Op-ed
Open Letter Offers Pollution Solutions

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

I must take umbrage with your "congestion pricing" proposal as a resident of New York since 1965. I've lived in Astoria all that time and if there's one area that suffers from pollution, this is it; it's made me into an active environmentalist.

Besides the fact that comparing New York with London is pretty much untenable, the reality of this plan is that it really does nothing to stop pollution per se. Yes, it gathers tremendous amounts of money, ostensibly for major improvements in mass transit, but we know what happens with general tax revenues. If you really want us to believe that this plan is meant to lower pollution, as many other parts of your plan directly address, then fix it to reflect that reality.

First, stop cramming it down everybody's throat. Give people a chance to really examine it and offer healthful tweaking. The only viable anti-pollution measure that has been offered is by the trucking industry and the Teamsters- to lessen the onerous $21 a trip truck tariff by two thirds if truckers upgrade old diesel engines. That makes common fiscal and social sense and it was an amendment offered by a private trade group, not government. Second (we know you're not going to like this one), lower and cap the tax of $8 and $21 to a more reasonable level. If you add up only five daily trips a week for a single truck over one year it adds up to a whopping $5,460 a year. This isn't "congestion pricing", it's a sledgehammer to the meager profits of thousands of small businesses. Capping makes sense because if we use London again as a comparison, or just any of our own bridge tolls, they always go up, even without fiscal justification. Londo has doubled in the short time that it's been implemented. That's not very encouraging is it? Prophetic yes, encouraging, no.

As a city leader, if you want to ameliorate the effects of pollution, it would be certainly appropriate to clean your own house first before you ask others to absorb this ridiculous cost burden. Don't implement it until mass transit has improved measurably (knowing how government works, this will effectively push back the implementation date to 2030). If you really care about pollution and not about money, fix every single fire engine and school bus that spews deadly toxins on a daily basis to two of our most appreciated and yet vulnerable populations. Honestly, whose idea was it to purchase diesel trucks to ferry individuals who have just fought a fire and need oxygen just to survive, especially at that crucial time after a fire. Has anyone in city government stood next to one or these of EMT trucks at an emergency response and tried just to breathe? Why should children with developing lungs be subject to the daily concentrated debilitating effects of an antiquated diesel school bus?

Why not take private fleets like Con Edison and make them upgrade their trucks? Enforce the three-minute No Idling rule. Eliminate toll gates at all our bridge crossings so that traffic doesn't slow down to an unnecessary crawl every day for the same avoidable reason. We already have the technology to speed through Ez-Pass at 35 MPH. Why not implement it if you're serious about alleviating pollution? A truck starting from zero spews three times more exhaust than an already moving one. We've all seen the black smokestacks of diesels huffing and puffing at lights. You don't need to be a genius to see that the majority of our pollution comes from that. Modern cars are not the real culprit as much as antiquated fleets of trucks, but if the fleets make a bona fide effort to clean themselves up, alleviate their financial burden as expressed above.

Something that would not cost anything and could be implemented today is to stagger work hours of all city workers (all workers actually) from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and spread daily rush hours out from early morning to early evening. A person starting at 7 [a.m.] could leave by 3 [p.m.] and someone starting at 11 [a.m.] would be out by 7 [p.m.]. Forget 9 to 5. Additionally, ask the general population for ideas, instead of assuming that government knows better.

As an asthmatic for the last 22 years of my life, living in one of the most polluted centers of New York, I've heard government promise and renege on all types of air pollution solutions. Count the number of old power plants still in use in Astoria- new ones go up, old ones don't close. Measure the already toxic levels of particulate pollution from our airport at La Guardia. Now that they're adding more flights, I'm sure that'll improve our air tremendously. Look at the amount of daily traffic on the Grand Central Parkway and BQE that course through our residential neighborhoods.

This congestion plan as it now stands will do nothing more than add to our already untenable burden with no hope of relief in the foreseeable future because our neighborhoods will become the parking lot for people who can't drive into Manhattan but still need to get there for jobs. That parking pass solution is just another not-so-funny joke and non-solution fostered upon our residents- a permit with a fee just to park on the street.

If you can show your constituents that you're really serious about the root causes of air pollution as outlined above and have a decent plan to implement them first before fostering another tax on an already overtaxed and beleaguered population, then maybe we can believe that this plan really would help. Otherwise if the "congestion pricing's" purpose is to price the Average Joe out of New York City, along with increases in water, Con Ed and real estate taxes, it will succeed admirably.

Lastly, you might want to listen to your extransportation commissioner, Sam Schwartz. He also had a number of good ideas on how to ameliorate traffic and pollution that have nothing to do with new fees.
Sincerely,
Antonio Meloni
Meloni is a resident of Astoria.