manufacture vehicles.
So indeed there are many dramatic improvements in motorcoach (and other modes’) characteristics that can enhance safety, reduce costs and possibly raise revenue for the communities in which they operate. But adding $15 or more dollars to a motorist’s trip that also would likely bring the total trip cost to more than $100 when factoring in bridge and tunnel tolls and parking costs is not like to be adopted.
Interestingly, this innovation may have a legitimate chance of success in a few cities with different characteristics and dynamics. These cities would not likely require a motorist to cross a bridge or a tunnel to enter it. And parking costs might only be a few bucks. This would be nice to see, and could provide encouragement for the idea to spread. But do not expect this to happen in New York City, or any other major cities with high parking fees and bridges or tunnels. Put U.S. transportation in perspective, and monitor the dynamics in the “car country.” Anything positive that happens in public transportation here is simply be a nice surprise. I doubt any enlightened or wishful traveler can do anything to bring it about.
As reader of any newspaper or magazine with the goal of providing some actual journalism know, it is becoming harder and harder to write about anything without dragging in politics. The same is true for the mainstream newspapers of major cities to find the positive stories that dominated these institutions 50 years ago (although the really large print size was usually saved for stories about “bad guys” and tragedies). This is not fair to transportation magazines who go far out on a limb to promote almost anything positive or promising: A new tire, a new fuel source, new seat cushions, almost anything. I am still waiting for the regulations for car colors to not be the same as the pavement, the dark forests in many rural areas or even the dirty buildings in most urban areas – making the vehicles opaque against their operating environments. But I suspect I will wait a long time for most of these things, and a very long time for the latter or them.
Innovation in America – apart from rapidly increasing forms of more subtle and sophisticated forms of corruption – is becoming rarer and rarer. This is a shame in transportation, where there is enormous opportunity for it. But I and National Bus Trader are simply cheerleaders for it. Otherwise, I (at least) continue to watch us fade into a Chinese colony. For evidence of this likelihood, one need look no further than the ruses – NEMT brokers, TNCs – that have exploded onto the public transportation scene in the past two decades. Yet inescapable hard traditions – like charging motorcoaches bridge and tunnel fees – and innovations involving little hardship (in many cities) and involving marginal efforts never seem to get off the ground. Beijing is inching closer by the day.