By Robert Weber
Canal St. is Chinatown’s main commercial corridor. It is also the major east-west travel route in Lower Manhattan, carrying over 30 million cars and trucks annually. According to a December 2005 study by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, roughly a third of those vehicles are merely passing through, which means that local businesses are not benefiting from the high traffic volumes and local residents are, in turn, breathing in excess carbon monoxide and other pollutants.
A major cause of this pass-through traffic is the one-way toll on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which encourages drivers to use Canal St. to access the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey. The result of all this excess traffic is that Canal St. is one of the more dangerous streets to cross in Manhattan, air quality in Chinatown is among the poorest in the city, and delivery vehicles are often stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Talk of a new bus route traversing Canal St. makes little sense these days until congestion is reduced.
Congestion pricing, the practice of charging drivers a user fee to enter a central business district during peak hours, has worked successfully in cities around the world, including London, Singapore, Melbourne and Oslo. Improvements include reduced traffic congestion, better air quality, more reliance on mass transportation, and increases in pedestrian safety.
Under Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan, cars and small trucks would pay an $8 fee to enter Manhattan south of 86th St. weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Large trucks would pay $21 and taxis, livery cabs, buses and emergency vehicles would be exempt.
In New York, money collected through congestion pricing fees would raise an estimated $400 million a year, which will be used to improve subway, bus and express bus service.
If Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan is approved Chinatown may emerge as one of the plan’s primary beneficiaries if the new fees persuade drivers, especially truck drivers, en route to New Jersey to stop using Canal St. as a thoroughfare connecting the Manhattan Bridge with the Holland or Lincoln Tunnel. Drivers will still have the option of using the F.D.R. or the West Side Highway without having to pay a fee.
Canal St. and the Bowery would greatly benefit from reduced congestion as delivery vans and trucks, as well as commuter vans carrying workers and residents between Chinatown and Flushing, will be able to navigate Chinatown’s streets with greater ease and efficiency. Regional visitors, who prefer to travel to Chinatown by car, will also have a more pleasant experience. And local merchants will benefit even more if police step up their efforts to reduce the abuse of placard parking by government workers in the historic core of Chinatown who occupy valuable parking spaces all day.
Additional benefits from reduced traffic and new investments in mass transit might include safer streets for pedestrians and bicyclists, reductions in asthma, more efficient buses, and less offensive noises from frustrated motorists.
While good access to both mass transit and transportation have helped Chinatown grow into a commercial and transportation center, excessive traffic, caused in part from high volumes of pass-through traffic, undermine this community’s economic development and erode its quality of life.
Congestion pricing, while not a panacea, is an innovative and effective solution to a vexing problem.
Robert Weber is the director of policy of Asian Americans for Equality.
