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 April 23, 2008 | Vol 7, No. 08 |
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In This Issue: – Congestion Pricing Will Live Again – Calendar The silver linings in the debate – and the notion that congestion pricing may one day rise again – fall mostly into three categories: First, all sides agree that traffic in New York is a mess; it creates delays that cost our residents and businesses mightily and adds to the stress of living and working in New York. This agreement has led to wider discussion of ways to ease congestion on our streets and highways. While these ideas would not have the same wide effect as a congestion pricing program, they can help. These include the #1 priority on everyone’s list – a crackdown on illegal, unnecessary and often counterfeited parking placards that entitle some City employees to park for free on City streets where others cannot. These placards are abused and represent a breakdown in the law, in some cases by many who are pledged to uphold it. Other traffic actions include more taxi stands, more traffic agents to enforce traffic laws, more parking meters with higher rates, the elimination of the parking tax exemption for Manhattan residents, and the redirection of delivery trucks at less congested times. No matter what one’s position was on congestion pricing we can all join together and work with the City to make these happen. None are a traffic reduction panacea like congestion pricing, but all are worth pursuing. Second, the debate demonstrates the great thirst for more and improved transit. New Yorkers instinctively understand that transit is necessary for their daily lives. Fix subway stations, provide more and faster bus service, express buses and trains, more transfers between stations, more City service on commuter lines and more ferries. At every public hearing held by the commission set up by the legislature to examine traffic congestion there was as much comment about the need for more service as there was about the pros and cons of the congestion pricing proposal. Third, there is a heightened awareness that the transit system is far short of the money it needs to meet short and long-term needs, particularly in light of the expected growth of population and jobs, both in New York City and in surrounding areas like Long Island and Westchester. Speaker Silver pointed this out during the congestion pricing post mortem and Governor Paterson immediately established a blue-ribbon panel for transit funding headed by former MTA chief Richard Ravitch, who worked with Albany to create the funding that began the MTA turnaround back in the early 1980s. The success of this panel will be measured by its ability to create the revenue stream to avoid the delay of key projects or the decline of the reliability of the system from disinvestment in their upkeep and maintenance. It will be a task for everyone to get across the fact that the transit system is critical to the economy of the City and by extension the State. What is in our future? Congestion pricing may be gone for now but it is far from dead, as both Shaw and Sadik-Kahn said last week. It is an idea whose time will come again. Technology will make charging easier and more sophisticated in the future by allowing for time of day, day of week and level of congestion pricing. There is a growing movement nationally to charge drivers more directly for the use of the roads. The MTA funding gap will be difficult to meet solely by other means. I cannot help thinking of the last lines of the most quoted film in history, Casablanca. “You may not thank me now, but you will later. It may not be in two years, or even five, but you will thank me.” And finally, the closing lines, “this is the start of a beautiful friendship.” Let us hope that in five years we can look back at this having been the beginning of congestion pricing rather than the end. – Jeffrey M. Zupan, Senior Fellow for Transportation, RPA Sentiments Clear at the Regional Assembly: Nation Needs a Path to Sustainability The need to invest in our vital systems and protect our natural resources was the theme of RPA’s 18th Annual Regional Assembly at the Waldorf=Astoria last Friday. More than 700 participants were treated to an inspiring program that included US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Member of Congress Earl Blumenauer, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation and Chair of the Regional Assembly Judith Rodin, and many others. A surprise appearance by Governor David Paterson was a welcome way to close the event. The Assembly’s record high turnout may be a testament to the growing sense that Oil & Water – standing as symbols of the resources we need to drive a strong regional economy, and the symbols of resources that are becoming scarce – are pressing issues that need to be addressed. On the water side, Shirley Franklin described Atlanta’s ongoing fight for clean drinking water. For years, the city has struggled with depleted water reservoirs and an aging water and sewer system. Dubbing herself the “Sewer Mayor,” Franklin has made water her signature issue, campaigning at the federal level for a more stringent enforcement of the Clean Water Act, and at the local level for a better educated citizenry in all matters water. Under her leadership, and thanks to a federal injunction to enforce the Clean Water Act, voters agreed to tax themselves to fund a $3.2 billion overhaul of the city’s water and sewer infrastructure. On the oil side, Earl Blumenauer and Judith Rodin described a national transportation policy addicted to fossil fuels. Despite the fact that one-third of the carbon emissions produced in the United States comes from our transportation system, and despite the fact that 90% of the oil we import goes to transportation, we continue to dedicate 80% of all transportation infrastructure spending to roads and highways. A heavier reliance on local transit systems and improved intercity rail would lessen our carbon footprint, reduce our reliance on foreign oil, increase our mobility and improve the reliability of our transportation system, but rail continues to be significantly underfunded at the national level. Yet, as Blumenauer pointed out, additional funding is not enough. Investing in the nation’s infrastructure will also require coordinating our expenditures and targeting them to make them as effective as possible. Today, for example, our national transportation dollars are allocated among states based on vehicle-miles driven, thus rewarding the states that drive the most. As Blumenauer put it, “A state gets no credit for a drive not taken.” An effective national transportation system will require a rethinking of how transportation funding is allocated. Rebuilding America’s vital facilities will also require that policy areas traditionally separate now be coordinated. Rodin pointed out, for example, that unless our land use patterns change – today, the number of miles Americans drive increases 2.5 times faster than population growth – the federal government’s requirement that cars achieve 35 miles a gallon will simply be negated, in terms of carbon emissions, by the increased number of miles we drive. Federal efforts on transportation must be coordinated with state and local land-use plans to ensure that all levels of government are working toward the same goal. As she came on stage for her keynote speech, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – “the most powerful woman in the world,” as Blumenauer remarked – received a standing ovation. Pelosi called for a national campaign to Renew and Rebuild America saying, “In Congress, it is our responsibility to protect the American people, grow our economy and create good paying jobs, strengthen America’s families, and preserve our planet and promote energy independence. All of these can be accomplished through rebuilding our infrastructure … Why isn’t this Congress’ Stimulus Package?” Pelosi warned, however, that public education needed to be a critical component of an increased commitment to infrastructure, because few Americans today understand the need or the urgency. Even just a few hours after the Minnesota bridge collapse, a poll revealed that Americans did not support a five-cent increase in taxes on gasoline to improve infrastructure. “Unless we have the drumbeat for change, we can’t make the change we want.” Advocates of all stripes should be beating this drum. Better bridges, rails, public transit, schools, sewers and power systems means faster economic growth, greater energy independence, a healthier environment, more jobs, a more equitable society, increased community stability and, ultimately, a better quality of life. Rebuilding America may be one of the biggest issues this nation has faced, but if advocates for jobs, national security, clean air and water, environmental justice and healthy neighborhoods join forces, we can make the change.
The answer lies within what is to many a boring and unappealing word: the corporation. New York City is, and essentially always has been, a corporation, meaning it has a corporate charter, granted and written by a state. The city was first part of the Dutch West India Company, then it had its own corporate charter granted by Great Britain and then New York State. But its powers as a corporation have changed over the centuries. A bit of history. From medieval times to the mid 19th century – and this is difficult for many people to get their mental hands around – there was no clear distinction between a corporation such as the city of London and a corporation such as the East India Company, or, on a smaller scale, one to build a canal or sell salt. “There is no difference between Google and San Francisco,” said Harvard Professor Gerald Frug, an expert on this subject, in a recent interview. They are both corporations - “bodies, empowered by government, to do stuff.” For centuries corporations had a high degree of autonomy. Similar to the church, they had certain rights and powers that even the King could not violate or take away. An important case occurred in 1682, when the King Charles II, whose own powers were being threatened by a rebellious parliament, sued the City of London and asserted he had the right to dissolve it. Although he won the case, the Glorious Revolution occurred a mere six years later in 1688, and with it the return of the old conception of the autonomous corporation. Things began to change after the American Revolution, both here and in other countries. In the United States, the corporation split into two: “private” corporations for profit, and “public” corporations, usually towns and cities. Both still had to be created by the state legislature, but private corporations retained a degree of autonomy that cities and towns gradually lost. In the famous case Trustees of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward in 1819, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall ruled that New Hampshire could not dissolve or significantly alter the corporate charter of Dartmouth College even though it was created by a monarchy, Great Britain, that the United States had successfully fought a war against. This case helped create the right of the private corporation to operate within certain limits without government interference. Eventually, in the later 19th century, courts would rule private corporations, “persons” and legislatures would allow creation of a corporation “by right.” After this, the rights of cities and towns went in a different direction. After the American Revolution, New York City initially retained its old independent powers. It was a 'free City of itself,' - an autonomous private corporation with absolute title to its own personal ‘estate,’ say Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace in Gotham: A History of New York City to 1998. “By increments, without anyone expressly intending it to happen,” say Wallace and Burrows, “the corporation [of New York City] gradually came to be recognized as primarily an agent of the state, with its 'private' personality, so jealously guarded by earlier generations, remembered, if at all, as a relic of the rapidly receding colonial past.” Even so, according to Frug and others, cities and towns as corporate entities still retained some degree of autonomy. Judge John Dillon put an end to that, in a series of articles that was part of an internal discussion among the courts over just what were the powers of cities and towns. Dillon argued for his fellow judges “to require these corporations [meaning towns and cities], in all cases, to show a plain and clear grant for the authority they assume to exercise; to lean against constructive powers, and, with firm hands, to hold them and their officers within chartered limits.” Dillon and others were observing the powerful and often corrupt but populous governments in place in New York City (Boss Tweed) and Boston (the Irish). There was the inclination to bring these cities under the control of the state legislature. Dillon also viewed as a threat to private property the apparent trend for municipalities to not only fund private railroads, something that was common, but perhaps actually to own them. Dillon's views did not go unchallenged. As Professor Frug lays out in his seminal 1980 Harvard Law Review article, Judge Thomas M. Cooley argued that the right to set up and operate a local government was an absolute one, similar to the right to say print a newspaper or speak freely. Another scholar of the time wrote a paper called “A Right to Local Self-Government.” But they lost the argument. In what is a good example of how courts make law as well as weigh it, Dillon's interpretation gradually became dominant and essentially it is still the case today. Although there are “home rule” cities, autonomy is no longer the default option, as it once was. Was this a good or a bad thing? As with so many questions, there are advantages both ways and one’s personal preferences tend to shift with the issue being fought over. New Jersey, for example, is a powerful “home rule” state, but the high degree of autonomy by towns makes coherent state land use difficult. Whatever side one falls on this issue, there remains the irony of the powerful private corporation versus the restrained public one. Private corporations, like Google or IBM, became in the late 19th century fictitious persons with certain rights that can't be dissolved or altered at will. Public corporations though, like New York City, became vassals of the state, hobbled, on bended knee, even as, in the case of New York City, its treasure continues to finance the very government that limits it.
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April 22 April 23 April 23 April 23 April 25 April 28 April 29 April 29 April 30 April 30 May 5 and 6 May 6 May 7 May 12 May 17 May 28 September 27 November 15 |
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Spotlight on The Region A publication of Regional Plan Association, Robert Yaro, President / Alex Marshall, Senior Editor 212-253-2727, x360 alex@rpa.org www.rpa.org |
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