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Kheel To Speak On New Transit Initiatives To Address Global
Warming
(CSRwire)
New York, NY - Tuesday, February 6, 2007 - Ted Kheel, who
has sought to advance mass transit for over fifty years, will
be speaking on February 8, at an exhibit reception in the
Conde Nast Building.
The exhibit shows how a truly regional rail system
could be established, by integrating the commuter rails that
bring passengers to New York City into the city's subway and
bus systems. The purpose would be to attract more riders to
the commuter rails, a sadly underutilized mass transit resource.
At the reception, Kheel will announce a $100,000 grant
for a study of free mass transit, to determine how
the public would benefit if the transit fare in the Manhattan
business district were totally eliminated. The study will
be conducted by IRUM, and funded by a foundation Kheel presides
over, Nurture New York's Nature.
Kheel believes the study will show that New Yorkers would
use mass transit more, if it were costless, and that quantifiable
benefits would ensue for the public. Traffic strangulation
and congestion cause an enormously expensive loss of time
and productivity, and results in tons of carbon dioxide being
spewed into New York City's air during the workday, contributing
to further global warming. Free mass transit would pay for
itself by reducing these losses in time and productivity,
and improving public health.
The study will also address how a policy of increasing the
cost of motor vehicle use could complement this policy of
free mass transit. Adoption of a core area congestion pricing
plan, making automobile users in the city pay for the damage
they inflict on the public, furthers the same ends as free
mass transit, and could produce revenues to help fund it.
Such a "congestion" pricing plan was adopted in London several
years ago and has met with considerable success, reducing
traffic volumes by 18% and delays by 30%, with resulting improvements
in air quality. The mayor of that city, citing London's example,
pointed out this week that cities produce 75 per cent of global
carbon emissions and it is therefore in cities that the battle
against climate change will have to be won.
The need to reduce traffic is more important today than ever,
in light of our increasing understanding of how cars contribute
to pollution, illness, and global warming. As a result, this
is a particularly important time for creative thinking on
how to reduce traffic in our city. At the February 8 event,
two important new ways of working toward that goal will be
presented to the public.
MAKING
THE CONNECTION: TRAFFIC AND TRANSIT
Statement for February 8, 2007 Exhibit Reception
BY THEODORE W. KHEEL
I am a New Yorker by birth, and have lived and worked here almost
all my life. I am deeply devoted to the city, and have always
sought ways to improve it. Recently, I have sought solutions
through several foundations that I founded. Long before that,
I acted independently, without foundation support, as a 'catalyst
on a hot tin roof', proposing new ideas to champion causes I
believed in. One cause that I have always sought to advance
is mass transit. That is because I firmly believe, and have
for over fifty years, that encouraging use of mass transit is
the single most important step that can be taken to improve
the quality of life in our city.
I am therefore pleased to indorse the latest initiative of the
Institute for Rational Urban Mobility (IRUM) to establish a
truly regional rail system, that would integrate the commuter
rails that bring passengers to New York City into the city's
subway and bus system, providing a cheaper, and far more convenient
mass transit system for millions of riders in the city and suburbs.
Fifty 50 years ago, I wrote a 17 page report, which was widely
covered in the media, on why mass transit should be subsidized,
rather than paid for from passenger fares. In that report, I
explained:
'We must
treat traffic and transit as inseparably related and deal
forcefully with them as an indivisible problem. We must also
be realists enough to know that people cannot and should not
be directed into any particular form of transportation. Rather,
mass transit must be made more attractive in both price and
service if people are to be induced to choose it over the
traffic-creating automobile.' (Report of Oct. 3, 1958)
Like most
Americans, I love my automobile and the flexibility it gives
me to travel around the City. But I am aware of the high costs
cars inflict, polluting the air, adding to global warming, and
strangling the city with traffic. I therefore believe that car
owners, myself included, should contribute to the eradication
of the damage we are creating, by paying for the harm done.
I also believe that the funds so created should be used to make
mass transit as attractive and inexpensive as possible as an
alternative. New Yorkers who use mass transit are actually performing
a public service, improving the quality of life in our city,
and we should reward them, and give them the best and most inexpensive
ride we can.
It was this thinking that led me to advocate in 1965 the doubling
of the 50 cent toll collected from drivers to use the bridges
and tunnels coming into New York City, a proposal that was extremely
controversial at that time, but was ultimately implemented.
It was this thinking that led me to advocate using the increased
revenues from the tolls to help mass transit, a concept that
was adamantly opposed by both Robert Moses and Austin Tobin,
but also prevailed, in part, despite restrictive laws on the
books. And it was this thinking that led me to advocate, still
in the 1960s, the establishment of a regionwide Transportation
Policy Board to replace the several authorities that controlled
the bridge and tunnel tolls, a Board that would have the power
to use the toll funds to subsidize subway and bus fares and
improve service. That proposal too was implemented-- in part--
with the establishment of the MTA.
Today, we are faced with the reality that the measures taken
in the past were too weak to prevent the current gridlock. A
recent study by the Partnership for New York estimated the economic
costs of that gridlock to the city at $13 billion a year, and
that figure does not even take into account the health costs
associated with the pollution created by automobiles. We therefore
need to find new ways to discourage driving in the city, and
to make those who do drive pay the true costs to our city of
their conduct. We need to find new ways to attract people to
mass transit, and to reward those who use it. And we need to
find new ways of rationalizing the entire system to achieve
these ends.
It is this then that leads me today to support congestion pricing,
which has been so successful in London, and is being adopted
in other cities around the world. It is this too that leads
me to support the ideas you see illustrated in this exhibit,
which would transform our checkerboard of commuter rails and
the separately administered city subways into a single, coordinated
system, aimed at providing maximum service and convenience,
at minimum price, to commuters traveling into and out of the
city, as well as within it.
One of the many great ideas illustrated in this exhibit is that
we should do away with the separate, and higher fare charged
for commuter rail so that there is no penalty for those who
choose to travel into the city by commuter rail, rather than
by subway or bus. I long ago learned from experience that price
matters in public transit. So I like the idea of reducing the
commuter rail fare, because I know it will encourage use. In
fact, I like the idea of reducing the fare so much, I would
like to take it down to zero. For everyone.
In my dream, all who use mass transit, whether it be the commuter
rails, the subways, or the buses, would be able to do so for
free. If this is a dream, it is not one beyond reach. Some preliminary
figures show that revenues generated by congestion pricing would
pay for any loss of income from elimination of the fare. Even
without this subsidy, I believe that the indirect benefits of
eliminating the fare would more than outweigh the costs.
To prove the point, I am pleased to announce that our Nurture
New York's Nature Foundation is contributing $100,000 to IRUM
for a study that will evaluate the potential benefits that free
mass transportation could achieve, the costs of such a policy,
and how increased charges for motor vehicle use could complement
such a policy.
I think this is a wonderful time for citizens to raise their
voice in support of improved mass transit. The need for relief
has been recognized. New ideas are emerging, including the ones
illustrated here. And there is a new opportunity with a new
governor, to make many of these proposals into realities.
KHEEL
ON MASS TRANSIT:
A Sixty Year Overview
Ted Kheel has been involved in mass transit for over half a
century. Initially, he was involved as a mediator and arbitrator
of labor disputes. Over the years his involvement went beyond
that, as he saw the possibilities of improvement in our mass
transit system, and became a vocal advocate for change.
Kheel first realized the importance of the mass transit fare
when he assisted Mayor William O'Dwyer in resolving a transit
labor dispute in the 1940s. One outcome of the dispute was that
the Mayor endorsed a doubling of the 5 cents subway fare, which
had been established in 1904 when the first subway line in the
City was opened. That increase resulted in a sharp drop in the
number of riders on the system. Little attention was paid at
the time to the decline in riding; Kheel, however, became concerned.
Kheel's understanding of how fares affected ridership led him
to take action a decade later against a law enacted by Governor
Thomas E. Dewey in the 1950s, known as the 'Self Sustaining
Fare,' which requires a fare increase for mass transit in New
York City if 'necessary to produce sufficient revenue to meet
the expenses of the authority and to maintain such operations
on a self-sustaining basis.'
In a 1958 report that gained wide attention, Kheel charged that
the self sustaining fare was self defeating, and that it reduced
the use of mass transit, resulting in increased delays due to
automobile traffic. Had he known what we now know, he would
have pointed to the health and environmental costs incurred
as well. Citing Kheel's Report, the City Council unanimously
recommended repeal of the self-sustaining fare. A newspaper
poll of the legislators found substantial support, and ways
were subsequently found to provide subsidies. However, the self-sustaining
fare was not repealed, the price of mass transit rose, and the
crusade for a sound transportation policy continued.
Kheel's next sally was in the 1960s. On November 8, 1965, he
took aim at financing in another way. He called for tolls to
be doubled on the bridges and tunnels leading into Manhattan
and for the revenue to be used to subsidize mass transit, a
controversial idea at the time.
Kheel also called for the creation of a 'transportation policy
board' to be composed of the various authorities that collected
the tolls, including the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority,
the Port Authority, the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit
Authority, and the Transit Authority. The proposed board would
be responsible not only for bridges and tunnels, but also for
mass transit-- a novel and controversial idea at the time.
Kheel's double-the-toll proposal in 1965 received even more
attention than his 1958 report. It was not only chronicled by
all the newspapers in town: it was front page news, with banner
headlines, in many. Kheel's proposal to establish a super authority
responsible for all forms of regional transportation was, in
turn, taken up by Mayor John Lindsay, who pledged to propose
legislation embodying the concept. Within a few years, a transportation
board that included several of the authorities was established,
tolls did double, and importantly, some of the funds were used
for mass transit. None of this, however, was enough to keep
the subway fare from going up again. So Kheel fought on.
In the 1970s, Kheel turned his attention to the Port Authority,
the powerful cash cow that had successfully retained its independence
when the other two authorities were folded into the newly established
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). His goal was to
force the Port Authority to address the city's traffic problems
by subsidizing mass transit. Among the many obstacles was a
1962 'covenant' that prohibited the Port Authority from spending
funds on mass rail transportation.
Kheel's campaign against the Port Authority could be the subject
of a book by itself, and included attacking the Authority's
policies repeatedly in the papers, testifying at state hearings,
soliciting a grant to study the Authority's finances, incorporating
an organization to address the issue, and even invoking the
'equal time' rule to try to ensure that the television stations
covered the issue adequately. Along the way, Kheel met with
the governors of both New York and New Jersey and successfully
persuaded them to repeal the covenant prospectively.
Kheel also waged his campaign in the courts, where he filed
a suit in 1971 challenging the constitutionality of the Port
Authority's covenant. The suit retained importance, even after
repeal of the covenant, because of the bonds that had been issued
while the covenant was still in force. Kheel's suit made its
way slowly through the judicial system in two states, and ultimately
landed in the Supreme Court'which, in a 1977, 4 to 3 decision,
reversed a favorable opinion in the court below, on purely procedural
grounds.
Kheel's half-century of advocacy in favor of mass transit has
met with many successes and some defeats. One success that he
can claim throughout is to have had a significant effect on
public opinion. Views he had advocated alone for years found
their way into the papers as mainstream thought. Today, he is
undertaking once more to challenge people's views about what
can and cannot be done on transit.
This time, he wants New Yorkers to consider whether completely
eliminating the transit fare would be in the public interest.
To that end, he has commissioned a study to determine how much
the ridership would increase if mass transit were free; how
much this could reduce the costly delays caused by traffic congestion;
and how much it could mitigate the damaging effects of carbon
dioxide emissions and other pollution, including illness and
global warming.
FOR
ADDITIONAL DETAILS OF THIS EVENT, PLEASE CLICK HERE
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