On Thursday, December 7th, New York City made the baffling decision to stubbornly continue to enforce car-centric parking mandates in its sprawling low-density neighborhoods.

Faced with the greatest housing vacancy and scarcity in decades, in addition to record levels of homelessness, New York City needed more housing fast. One of the biggest blockers to get the plan through was the massive debate around minimum parking requirements for new housing.

The City Council passed a watered down version of Mayor Eric Adams’ City of Yes plan with a 31–20 vote. A number of changes were made diluting the original proposal: creating parking mandate zones instead of eliminating parking mandates, prohibiting ADUs and adding restrictive guidelines for ADUs in many low density neighborhoods, and reducing transit oriented development (TODs) eligibility across low-density districts and along Metro Train stations.

By limiting a number of these zoning changes, particularly the parking mandate zones, the final proposal went from potentially providing over 109,000 homes to only 80,000 homes over the next 15 years. It also restricts these homes from being built in areas with more space, which would have shared the burden across more neighborhoods.

Instead, neighborhoods that have already been adding housing for years will continue to add more, while low-density neighborhoods that have not been adding housing, won’t.

Many council members that received concessions to help pass the plan still voted no such as folks like Kamillah Hanks, Jim Gennaro, and Chris Banks. Vehement opponents of the plan like Vickie Paladino and Bob Holden held fast and voted no as well.

Speaker Adrienne Adams was able to secure an additional $5 billion of capital funding — providing necessary funding for NYCHA repairs, more rental vouchers and additional infrastructure upgrades to address flooding, among other initiatives. And while this is helpful, it doesn’t get at the main goal of the City of Yes — to build “a little more housing in every neighborhood.”

Throughout the rest of this article, I want to focus on parking mandates and why it continues to be the biggest obstacle for more housing, decreased congestion, and general improvements to quality of life.

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Decoding Parking Mandates

To understand the debate and the watered down changes, it’s important to first understand what parking mandates are.

As cars grew more popular and affordable in the early 20th century, urban planners anticipated a car-centric future. They began requiring parking spaces in residential and commercial developments, ensuring that streets and buildings could accommodate the rising number of vehicles.

In 1961, New York City formalized parking mandates into law, shifting from a city that banned overnight street parking into one that embedded parking requirements into zoning regulations. This law continues to remain in effect today, mandating developers to provide off-street parking for new housing units. While this might seem manageable in sprawling cities, it creates significant challenges in space-constrained environments like New York.

There is also little evidence to support the idea that parking mandates are necessary to ensure adequate parking availability. In fact, numerous studies suggest that the market itself can provide sufficient parking without government-imposed requirements. When parking is left to market forces, supply naturally adjusts to meet demand, as developers and property owners respond to the needs of the community.

The fear urban planners had before about not having enough parking spaces simply was not entirely justified nor a necessary requirement. Instead, this minimum requirement has only led to an overbuilding of parking that leads to wasted space and unnecessary costs, while underutilized spaces remain vacant.

Reducing parking also reduces car ownership, leading to increased investment in public transportation, decreased congestion and noise pollution, and improvements to overall community health.

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Complicating Parking Rules Even More

The rules for parking are complex, with required parking spaces varying based on factors like zoning type, building use, and affordability. For instance, requirements differ between residential and commercial districts, mixed-use buildings, or affordable housing projects, creating a patchwork of regulations developers must navigate.

Typically, each dwelling unit requires at least one off-street parking space, whether one uses it or not. Higher rise buildings can reduce this down to 40% in a group parking facility and smaller lots less than 15,000 sq. ft. can also get a reduction down to 20%.

Other major cities like Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Seattle also had incredibly confusing parking mandate requirements. And so to simplify the requirements and open up the space for other purposes including building more housing, these cities eliminated parking mandates.

They have also proven that there has not been a significant parking shortage, further demonstrating that the market, rather than mandates, can effectively address parking needs.

But in New York City this past month, the Land Use Committee instead passed a more complicated tiered parking mandate zone separated into three categories.

1. Zone 1 — No parking mandates: “Eliminating residential parking requirements for new developments.”

2. Zone 2 — Reducing parking mandates: “Significant reduction in multi-family residential parking requirements.”

3. Zone 3 — Maintain the status quo: “Keep most parking requirements.”

ADUs, conversions, and TOD development housing did, however, become exempt from parking requirements across all zones, while affordable housing and Town Center developments still had requirements. This is great, except many low density areas that could build more of these units are restricted from building them.

New York City is home to an estimated 5.4 million parking spaces — nearly one for each of the city’s 5.6 million licensed drivers. If each space measures the typical 8 by 20 feet, that adds up to an astonishing 860 million square feet, equivalent to over 20 Central Parks. This doesn’t even include the amount of additional 4to 6 ft. of space a car needs to turn into a parking space.

A breakdown from an internal 2016 investigation into parking signs and blockfaces reveals that about 3 million of these spaces are curbside on-street parking. Additionally, parking garages account for 390,000 spots, surface lots provide around 1 million, and private parking contributes over 1 million spaces.

Amazingly, this estimate likely underrepresents the true number of parking spaces in the city. Drivers often park in areas that aren’t officially designated, and there’s limited data on private parking garages and driveways, making it hard to account for the full extent of space dedicated to cars.

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Reimagining Parking Spaces

Eliminating parking mandates not only allows for more housing but also unlocks a range of opportunities for alternative uses.

The NYC DOT has proposed several innovative ideas for repurposing on-street parking to enhance community spaces and improve quality of life.

Instead, that space could become more flexible and active, prioritizing transit boarding, pickups/drop-offs, and freight activities. It could also be designated for people and local businesses to provide service through plazas or outdoor dining. Waste containers, green infrastructure, bike lanes, daylighting, or even film production can find purpose by the curb.

Two parking spot spaces should be for more than just two people and cars. Two parking spots can make up one studio apartment. Two parking spots can create outdoor dining space for cafes and restaurants, with room for waste containers. Two parking spots can provide room for a bus shelter, bus pickup, and daylighting.

Without parking lots and garages, we can create more parks, community centers, and local businesses. This shift fosters vibrant, community-focused spaces that benefit everyone.

Manhattan alone saw much of the air quality benefits with an elimination of parking minimums due to the Clean Air Act in 1982. There is a reduced amount of congestion with the average level of carbon monoxide dropping gradually since then.

This doesn’t mean we should eliminate all parking. Reducing the amount of parking encourages fewer people to drive, freeing up more parking spaces for those who need them, such as workers or individuals with disabilities.

Let’s take a look at London as a case study. They abolished parking minimums since 2004 and have seen massive benefits as a result. The number of parking spaces provided dropped around 40% leading to a total of over 143,000 parking spaces.

Ironically, the market did continue to provide more parking with higher density, as well as increased transit, which proves that the opposite direction is also necessary. Parking caps also do not cause spillover with on-street parking congestion. Instead, that must be addressed through parking permits or better priced parking meters — not minimum parking requirements.

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A Crossroads Moment

By now, you’re likely as frustrated as I am with the City Council’s missed opportunity to eliminate parking mandates.

Many of these same council members have voted on related issues, such as outdoor dining and the upcoming e-bike licensing law, which prioritize cars over the safety and needs of people.

• 33% of city council that is running next election voted NO on the City of Yes.

• 18% of city council that is running next election voted NO on outdoor dining.

• 49% of city council that is running next election is SPONSORING e-bike licensing.

There is action you can take — by protesting and voting in the upcoming June 25, 2025 election.

Check to see how your council members voted and use this information to hold them accountable. Research the rest of the field and their stances on these same policies, so you can help make the right choice and make this city a better place for New Yorkers.

Police reported that the suspect fled the scene on a bike. Immediately, the search to find the suspect led a number of people to start scouring surveillance cameras to see if they could identify who the man was, the bike he was on, and where he went. Uncovered footage saw a suspect carrying an e-bike battery, which after a tweet by @rtwlz, seemed to pin the attacker to fleeing the scene on an electric Citibike.

The idea of a someone running to a Citibike terminal, pulling up the app, scanning the QR code, waiting the several seconds to see a green light and “ding” go off unlocking the bike, backing up into the nearby bike lane, and then speeding off — all the while holding onto their gun after having just shot someone — is such a bizarre image in my brain. For all we know, he probably had to scan multiple Citibike’s because of how inconsistent the bikes are at showing whether or not they are available to be checked out.

The rest of the thread showcases @rtwlz’s table of scraped Citibike data, which he doesn’t fully explain how is done. With some help from asking around, I wrote a quick blurb below for how you can also scrape Citibike data whether it be to track down a shooter or your friends showing up 30 minutes late to a dinner because they were searching for a bike.

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Okay, but did the shooter actually getaway with a Citibike?

Almost immediately, the Citibike claim proved to be false. This became apparent once an image of the suspect fleeing the scene very clearly was not riding a Citibike. Even if it had been one of the newer thinner and white ones, the image definitely does not look like a Citibike.

A few hours later, NBC News (@Tom_Winter, @BenjaminGoggin) confirmed with a representative from Lyft, who manages and operates Citibike, that NYPD shared with them that a electric Citibike was also not used.

This is still an ongoing investigation as images of the suspect’s face are released by police, but one thing is for certain — clearly the story that someone did a “drive-by” with a Citibike was too good of a story to be true.

Update: Appears to be the suspect is Luigi Mangione.

Quick Sidenote about Electric Bikes in NYC

While we’re on the topic of electric bikes, they are currently being challenged by New York City Council with a new bill, Intro 606, requiring NYC Department of Transportation to license all e-bikes, regardless of classification. This includes electric Citibikes.

Besides the fact that multiple analysis from other cities like LA and Houston have proven the economic failure of running a program at this scale, licensing biking behavior does not actually increase safety. All this bill does is allow for police to stop any e-cyclist to “inspect their license,” which we know is really code for stopping food delivery drivers, or immigrants and people of color, the majority of e-bike users.

This bill is just a new iteration of stop and frisk, something New York City has fought long and hard to get rid of. The recent legality of jaywalking also tries to combat this immoral behavior as the vast majority of random jaywalking stops made by police were of people of color for instances rarely related to jaywalking.

Safety around bicycling is sorely needed, especially around delivery bike riders, but it does not come about through licensing bikes. Rather it comes through more biking infrastructure, increased education, and improvements in battery safety — many things I’ve previously written about here.

A livable city for the pedestrian experience requires smarter, strategic forward-looking policies; not something that punishes the wrong people. For those that have time, join me in speaking up on December 11 against these proposed e-bike restrictions.

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Okay now here’s how to scrape Citibike data.

Scraping Citibike Data

For anyone that has used Citibike, you probably know about the Citibike or Lfy app. All of the available open bikes and open parking spots are publicly available so anyone can find where available bikes are. There’s also a webapp you can use to find bikes. @oobr. created a cool version tracking an almost heatmap version of bike usage and availability across the city (and other cities).

Lyft publishes real time data in General Bikeshare Feed Specification (GBFS) format in addition to easily accessible monthly history data.

To access real time data, you can use the public api endpoint https://gbfs.lyft.com/gbfs/2.3/bkn/en/station_status.json to get station level information like station ids, bike availability, dock availability.

But to do something like what @rtwlz did above, you’ll need to have access to a bearer token to unlock more sensitive information, as you are obviously tracking specific bikes and where they leave and dock. If you are able to find a bearer token by intercepting a packet sent by the app or webapp and access it through the aforementioned api endpoint, you should be able to pull more specific station ID info under motivate_REGION_STATION-ID. This will get you the bike IDs under rideable_name to then mark out timestamps at different stations. From there, you can match this info to figure out when and where bikes are entering and leaving.

Shoutout to @tensorbodega for the help, and check out more from his quick post here.

One last tweet that’s pretty funny:

As AI continues to dominate discussions about the future of cities, one crucial element is often overlooked: the widening gap between the private sector developing "AI" tools and the public sector focused on addressing real-world human challenges.

Many people I know in tech are eager to build something—not necessarily to solve a specific problem, but simply to apply the skills they learned in college or bootcamps. They’re often encouraged to create something that they believe will resonate with real users. While this can be fine for a side project, too often, people are chasing the idea of “building something” as a pathway to profit, with solving real problems becoming a secondary goal.

These same people often talk about building a better future for their users, adopting an altruistic mission. While some may genuinely have the best intentions, many are primarily profit-driven, earning millions by tackling problems that are often inconsequential. Even those with earnest intentions frequently lack the depth of knowledge needed to address the issues they aim to solve. As a result, the solutions they create are often forced to fit problems they don’t fully understand, making it challenging to drive meaningful progress in ways that genuinely benefit society.

Then these tech leaders are elevated to positions of influence and seen as thought leaders, often because they built something that gained market success—not necessarily because it addressed a meaningful issue. I see it much like when celebrities or athletes speak out on issues unrelated to their expertise; the key difference is that tech leaders are often granted the freedom to make impactful decisions because they have the financial backing to support them.

Schools and programs are attempting to address this "founder-first" mentality by including social science requirements in their curricula. However, these courses are often treated as just another box to check, with few students truly engaging with the insights they offer. It’s often only years later—prompted by social pressures or a broader push for well-roundedness—that people start exploring philosophy, art, and literature and realize the importance of truly understanding the people they’re trying to help. While founders are encouraged to "talk to users," it often amounts to little more than gathering another data point rather than developing genuine empathy. This gap in understanding is especially concerning in today’s charged political climate, where the importance of bridging divides has never been more urgent.

I feel it's fair to say this because I've worked at these companies myself, often told to follow the money without truly engaging with those on the ground who are working to solve these issues. Even when experts are brought on as consultants or assigned dedicated roles, if there’s no clear path to profitability, those strategies and solutions are ultimately sidelined or cut altogether.

This is just one of many startup fallacies, echoing the idea of "If you build it, they will come." The belief is that discovering product-market fit follows finding a founder who’s ready to commit for the long haul, willing to dig in and work hard to identify the right problem and solution. But this approach feels strange to me—how can someone be the right person to solve a problem they’ve never experienced or don’t fully understand in the first place?

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At events like today’s Center for an Urban Future’s discussion on Maximizing NYC’s AI Opportunity, panels are often assembled to explore how AI tools can be leveraged in the public sector. The panel I attended featured a distinguished group, including experts from think tanks, funding leaders, and startup CEOs. However, what was notably missing was someone from community organizing or those working directly on the ground—individuals who use AI in their everyday efforts to solve real-world problems for people.

One key area of discussion centered on how AI, much like the early days of the Internet, is currently an emerging industry that will eventually become ubiquitous, integrated across various sectors as a tool for innovation. There was also widespread recognition of the potential for AI to render some jobs obsolete, but the solutions offered for reskilling workers were vague. The focus was largely on teaching people how to use AI or pushing them into low-wage tasks like tagging AI training data, similar to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, as a form of side income—without clear pathways to more sustainable future careers.

Another issue heavily discussed by startup and fund leaders, was the quality and formatting of data. I saw the problem stemming from leaders on both sides struggling with communication: first, by not clearly specifying the format the data should take, and more importantly, by failing to request the right data altogether. At the same time, most agencies responsible for ensuring the upkeep of data do not prioritize this work, nor do they see the immediate value of doing the work.

However, the biggest takeaway I had from the discussion was by Maria Gotsch, the CEO for Partnership Fund for NYC, who talked about why tech so often builds something without thinking of the consequences or working with the right people to make solve an actual problem.

For me, a prime example of this is the push for driverless cars. Proponents highlight numerous potential benefits, such as improved efficiency, safer driving, reduced traffic, lower costs, and increased accessibility. But do these advancements address the deeper issue—namely, why cars are harmful to society as a whole?

The core problem isn’t just how we drive; it’s car dependency itself. The ubiquity of cars creates a host of issues that impact our cities, our health, and the environment. For most people, car ownership and relying on cars for daily transportation shouldn’t be the norm. Our cities have been designed around cars, demanding extensive infrastructure like roads, highways, and parking lots. This layout consumes enormous amounts of space, fuels urban sprawl, and drives up costs for local economies.

Urban sprawl leads to more than financial strain. It requires vast amounts of raw materials like plastic, rubber, and metals for car production, as well as energy resources to power vehicles and maintain roadways. The spread-out nature of sprawl also results in high levels of emissions from heavy traffic, which contribute to respiratory health issues, a sedentary lifestyle, and noise pollution that disrupts mental health and local ecosystems.

Furthermore, this car-centric design leaves many neighborhoods as “transportation deserts,” with limited or no public transit options, which in turn increases social isolation and restricts mobility, especially for those who cannot drive or afford a vehicle. Urban sprawl forces people to spend more time in traffic when there are more efficient, sustainable ways to move people—like public transit.

The real answer isn’t simply making cars driverless. People can still have access to cars when needed through rentals or ride-sharing services, but private car ownership shouldn’t be the default. Until we rethink our dependency on cars, even autonomous vehicles can’t solve the fundamental issues tied to car-centric lifestyles.

This can be seen across the board with other “supposed” urban solutions like food delivery apps, e-scooters, online education, social media, and so much more.

Innovation from the private sector is essential, as governments will never be able to move as quickly. However, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that the private sector alone has all the right answers for solving societal problems. Government, community leaders, and researchers bring valuable insights into the everyday challenges people face. The leaders best suited to guide solutions are those with the deepest understanding of the field. This intersection of expertise and perspectives should be a priority when shaping the future, as these leaders not only understand the problems but also have the relationships and trust needed to address them effectively.

Winston Fisher, Partner at Fisher Brothers and CEO of AREA15, began the panel discussion by saying, "The future is here already," referencing a ride in a driverless car. But we must pause and ask ourselves— is this the future we truly want, or simply the one we think we should have?

New York City is in the midst of a housing crisis.

Housing costs are consuming an ever-larger portion of household budgets, with over half of the city’s households are rent-burdened. Median rent has outpaced median income over the past two decades. Vacancy rates have plummeted to an all-time low of 1.4%, leaving fewer apartments available for rent than ever before.

While rents briefly dropped during the early stages of the pandemic, they quickly rebounded, leaving many New Yorkers questioning if they would be able to afford to continue living in their communities.

New Yorkers from all walks of life face limited housing options. The young struggle to afford their first homes or pay rent. Seniors and older adults cannot downsize their large houses. Families are constrained by housing choices. These pressures exacerbate and reinforce inequality across income and racial lines. Employers also find it increasingly difficult to attract talent to a city without adequate affordable housing, stifling economic growth and productivity.

Outdated zoning regulations, lengthy development timelines, and inflated construction costs compound the problem. There is little debate that NYC needs to build more affordable housing, and quickly.

Here are three key approaches to achieve this goal:

1. Streamline the development process

2. Remove exclusionary zoning and encourage inclusionary zoning

3. Eliminate parking mandates

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Policy Option #1: Streamline the development process

The development process in NYC is bogged down by antiquated barriers that inflate costs and delay timelines. These barriers ultimately result in higher rents, fewer affordable units, and lost job opportunities.

The key governmental processes that cause delays include:

• City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR): Required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act, CEQR evaluates the environmental impact of any development of discretionary action, including those that need city funding, require permits or approval of a city agency, or those directly carried out by a city agency. This process adds over an estimated $4 billion annually to construction costs, with traffic studies alone taking six months to a year.

• Land Use Approvals (e.g. ULURP): The Uniform Land Use Review (ULURP) is a lengthy process mandated by the City Charter, often taking up to at least 205 days to complete. Initially created to democratize the development process from bureaucrats like Robert Moses, it’s now estimated that this process can cause significant delays. For example, a delay of three months of a 100-unit project can add an additional $1.4 million in costs.

• Department of Buildings’ Permitting Process: Leadership changes, communication issues, and a lack of a centralized approval tracking system further delays construction.

All three are important to protect the environment, require public participation, and ensure public safety; yet, they have all become unnecessarily complex, costly, and time consuming. To cut the red tape and remove administrative burdens, the NYC government must make critical decisions and technological advances to speed up the process.

Mayor Eric Adams’ “Get Stuff Built” roadmap outlines over 100 initiatives to address these issues. Here are a few proposed solutions:

• CEQR: Exempt small housing developments (up to 200 units) and updated the outdated analysis method to reduce time spent.

• ULURP: Shorten the pre-certification phases and allow for earlier community board reviews to decrease timelines by up to two years.

• Department of Buildings Permitting: Establish a centralized citywide portal to consolidate all permitting processes and improve coordination and ownership.

Policy Option #2: Removing exclusionary zoning

Exclusionary zoning restricts housing types in certain neighborhoods, often to preserve real estate values and exclude lower-income demographics. Low density districts cover 4% of the city’s land, while housing only 28% of the population, producing housing at half the citywide rate.

Opposition is often known as NIMBYism, or Not In My Backyard, and is most vocal within these areas of low-density and high homeownership, such as Staten Island and outer Queens. In 2023, Staten Island built less than 1,200 new housing units, and the outer edges of Queens built only 3,000 housing units.

The key zoning policy changes include:

• Single-family zoning: Prohibits multi-family housing in many areas. Allowing for duplexes or triplexes on single-family lots could add an additional 419,000 homes.

• Minimum lot sizes: Restricting housing size limits the opportunities for smaller, more affordable units in spaces previously deemed to be too small, as well as opening units to be built near transit hubs and town centers. Houston’s reduction in minimum lot sizes added 39,000 townhouses in 13 years.

• Accessory dwelling units (ADUs): Often banned and restricted, ADUs can be added to existing single-family homes, hidden as apartments above garages or as small backyard units. When California mandated ADUs, Los Angeles County added 26,000 new homes in just three years.

• Transit Oriented Development (TOD): Surprisingly controversial, TOD is focused on building homes near transit to help people move around the city easier. The challenge is often tied with zoning regulation, limiting the types of houses that can be built near transit.

• Office-to-apartment conversions: With the gradual shift to work from home, many office buildings remain vacant as landlords and businesses continue to maintain these spaces for potential office buildings. Incentivizes or punishments should be enacted to convert these buildings to homes.

The biggest fear NIMBYs bring up about these policies is the physical change they will see in their neighborhood. But by definition, these three changes bring minimal aesthetic change in the local environment.

Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposal to build 800,000 new homes and Mayor Adams’ “City of Yes” initiative focused on these proposed solutions:

• Single-family zoning: Allow for multi-family housing in low-density areas to build denser housing units together.

• Minimum lot sizes: Reduce the minimum required lot size to take advantage of previously prohibited available space.

• ADUs: Legalize and incentivize ADUs to encourage homeowners and developers to make use of underutilized private space.

• TODs: Activate underutilized lots near rail transit (0.5 mile away) and overbuild on top of upzoned low rise buildings like single story retail and grocery stores.

• Office-to-apartment conversions: Renovate existing office infrastructure for studio and 1-bedroom apartments, while also increasing common space in parts of the office building that can opened back up to the public.

Yet, both projects faced push back against these very policies by NIMBY groups in low-density districts. Overcoming opposition requires clear communication about the minimal physical impact and the significant housing gains these policies provide.

Policy Option #3: Eliminate parking mandates

Parking mandates, established in 1961, require developers to provide off-street parking for new housing units, consuming valuable space and inflating costs. In space-constrained NYC, these mandates hinder efficient land use.

Today, NYC is home to an estimated 5.4 million parking spaces, with 33% of this built for private and residential off-street parking. This totals to around 286 million square feet and an estimated $89 billion in development costs. Parking rules are also often complex, requiring developers to navigate an unnecessarily convoluted patchwork of regulations.

The proposed solution is simple – eliminate parking mandates.

This policy is straightforward to implement and yields immediate, visible benefits. It reduces costs, creates space for housing, and sets the stage for broader reforms like streamlining processes and removing exclusionary zoning.

Parking mandates block the construction of an estimated 30,000 units across NYC, making it easier to construct ADUs, TODs, and the other missing middle housing. It reduces the complexity in zoning codes and increases the speed in which housing can be built.

Numerous studies show that parking mandates are unnecessary, as market forces naturally adjust supply. Eliminating these mandates will free up space for additional housing and reduce development costs, making it a high-impact, low-resistance policy change.

Future residents will thus be able to pay decreased housing costs, while also receiving other benefits including improved street safety and future transit investment. Cities that have eliminated parking mandates, like San Francisco and London, have found that the market adequately responds to the amount of parking needed.

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How to get started

Successfully implementing any of these policies will require collaboration across multiple stakeholder to ensure a smooth transition and address concerns effectively:

• City Council Members: Sign onto legislative approval and foster local community support.

• Community Boards: Engage residents to address their concerns about parking availability and potential neighborhood impact.

• Urban Planning Experts: Provide data-driven insights on the benefits of removing parking mandates.

• Real Estate Developers: Encourage buy-in by highlighting cost savings and increased housing potential.

• Transportation Authorities: Continue building public transit options in transit deserts to mitigate potential parking demand.

• Advocacy Groups: Mobilize support from organizations championing affordable housing and sustainable urban development.

The primary advocates will be council members and community boards located in high density districts, urban planning experts, real estate developers, transportation authority and other advocacy groups. But the biggest challenge will be NIMBYism council members and community leaders that live in low density districts.

As mentioned above, reduced costs, better space, and foundational support will receive love from all of our advocates. To build a little bit of housing in each neighborhood requires our opposition to agree and visually see the benefit, not just for new housing, but how eliminating parking mandates will also benefit them. We must help them reimagine what this space could be better used for and how their part in helping NYC add more housing benefits everyone, not just new residents.

Addressing NYC’s housing crisis requires bold, coordinated action. Advocates for more affordable housing must continue to push to build more housing, so the city can pave the way for a more affordable and inclusive future.

These three policy agendas are critical to achieving this goal and addressing the NYC housing crisis.

1. Streamline the development process

2. Remove exclusionary zoning and encourage inclusionary zoning

3. Eliminate parking mandates

The city can reduce development costs, maximize land use efficiency, and open the door to build affordable housing. This reform not only aligns with broader city planning goals, but sets a precedent towards equitable housing policies for cities across the globe.

While I’ve been looking into micromobility, I dived down a small rabbit hole about the bike lanes on the three bridges downtown. Hovering as iconic fixtures connecting the boroughs, their biking lanes have come to be important paths I take to get home. So I decided to put together what I learned about its history and how they came to be.

All three of the bridges have been critical in shifting lower Manhattan into a vibrant hub, growing residential and industrial centers on both sides across the river. Created in the late 1800s, early 1900s, the bridges were built with pedestrians, horse-drawn vehicles, and streetcars, before the addition of the subway.⁴ cyclists could originally bike where they could on bridges, when they first opened.

Post WWII, car traffic increases and streetcars are discontinued, increasing more car use. Some pedestrian walkways are kept, such as on Brooklyn Bridge, but Williamsburg and Manhattan had to update and restore accessible walkways over the past decades.⁴

The city, fearing safety concerns with cars, quickly banned biking on the bridge roads, leaving bikers to pedestrian walkways. Yet, campaigns for dedicated bike lanes did not find much success due to the perceived notion that bikes were more for recreational use, rather than as a mode of transportation.⁴

Cars became the dominant mode of transportation, decreasing support for bikes.
Throughout the 1900s, there continued to be a lack of dedicated bike infrastructure on the three bridges as bikers in the city faced major lash back and disgust.⁵
Bikers are also often not one coalition⁶, leading to conflicting ideas and incongruent messages⁷.

Still, bikers kept to the available pedestrian walkways as the main way to cross the between the boroughs. Over time, regulations got added to specify where biking could and could not exist.

• 1900s-1920s: No explicit rules barred cyclists completely, but peak hours and general vehicle flow first promoted automobiles, restricting bikes. Certain lanes were banned and sometimes bikers had to dismount and walk with pedestrians. Sometimes walkways were also closed during busy hours.⁴

• 1930s-50s: NYC Traffic Code established regulations for vehicles, including bikes, requiring them to follow the same rules as motor vehicles. Enforcement often strictly banned bikes during rush hours.⁴

• 1960s: NYC Traffic Regulations were passed to force cyclists to use the pedestrian walkways when crossing bridges across Manhattan.⁴

• 1970s-90s: Organizations like Transportation Alternatives and an increase in riders due to transit strikes, began pushing to add bike lanes, challenging the existing regulations.⁷

Early talks from the community and developers around how to add bike lanes focused on how to integrate biking with walking paths and repurposing car lanes.⁴ Questions revolved around the logistics, space, conservation and finances.

How could the city best connect the bikes to existing paths, and what would the path look like? Was there enough space available on the bridge pathways for bikers to move quickly and safely Could a bike path be created without adding or removing sections of the bridge?¹¹ Where is the funding coming from to create a safe and efficient bike path?

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Over the past 30 years, the addition of bike lanes finally provided the separation groups have been asking for.

• Williamsburg Bridge

  • No coordinated campaigns are seemingly made to call for a bike lane before the late 1980s⁸, where efforts with Bike NY and Five Boro Bike Tour led to garnered interest⁷.

  • Originally replacing a walking path in 1992¹ as part of the bridge renovation project, the north side bike lane was reopened in 2002¹² after reports of lead.¹³

• Manhattan Bridge

  • Bikers were forced to walk their bikes, with groups like Kings Wheelers Cycling Club in 1940⁴ proposing to Robert Moses pay for a dedicated bike lane, but to no avail.

  • Bikes shared the pedestrian path in 2001, after being closed for 20 years², before receiving a dedicated lane in 2004 on the east side of the river, away from walkers.

• Brooklyn Bridge

  • Coney Island Cycle Path proponents in the early 1900s⁴, or transit strikes in the 1980s, campaigned officials for a path, but was unsuccessful in swaying anyone.⁹

  • Pedestrians and bikes fought for space up until 2021³, when the city refurbished a car lane with a bike lane, moving bikers back to the lower level of the promenade.¹⁴

Much of the public reception was positive, with ridership across the bridges continues to prove the effectiveness of adding the bike lane. As of 2022, Brooklyn had 4000 riders a day¹, Manhattan with 6000 riders a day², and Williamsburg: 7000 riders a day³.

Separation of riders from pedestrians has also led to a general positive sentiment¹⁶, as bikers do not have to fight for space. “I didn’t have to scream at anyone in the way today” said a cyclist riding on the new Brooklyn Bridge bike lane¹⁵ Another cyclist riding across the Williamsburg Bridge said, “It’s a pleasure ... The best part is going across and seeing all the cars backed up.”¹⁷

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t feedback on how to make the bike lanes better. These issues are focused on:

1. Narrow steep paths, with tight corridors next to bikers coming in the opposite direction separated only by lines of paint, often with concrete barriers, left-behind construction materials, chained fences obstructing paths.¹⁸

2. Signs and markings on the bridges are also inconsistent, leading to confusing decisions on where to enter the bridge. .¹⁹Lack of lighting is also a concern at night. ²⁰

3. Electric and motorized vehicle speeds on the bridges remain incredible dangerous, given the lack of space. ²¹

4. Inconsistent connections with the existing bike lanes still remain, leading to congestion and bottlenecks at the ends of the bridges. ²²

I personally hold all of these gripes as well, having biked over all of these bridges before myself. I’m especially annoyed with the narrow space and sharing spots of the bike lane with pedestrians on the Williamsburg bridge.

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Fixing the issues and problems with the existing bike lanes will take time and continued advocacy, as DOT and the Mayor slowly make changes. ²³

Debate around mopeds driving continue to be a major concern, exacerbated by the limited space on bridges²⁴, leading to questions around police enforcement. Transportation Alternatives continue to push for improvements across the board for bridges, including the #Bridges4People²⁵ campaign that advocates for bigger spaces. Developers are also challenging architects and innovators to reimagine what the space could look like through proposal contests²⁶.

Steps are moving in the correct direction, albeit incredibly slowly.

To dive deeper or read more, feel free to check out my resource page. You can also view a version of this in a presentation.

Also a fun little article to read about trying to take photos of the Williamsburg bridge is here in Streetsblog.

So in droves, people push out to the concrete streets, taking to the blocks with lawn chairs and inflatable pools, decking out the road with folding tables to chit chat, play cards, and eat. Stages are set up for people to play live music, with sounds of children playing and meat sizzling on grills in the background. Dancing, skateboarding, laughter; everyone transforming a space meant for cars to be for people instead.

Community gatherings out on the streets started rapidly growing in popularity across cities around the U.S. in the 20th century, from NYC to Los Angeles, Detroit to Atlanta, with roots going all the way back to the 1860s. Before long, chatting on stoops with your neighbors matured into a full on block party: a space to bring people together, sometimes for a celebration or a cause, but most often to hangout and have some fun.

You can often find people of all ages and of all cultures at block parties across the city. People celebrate their birthdays, a marriage, a graduation, a new job — anything to make an occasion out of. During times that can be quite divisive, groups made sure that was different out on the street.

How did the block party get started?

Block parties started off as a place for communities to take advantage of the place they lived, as a space of possibility and free expression. Most attribute the modern block parties in NYC from the communities in the East Side, celebrating neighborhood soldiers coming back from World War I.

According to Fath Ruffins from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, a renaissance of Black working class culture also sparked these social outdoor events, due to the Great Migration with Black folks escaping racial violence from the Jim Crow south.

“This is the era in which jazz is becoming a national and international music. This is the era in which a lot of Black firsts are being made, new Black newspapers are being established…In urban areas, particularly where Black people could control, or could dominate segments…you begin to have rent parties and block parties, because you have to have some density in the block to have a block party.” — Fath Ruffins

Other times parties were hosted by the local church to give sermons and raise funds for community initiatives. Other groups transformed gangs into community organizations to speak out politically, redirecting frustrations into creating music at their Friday block parties. Sometimes health clinics and local nonprofits set up tables for specific initiatives. But all do it in an effort to serve and support the neighborhood.

Much of the roots of this spontaneous outdoor conservatory also gave rise to hip hop and rap, allowing for rookie artists to practice their skills and bring people together, with systems pumping out soul, funk, disco, etc. Many attribute the hip hop’s tie with the block party starting because of Cindy Campbell and DJ Kool Herc in the 1970s, who threw a party to raise clothes for children in the upcoming school year. It quickly began to migrate out of NYC to other majorly Black cities like Baltimore, Atlanta, D.C. and Detroit.

Cheryl Keyes, the African American studies department chair at UCLA and author of the first history of rap, says that DJs would set up their systems, plugging turntables into streetlights, and learn how to work the crowd, a group different than in the club. Before it became more widely available to record tracks, street parties were the place to go to hear live musical performances, where an MC would spit freestyle rhymes.

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What are block parties like today?

As they began to grow, block parties became less and less informal, with many districts and municipalities requiring a city permit with the Street Activity Permits Office. NYC started collecting records of block parties in 1999, with a majority of them counted in Brooklyn.

But in the last 10 years, the number of permits has dwindled, which could be because more people are having block parties without permission from the city or because less blocks are throwing them.

The NY Times put out a piece a few years back talking about the change in block parties as new faces move in every year. Yet they are still optimistic about block parties as a place for New Yorkers to meet each other out from their towering apartments, even having survived through the pandemic.

Miles Lewis with MIC put out an article talking about his experience with block parties, talking with DJs like DJ Brian Henry to understand what makes it so appealing. “So often, in nightlife scenes, it’s all about the cool factor. But the cool factor takes away the fun.” He finds that DJing out on the block bring back what made him fall in love with his work in the first place.

A quick search on Youtube or Tiktok shows that block parties are still being thrown every week, with many passed around by word of mouth meant for neighbors and friends.

But block parties are a unique event meant specifically for people in their neighborhoods, and not just for tourists to meander on through. They are great examples of the growing movement to reclaim the roads back for the the people that live there, as mixed public common spaces that can be used for a variety of activities and not just as the exclusive domain of cars. They support local businesses and create chances for neighbors to connect in a safe space right where they spend their day to day lives, breaking down walls and barriers that can come about in our anti-social online lives.

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Of course, a block party is only one version of a whole line of social outings. There are lots of social gatherings out on the public street including street fairs, night markets, cultural festivals, parades: all have the makeup of what constitutes a great block party, where streets are blocked off for people to have a good time. And there’s definitively no shortage of them.

Update as of Sept 16th.

Over this past weekend, I had the chance to participate in my own Block Party around the corner, which was great fun to meet with neighbors and have friends over. The sun was out, the fire hydrant let go, and the bouncy house inflated. Lots of kids ran around the block as lawn chairs got set up next to stoops for adults to chit chat.

I brought out a set of glasses and a bottle of wine, and read for a bit, with my girlfriend chilling in the seat next to me.

So if you’re in NYC and you’d like to create your summertime street celebration, here’s a guide to help you get started for your street.

Earlier this past winter, while trying to find a spot to meet up with friends to go on a run along the Two Bridges, we unexpectedly discovered a public space in the financial district — 60 Wall Street. With its large open floor plan, various chairs and tables, and direct connection to the subway, the indoor plaza looked like a perfect spot as a great free starting point to stretch and keep warm, before heading out for our run in the cold windy evening.

We kept coming back to meet here for the rest of the winter, each time with different parts of the space gradually getting closed off, boarded up with signs stating that there were plans for new renovations.

It was only later that I learned what 60 Wall Street is and how many places like 60 Wall Street exist across New York City.

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Finding POPS Around the City

A space like 60 Wall Street is what’s known as a privately owned public space, or POPS.

Like traditional public spaces, these places are dedicated for public use and enjoyment, often with spots to sit and relax, decorated with plants and open areas. Most often, they can look like public plazas or cafe-areas in parks. When done well, these POPS can provide the same value as typical public spaces, fostering strong social interaction places for community and culture building, promoting better overall health, and creating a sense of place.

What’s different is who maintains the spaces, which as the name suggests, are private property owners. They create the POPS in exchange for additional floor area or special waivers for buildings they are developing, with the additional “floor area ratio” (FAR) allowing for more stories or larger floor plates that would otherwise be unpermitted through existing zoning laws.

Based on the POPS NYC Open Database, over 390 buildings have created over 600 POPS since 1961, most often located in Manhattan’s midtown and downtown districts as they are closer to developer commercial buildings. There’s a variety of different POPS, with the most popular being plazas and arcades.

The spaces range dramatically in size, with the biggest POPS being a mix of two plazas totaling at 6,218,764 square feet at 2 Pennsylvania Plaza, containing office buildings and Madison Square Garden. The smallest POPS that’s an actual space is an arcade at 510 square feet at 489 Fifth Avenue, with many sidewalk and corridor spaces technically being smaller.

Other cities followed NYC’s lead, also creating POPS, with over 200 in San Francisco, over 200 in Toronto, over 50 in London, over 40 in Seattle, over 40 in Seoul, and a number in Dublin.

Compared to other comparable public spaces, like parks/playgrounds, plazas, beaches, community gardens, public housing open space, POPS make up a small portion of the amount of public space that is available for the general public to use. Parks alone make up over 29,000 acres, or over 1 billion square feet (more like 2.6 billion square feet if you sum up the total acreage from open parks data) — POPS make up 10 million square feet.

However, while POPS may only represent a fairly small portion of overall public space, their unique context within the urban landscape requires a closer examination. Because of their strategic location in high-density areas and important value in development right negotiations, POPS warrant careful scrutiny to ensure they actually serve the public good.

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How POPS came to be

The creation of POPS came from the adoption of new zoning resolutions in 1961, when New York City decided to update the initial landmark regulations created in 1916 to include public spaces as a zoning tool.

Coming out of World War II, NYC experienced an explosive amount of economic and population growth, leading to an immediate need to build more housing and commercial buildings.

Many developers felt that the original 1916 ordinances establishing guidelines for “setbacks,” or mandatory distances a building must maintain from streets or other buildings, were too restrictive. At the same time, the general public increased advocacy and demand for better open spaces, as it became more difficult to receive sunlight in denser areas with skyscrapers continuing to be erected taller and taller, and more challenging to find meeting spaces as automobiles became more prevalent, taking up street space.

General modernist architecture and urban planning design philosophy started to shift as well, with active influence from folks like Le Corbusier and the Garden City movement pushing for more mixed-use developments, public plazas and pedestrian-friendly space.

During this time, the city held relatively low taxes to encourage growth, and thus drastically cut public budgets, leading to less financial support for public spaces. And so, with the support of folks like William H., Whyte, an incredibly vocal urbanist and journalist who researched public spaces, the city decided to address a number of these issues by trading one perceived public good (limitations on building height and mass) for another (more public spaces).

Codified in New York City’s 1961 Zoning Resolution, developers were able to add additional floors, increase floor space, or receive special waivers to their projects if they also built and maintained accessible public spaces, specifically plazas or arcades known as atria.

However, there were limited dimensional and design requirements, permitting only flagpoles, driveways, and garage entrances. Developers also only had to follow basic compliance with floor area computations with the Department of Buildings (DOB) and did not require the Department of City Planning (DCP) to review the space.

POPS blew up in popularity for developers, as it was fairly low cost, added additional value to a building, and led to additional space for their clients, leading to over XX being built.

This bonus led to new types of spaces to be included as a POPS type, including, but not limited to, elevated sunken plazas, through block arcades, covered pedestrian spaces, and open-air concourses.

Whyte later analyzed these spaces and their effectiveness, discovering that while the built POPS did bring light and air to the public space, the space was not actually usable. He advocated for the design and management improvements that would make them more functional and welcoming to the public, instead of just wide-swept underused expanses of pavement that provided limited value.

This work translated into the “Urban Open Space” amendment in 1975, establishing three types of POPS: open air concourse, sidewalk widening, and urban plaza. Specific amenities were required, including seating, plants, lighting, ADA access and signage. It also ensured that there must be a certification by the DCP chairperson and the DOB chairperson to meet the new design standards.

Yet these design principles were met with a similar problem as they were not detailed enough, nor were they actually enforced and so many of the POPS remained difficult to access or even be understood as a public space. So while there continued to be new types of POPS added, including residential plazas for high-density residential districts, many other POPS categories were limited and restricted.

By 2000, Harvard professor Jerold S. Kayden worked with the DCP and Municipal Art Society (MAS) to publish a new database with detailed information about POPS, serving as a basis to understand where and how these spaces were used. This database is the same database updated and maintained today by New York Open Data, serving as the source for all of the data I am sharing in this report.

This work eventually led to 2007 provisions that overhauled the design regulations once more, leading to better clarification.

The design principles set out in the updated zoning resolution state that the space must be:

• Open and Inviting: The space must be easily understood as open for the public. This can be done with design elements such as signage, trees, and seating.

• Safe, Secure, and Accessible:It must be located at or ADA accessible from the sidewalk, with adequate seating and lighting. It also must have a performance bond posted to ensure proper maintenance.

• Comfortable and Engaging: The space must also have amenities that encourage folks to use the space such as open air cafes or kiosks, with driveways and exhaust vents being prohibited.

At the same time, this update also finally introduced a process to support owners to redesign or modify their existing plaza to ensure that these POPS are up to standard. But it wasn’t until 2017 that penalties and fines were also approved by city council to charge developers for not updating POPS to meet the new standards.

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Public in name only

It’s easy to see how POPS can provide a huge value for developers and the general public if managed properly. But even with all of the regulations and updates, the lack of enforcement and publicity by the City to update these public spaces make it difficult to ascertain if a majority of these POPS are truly providing value as public spaces.

The city comptroller wrote a scathing report back in 2017 about the failure between the DOB and DCP to uphold POPS to the standards set. Inspecting all of the POPS available at the time, they found that over half of the spaces failed to provide the required public amenities for a number of reasons including, but not limited to:

• A lack of signage indicating the space was a POPS.

• Restaurants were using public space for seating.

• Public access through sidewalks or doors were limited or denied.

• The amenities were not functioning or available.

• The amenities simply did not exist.

Many of these cases have also existed for years without direct action from the city, with over 80% having not been inspected in at least 4 years. Even with those that have been inspected, a majority of them had issues and did not receive violations.

Since then, not much progress has been made, with only 53 violations made since 2018, as of May 2024, according to my manual count through the DOB Monthly Enforcement Bulletins. And it’s not clear to me if DCP has made an effort to publicize this issue to folks, as querying through the 311 reports made to DOB for POPS showed 0 results.

At any rate, perusing through Google Street View and walking through various POPS throughout the city displays the failure of POPS to meet the design standards they should be meeting. And the public is all the worse for it.

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Where to go from here

We know that POPS can be important and valuable for improving business districts, especially with the 2022 New New York initiative and the followup report from Chief Public Realm officer Ya-Ting Liu about the Realm of Possibility for the future.

The city is coming up soon on the three-year compliance cycle and need to move forward into taking action on these issues.

But there are still a number of questions that need to be answered.

Is there somewhere I can go to see POPS today?
The city maintains a map of POPS, but there is no active catalog of POPS that are still in violation of the guidelines, similar to the work the city did back in 2000 and 2007. Tracking POPS that have received violations and current updates to its progress remain difficult to follow.

Is the collaboration between the DOB and DCP the best approach for managing POPS?
The lack of communication and insufficient number of folks available to prioritize POPS is evident, and may need to require alternative incentives and solutions to ensure they get support.

Is the city making a worthwhile tradeoff by providing these public spaces to developers in return for higher FAR, or is the public getting the short-end of the stick?
This remains a potential research topic, as there seem to be no clear guidelines around the economic and financial impact of POPS. Debates focused on if the city should continue to allow for POPS to support development, or if it is better for the public to have the city manage and create actual public spaces remain.

Do other cities have this problem? If they do, how do they handle this issue and ensure that POPS design guidelines are enforced?
It’d be interesting to see if there are lessons other cities could teach NYC about successful POPS implementation. The current fines do not appear adequate enough to persuade developers into modernizing the existing POPS. The current fines are a measly $4K for the first offense, $10K for an additional offense, and a penalty of $250 for each month they fail to comply.

What is the role POPS play in preserving neighborhood culture and can they add value to a community the same way public spaces can?

60 Wall Street is a prime example of how a POPS can be important to the community. Built back in 1989 by JP Morgan Chase as a 55-story postmodern skyscraper by Kevin Roche, the indoor atrium was designed as a quiet oasis, surrounded by the chaotic financial district, decorated with a grand, European aesthetic featuring tall columns, marble floors, and potted plants.

Like many POPS in the city, it is open to the public 24/7, which made it a prime location for many to meet, including for protesters during the Occupy Wall Street movement. Deutsche Bank acquired the entire building in 2001, and the responsibility to maintain it, before selling it to Paramount Group in 2007.

As of August 2024, 60 Wall Street has been closed down for renovations, with plans to modernize the design and hopefully bring back more leases to the financial district. There was some immediate public backlash to the space’s distinctive character and historical significance, yet it seems to not have made much of a difference as plans move forward to change the space into a taller atrium with fewer columns, more skylight, and a green wall from floor to ceiling.

The last time I visited, the place definitely showed its age due to both an older design and a lack of maintenance. We’ll have to wait and see if this space can live up to expectations and reestablish itself as a true public space for the community. Yet, it’s hard not to remain skeptical with the lack of robust enforcement and history of neglect, which may lead it to follow the same path as many other POPS that feel more like private spaces in public disguise.

The story of 60 Wall Street isn’t just about one space — it’s a reflection of the ongoing struggle to preserve and provide truly accessible public places, while balancing the needs of private developers and the public. Time will tell if POPS can evolve into true public assets, moving past their commercial roots, and foster the sense of belonging and community the city so desperately needs.

Every week, I find myself reaching for Citibike, New York’s docked bike sharing system, to help me run errands or catch my friends for a night out. 30 minute walks from the subway turn into a quick 15 minute bike ride. Everything and anything is right around the corner, with the only limit being how far I’d like to bike. And with e-bikes that job becomes even easier, making the trek across a bridge into other boroughs a breeze, no longer having to wait 15 min to catch the next L train.

As defined by the U.S. Department of Transportation, micromobility refers to “any small, low-speed, human- or electric-powered transportation vehicle”. Micromobility solutions, such as e-scooters, cargo bikes, e-boards, onewheels, and of course, traditional bikes, have rapidly grown in popularity over the past decade or so.

If you’ve visited any major city in the last decade or so, you’ve seen bicycle-sharing systems rolled out, often situated near major train or tram stations, alongside streets and alleyways, following along a bike path of some kind. Looking at NY alone, we see Citibike continue to be used in record-breaking numbers, dispelling concerns that Covid discouraged biking, with tons more folks riding during Summer Streets when streets are open and safer for riders.

This is even more obvious with electric scooters in NYC, where the city saw over 1.4 million rides during a e-scooter pilot launched in the East Bronx since August 2021, with a recent expansion this past June 2024 into East Queens. Is it scootering or scooting? Scooting sounds so much more fun.

In general, people are motivated to use micromobility for a myriad of reasons — shorter travel times, increased flexibility on door-to-door trips, reduced pollution, or even just a more fun way to get around the city. They offer a solution to the “last mile” problem, or the final leg of a journey, which is often a challenge due to the increased urbanization and the inefficiency of resources today to get people and goods to their destination.

Micromobility is a key part of solving that puzzle. These smaller vehicles can navigate the landscape better, saving folks time and improving everyones’ lives from package delivery to getting kids to school. There’s also a tremendous opportunity for micromobility to expand access around the city for more folks, filling in gaps between large public transportation and cars, while also reducing pollution, emissions, noise, and overall traffic violence.

Yet, there are two main barriers that limit micromobility adoption.

1. Safety: Cities need to make safer streets for micromobility riders, making roads safer for everyone through modernized lanes, widening existing spaces, and adding new design safety measures to ensure cars are separated.

2. Accessibility and Affordability: Micromobility vehicles should be easily available for all types of riders, and not be limited based on location and price. Services should expand their stations and zones out to new areas where it is a transit desert, while also reducing costs across the board.

A Safer Experience

What’s consistent across all the research done around micromobility, is that the biggest barrier to adoption is safety. Most people are too scared that they may get into an accident with a car or another rider. Even I worry about my safety every time I get onto the road, keeping my eyes and ears open to the chaotic cacophony congesting the streets. This is even more apparent in the gender gap of Citi-bikers in NYC.

On the flip side, for non-riders, negative perceptions behind micromobility also stem from the potential dangers of crashing into a bike or scooter. I’ve often have to swerve around people and cars on the poorly marked sidewalks and streets, just because I had no dedicated lane for myself or the direction I need to go.

Without a safe dedicated space, people will choose to take safer options to get around. We’ve seen it time and time again in the news, where bikers and scooterists are blamed for crashes, with more than 90% of crashes reported in NYC between 2014-2019 to be on streets without bike lanes.

But where can riders expect to go if there is not place set for them? And even if there are roads for micromobility, if it is not intentionally built with an adequate amount of space or safety, it might as well not exist. As these spaces get built, regulations and rules ensuring that they continue to stay safe are also required.

This situation continues to be dangerous for everyone involved the longer we don’t modernize. Choosing to take micromobility must feel as safe and easy as getting into the car or going onto the subway.

Adding and Expanding Bike Lanes

One of the main ways a city can address this problem is by updating the available streets and roads, whether that be through repurposing certain lanes into bike lanes or expanding the existing lanes today. Separated infrastructure and improved pavement conditions conveys intention and safety from the city, encouraging more folks to ride out on the street.

There have been countless times where I’ve been forced into divots or potholes in the road, gripping my bike so I or my bag in the front basket won’t fall out. The lanes themselves are also not always connected, sometimes jutting into a sidewalk, switching from the left to the right side of the road, or what actually is most often, just disappearing altogether.

This solution goes hand in hand with efforts to expanding sidewalks and adding bus lanes, slowly changing the landscape of streets with redesigns that move it from being car-centric to making it intentionally people-focused.

With different types of micromobility vehicles riding at different speeds and slightly different sizes (cargo bikes especially so), there needs to be an increased size of lanes by at least 25%. When possible, two-way lanes should also be added to help reduce “salmoning”, or riding against traffic. There’s also a compelling argument to make more than one lane so that faster e-vehicles can pass more safely.

What’s absolutely atrocious today is the lack of progress the city has done to increase the number of bike lanes at all in NYC. With a commitment of a total of 250 miles in the five years from 2022 to 2026, the city has established a whopping 68 out of the 250 miles so far, with only 9 out of 50 needed to do in 2024.

For those in other cities, establishing bike lanes is one of the first ways to encourage and provide the option for micromobility around your city. Petitioning city council to establish barriers or at the very least paint a bike lane is a great starting point.

At the same time, connecting the bike lanes in equitable ways similar to cars make it for a seamless experience to get anywhere around the city. Establishing equal access by parks and greenways such as by lifting restrictions on e-micromobility access to wherever traditional bikes to go is critical. No one should have to scramble to figure out how to connect broken bike lane paths. The network of bike lanes should be as complete as a regular car street or pedestrian sidewalk.

Hilly terrain and long distances is actually a major reason why micromobility will continue to drastically help. Most urban and city environments can be traversed with the available micromobility, with electric scooters and e-bikes help challenge the stigma folks have. With proper training, just like driving a car, getting around drastic gains and drops in elevation is just as easy.

Updating Signs and Roads for Micromobility

A common challenge for micromobility users is the lack of visibility they have. Drivers may often not see them or even pedestrians, given the amount of parking or the way a curb is designed.

Most often, the easiest way this can be done is adding paint or bollards. Higher traffic areas should have tougher, more permanent infrastructure, which can repurpose that surrounding area in new ways such as bike parking, public charging stations, plants and benches, outdoor dining, or other neighborhood amenities.

Roads and signs also need to be updated with accurate way-finding and markings so that all users, especially pedestrians, are clear where they are allowed or not. Lighting at night should also be required, so that riders can get around at night and in inclement weather.

In general, weather does play a factor into people’s consideration of micromobility, with slight variations depending on the type of micromobility used. There is limited information at scale around the types of patterns people have on using micromobility in adverse climate as each city is different and has a different average temperature — but in general, people do ride less in worse climates.

In my opinion, the biggest cause for concern is really around the availability of micromobility in the winter. While the heat and rain are not ideal to be riding outside, the biggest problem is snow, which disrupts the riders’ safety out on the road. And yet, I don’t see this as much of a major problem in NYC because the city actually does a good job at ensuring the bike lanes are cleared, just like the car roads. Research shows that if the city is designed for riding in inclement weather, people will ride.

Setting New Safety Standards

It goes without saying that all of this needs to come with strict and enforced safety standards. Battery fires are a valid concern and should be prevented at all costs. But that does not mean we should fear or restrict charging.

Instead, cities should work with the fire department to establish new rules around safe battery storage and charging, working with residential, commercial, and city-owned building owners. To up-cycle old batteries and prevent careless disposal activities, cities should manage a battery buyback program for damaged, non-compliant or uncertified lithium-ion batteries. Creating a trade-in program for exchanges or cash will mitigate fire risk concerns.

Fining vehicles that park in bike lanes should also be a top priority to help create a safe environment. Yet, it isn’t apparent to me that it is actually enforced, and in fact appears to the least enforcement related to traffic problems in the city, with the most common response being that it “does not fall under the Police Department’s jurisdiction” or that they don’t have evidence of a violation, given that it often takes them at least 3.5 hours to respond, especially since many of the local government workers also illegally park here with their parking placards (NYPD is a big contributor to this problem).

Folks have pushed for legislation in NYC that rewards people with cash when they send in photos of cars and trucks that block the roads (similar to an idling bill), but it is incredibly watered down from the original $175 ticket it used to be. The critical changes include removal of the 25 percent award from the $175 ticket, requiring a digital training course that needs to be completed before you can file a report, limited initial expansion, requiring signage that indicates they can be fined, and that the car must be unoccupied. Reading this, it’s hard not to be discouraged that this bill is essentially never going to get used.

With the advent of autonomous cameras set in buses, drivers that park in bus lanes will get fined. Can we get this to expand to drivers in the bike lanes? 🥹

Up in Toronto, we got a traffic police officer who got famous for ticketing cars parked in bike lanes — can we get her here?

Another big concern is the delivery app drivers and how fast they speed through the city. On the one hand, it isn’t entirely their fault as many of these companies promote unsafe working conditions with a fast delivery promise within 15 minutes, directly endangering anyone in the streets as they zigzag driving the wrong way, salmoning back through on sidewalks or roads.

There are clear legislative acts states and cities can do to prevent this type of behavior, but short of getting lawmakers to agree, the quickest path to action is changing the roads, as I’ve described above.

During the rollout of bikes and scooters, it is also necessary to teach people how to safely ride bikes and scooters, especially with the electric ones. There are free adult classes you can learn from taught by folks that do ride in the city. New education campaigns around battery charging and disposal should also be created, with additional materials for homeowners and building managers in multiple languages.

Safe street-use for traffic laws similar to driving a car should be available, especially after new infrastructure is added. Drivers themselves should receive updated education curriculum and be tested on the road to respect and watch out for micromobility users.

An Accessible and Affordable Option

One of the major limitations for micromobility adoption is its high price. Safety for any road user depends on how many other riders there are on in the same type of mode on the street, aka “safety in numbers”. More users bring about more safety and respect for riders.

The two main business model approaches in the space are either:

1. A one-time purchase to own the vehicle, similar to owning a car

2. Renting a docked or dockless vehicle, and returning it to an available zone (i.e. another dock or available space).

The purchase of a micromobility vehicle ranges in price. Generally the non-electric version of the vehicles are cheaper, with traditional road bikes around. E-scooters and e-bikes are more expensive, but often come with rebates to help spur the adoption of said vehicles. Various cities across the country provide subsidies, similar to purchasing an electric car — Portland, Seattle, Boulder, just to name a few.

In NYC, active legislation around a voucher point-of-sale rebate, federal tax credit and even a sales tax exempt can help to reduce the cost, as these costs often hurt the lowest income users the most.

Owning a vehicle does come with its own set of responsibilities, mainly around storing and locking the vehicle in safe locations to and from your destinations, which should be part of the cities responsibility. There need to be safe and secure places for people to lock and park their vehicles. It is useful to think about where people are getting around to identify the right parking spots, as well as invest in charging infrastructure stations and locations.

Renting a vehicle should also be more accessible and affordable.

In NYC, the first obvious example of this is with the Citibike docked infrastructure. They are placed on street parking or on the sidewalk, depending on a number of technical criteria including accessibility, truck loading, utilities, ADA requirements, and a number of other various uses and needs of the streets and sidewalks.

They make an effort to identify a high density of stations (one station every quarter mile), with DOT planners working with Community Boards for local feedback. It also requires partnering with MTA stations, parks, and other local buildings to establish these changes. You can find a list of all these shared micromobility stations across the country here.

Renting a vehicle from the distributed e-scooters or bikes across the city also costs quite a bit. This is often why cities provide discounted services for lower-income folks. At the same time, Citibike itself has something called the Bike Angels program that gamifies the system and ensures that there is a better distribution of bikes spread across the system. This balancing act is often the biggest problem with a shared micromobility service, but it can be abused.

The city should also construct street parking, charging and docking for private e-micromobility as well. Spots near every subway station or bus stops, short-term parking near commercial and dense residential districts should be identified. Overnight parking hangars and more theft-proof storage should also continue to be investigated and an investment in the city.

Electric car charging stations should also come with ways to charge electric micromobility vehicles. Current investment in NYC called “Street Deliveristas Hubs” are called to construct at least one public charging station in every City Council District. I believe prioritizing investment and charging stations for e-micromobility is a faster and more efficient use of the transportation budget.

This work at scale will require a huge amount of collaboration with city-owned buildings, including schools and NYCHA buildings, while also reaching out to residential and commercial buildings to include charging. Refitting existing parking garages or incentivizing ground-floor businesses and restaurants with outdoor dining are two ways to take advantage of the already available space, while not taking over sidewalk and road space. Tax incentives for new or retrofitted buildings can be created to help support those private owners that participate in this program.

Circling back to delivery drivers, an additional fee can also be charged to delivery app companies to operate in NYC, which can then be used to fund the additional changes needed to mark up the street and roads for safer streets, as well as safe battery exchange, charging and disposal. This isn’t entirely unheard of, and is a direct way to support this change as it charges the very users using these streets.

Riding Forward

The most effective and equitable way to beat these risks and challenges is to create a safer space for riders and financial infrastructure that encourages safe ridership. All users need to respect traffic laws, but without the right investment, riders will run amuck illegally and hurt everyone involve.

Other major potential reform projects that could help aid in the ability to provide for more space include curb management and parking reform.

Curb management is focused on identifying and optimizing the available curb space to ensure maximum mobility, safety and access, which is critical to understanding what space is available for micromobility. Yet, the data around how our curbs are used today is still incredibly underdeveloped. NYC alone is only just starting to collect the data for curbs this past year, working with third-parties to have this information.

Parking reform is reevaluating the zoning required for buildings and the necessary space dedicated for cars along side street curbs or in parking garages. Unlocking more space in the streets could provide more lanes that can be actively used by riders, or even adding sidewalk space.

Both of these deserve their own pieces, so I won’t get into the weeds here, and please subscribe if you want to keep up to date for when they drop.

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More data also needs to continue to be collected around where to best improve the streets and curbs. This is an entirely separate topic around how to best target these locations, with the advent of AI and camera identification to track data points), which can be used to inform the city on where certain lanes need more attention due to dangerous quick stops and sharp swerves in the road.

Granular data around the crashes, fatalities and injuries are critical, and getting information from private companies to release this anonymized data is also incredible helpful to target key problem areas. Even picking whether to integrate dockless and docked vehicles can best come from understanding the space itself.

I think there’s also a genuine case to renaming these “bike” lanes to be more inclusive of other micromobility riders. The history of “bikes” go far back, bringing with it a lot of baggage that contemporary folks may react strongly to, seeing these lanes as an addition to the street instead of the core identity for what makes up a street.

There are probably still a lot of unanswered questions you have may have about micromobility, so feel free to drop a comment or ask a question! But one of my first suggestions to get out is to better understand the city yourself to see why it is a valuable form of transportation that we should consider for a safer and more sustainable option.

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Take a bike or scooter around, and ride it around where you need to get to. Take your usual path or road and see what can be improved by micromobility in those last mile steps. In NYC, ride out in Central Park or Prospect Park, or down the West Side Highway. Try the same by crossing one of the bridges, like Brooklyn Bridge, with an e-bike to see how much easier it can be!

While I’ve been looking into mixed-use housing and updates around improving zoning laws, one specific example often came up — Uptown District in San Diego, California.

This neighborhood is often cited as one of the earliest mixed-use approaches in a downtown area since the automobile became the dominant form of transportation back in the 1950s. A future article around mixed-use zoning and single-family homes will come, but I think setting the context with one obvious example can help level-set expectations for why changing zoning is so important.

I’ve personally had the chance to be able to walk through the neighborhood before when I drove to San Diego a few years back on my way to Balboa Park.

Repurposing the space

Before the re-zoning was a discussion in the Uptown area, there were a number of problems that started to arise. The original Uptown community plan was zoned in the 1930s, with multifamily zoning applied to a majority of portions in the community. Lower density zoning and single-family zoning was applied throughout.

Around 40% of these residential units that were still around in the 1980s were built during the 1930s-1940s. Around 36% of these homes were single family homes.

However, around 5% of these homes started to deteriorate, with many more about to deteriorate in the next decade or so. Much of the reason attributed to this deterioration is the location of the neighborhood near the airport. 18% of those deteriorating were multi-family units, and the population tended to be, on average, older with higher income and often fairly white.

“Homeowners had to put 50% down and pay it off in five years.”
- Ricardo Flores (SD LISC Executive Director)

And so, as the community was trying to figure out how to create new housing and bring business to the area, they turned their eyes to a nearby giant parking space that sat alone — a 14-acre lot that Sears abandoned in 1984. The city of San Diego decided to purchased the space for ~$9M in Sept. 1986 to turn this ghostbox, or greyfield, into the new central library. A greyfield is a formerly-viable retail and commercial shopping space that has lacked in reinvestment and been "outclassed" by larger, better-designed, better-anchored shopping sites.

Working quickly, the local citizens instead persuaded the city council to allow for the Uptown Community Planners acquire and develop the site for something else instead.

Coming up with a plan

A series of community workshops were hosted by the Uptown Task Force with other community interest groups like the Hillcrest BA, the University Heights Community Association, and the Sears Site Review Committee. They landed on three main issues:

• Not enough housing types and the loss of neighborhood commercial districts.

• Minimal maintenance of public facilities and encroachment into public spaces.

• Loss of clean, healthy spaces, and community character, history, and culture.

And they turned these problems into 5 main goals:

1. Provide a wide range of housing types for all age, income and social groups.

2. Revitalize neighborhood commercial districts, with a pedestrian-oriented approach that is safe and efficient for people and goods.

3. Establish a fully integrated system for vehicular, transit, bicycle, pedestrian facilities; while also preventing traffic through local surface streets.

4. Create public community and recreational facilities and services, including parks and centers; while also adding urban-oriented plazas, parkways, and streetscapes.

5. Preserve and enhance rich and varied cultural and heritage resources, and retain structures of historical value and character of the neighborhood.

Winning the bid

Working with the Oliver McMillan/Odmark and Thelan development team, the group put forth a plan to hit these goals, while still reflecting the surrounding neighborhood, winning the bid from the city and purchasing the lot for $10.5M.

The winning design came out to be typically “Mediterranean” with lots of elevation change, brightly colored awnings, manicured public spaces, public artwork, landscape parks, smaller blocks. It also connected surrounding neighborhoods with better streets and pedestrian pathways, including bridges and limited surrounding parking to encourage walking.

Surrounding areas also got rezoned, totaling to around 576 net acres complying with the new proposal and objectives, adjusting for mixed-use development instead as they worked to increase density and had new land use boundaries. Minimum required standards for landscaping, floor area ratio, building height limits, yard and setback, etc. were set up to fit the new regulation.

The residential area got 318 new homes, with over 20 units per acre of residential density and 3,000 square ft for community center space. This drastically outpaced the rest of the cities less than 3 units per acre, creating a much more dense neighborhood.

Commercial and retail saw the addition of around 145,000 square ft., with a commitment and interest to support local businesses. The plan continued active efforts with Business Improvement Districts (BIDS) to revitalize the space with ongoing events and public facilities. A six-year program was set up to provide public community engagement, while also rezoning facilities as appropriate.

City-owned parks and open space were also rezoned to the new Open Space Zone requirement, while also changing privately owned open space to better fit the new residential spaces. Throughout the entire area, fire-resistant trees and plants were added to beautify and preserve the space.

Ironically, parking spaces did still get added, matching around 2 per townhouse, 1.7 per apartment and 1 per 270 square feet of commercial floor space. This is slightly less than the rest of the city which hovered around 2.25 spaces per residential unit and 1 per 250 square feet of commercial area. However, what was unique at the time, was that much of this parking space was not just created off streets, but rather built underground.

In addition, a survey was established to identify and maintain historic and significant buildings, so new development would accurately match the cultural aesthetic.

All of this work spurred development and redevelopment in surrounding neighborhoods like Hillcrest and University Heights.

But it hasn’t all been fine and dandy

As time has gone on, some of the work hasn’t gone according to plan.

Other than the main Ralph’s grocery store, the retail, office use and restaurants have not done well. A number of places have tried to support themselves in the space, but quickly go out of business including a coffee shop, local clothing stores, a chicken rotisserie shop, an Italian restaurant, a travel agency, and even a yogurt shop.

"University Avenue [where much of the retail is located] desperately wants to return to more of a pedestrian orientation, but the dynamics there are still mainly auto-driven, and as a result the side streets will feel like a backwater ... The retail component has been the most problematic to pull off ... Success requires a lot of tinkering over a lot of years."
— Peter Katz, author of The New Urbanism:  Toward an Architecture of Community

Personally, I can see why this neighborhood may not continue to be as thriving as many case studies may say the place should be. While the mixed-use zoning regulation helped give the space an opportunity to make changes, the execution of design still left much to be desired.

While walking around the neighborhood, I felt like much of the actual space looked the same. The cohesive design, while may have lent itself to one aesthetic, did not appear to lend itself to a great diverse inviting environment. Nothing really stood out between one building to the next, making it feel like each business was the same. If you’ve ever walked around any suburban plaza in California, I think you’ll especially know what I’m talking about.

There also did not appear to be any community engagement supposedly brought about by the local public facilities. Perhaps I came on the wrong day, but the entire place felt like it was a small local pullout plaza, mainly to find parking or go grocery shopping, rather than as a place to go out and get food with friends and family.

But there is continued hope for the space.

Recently, the Uptown District sold for $81.1M in 2016, exchanging hands after foreclosure from original developers during early 1990s. The increased development in 2016 to the surrounding Hillcrest, Bankers Hill, and Mission Hills area also suggests a reinvestment in the neighborhood. And the 2019 Community Plan appears to address local housing issues by increasing density, building a new streetcar service to downtown, relaxing parking requirements, and allowing for more flexibility with units including ADUSs.

Still, I feel like more needs to be done around the design to better incentivize people to walk around and shop in the community — or perhaps the “Mediterranean” design of the space just isn’t for me.

For more information about the Uptown District, feel free to check out my list of sources. If you’d like to read this in a presentation format, check it out here.

Oh and a small fun fact: The originally planned library on the lot finally opened in downtown in 2016, 30 years after it was originally announced for the Sears lot.

Updated: August 26, 2024 due to congestion pricing stop and related news.

It’s been almost two months since Governor Kathy Hochul indefinitely paused NYC’s congestion pricing plan. Her decision to stop the plan came at a major surprise when she announced it back on June 5, 2024.

This delay is a major setback for everyone living in the city as it drastically stops plans for a $15B annual revenue stream to help improve public transportation, while also stubbornly maintaining the status quo around traffic congestion, noise pollution and vehicle emissions in the city. There was estimated to be around 100,000 fewer vehicles entering the zone every day, relieving crowding in one of the most congested districts in the country.

And while there are some very valid concerns about its implementation, fear about what is expected, and who will be bearing this increase in cost, I’m making the case that Gov. Hochul should implement congestion pricing as meant to.

What is congestion pricing?

In NYC, this congestion pricing plan is different depending on the type of vehicle you are and when you are driving. Peak period rates are from 5am-9pm (weekday) and 9am-9pm (weekends), with all other times being overnight period rates.

What would I be paying?

For the majority of drivers, passenger and commercial (sedan, SUVs, pick-up trucks, and small vans) drivers will pay $15 upon entering Manhattan south of 60th street, dropping to $3.75 during overnight. Motorcycles pay $7.50 during the day and $1.75 at night. This charge would only happen once for drivers entering the zone that day, meaning if you were to exit and return back, you would only be charged for the first time.

Trucks and buses are charged either $24 or $36 during the day ($6 or $9 at night, respectively) depending on their size and function. Certain trucks and buses are exempt. These vehicles must pay each time they enter the zone.

Yellow taxis, green cabs or black car passengers will have to pay $1.25 toll for each trip, whereas Uber, Lyft, and other ride-shares have to pay $2.50.

Any exemptions?

A number of vehicles will be exempt, including emergency vehicles, those carrying people with disabilities, and school buses. Certain specialized government trucks and commuter buses and vans will also be exempt. Low-income drivers will get a 50% discount, and a tax credit for low-income residents who live south of 60th street will also be provided.

Trips alongside the FDR Drive and West Side Highway will not be charged.

What if I paid for entering any of the tunnels?

Upon exiting any of the tunnels and entering the congestion zone will refund money for paying that toll charge including $5 for cars, $2.50 for motorcycles, $12 for small trucks and buses, $20 for large trucks and tour buses. These tunnels include the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, or the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel.

How are we going to enforce congestion pricing?

The MTA installed infrared cameras that tag E-ZPasses and photograph license plates around 110 locations in Manhattan, mostly on existing street poles, walkways or overpasses. The MTA contracted private company TransCore in 2019 to build this infrastructure. They also added readers at select points in FDR and the West Side Highway, recording the times the vehicles pass through and only charging a toll if vehicles stop being detected by toll equipment along the two highways.

A valid concern with photographing license plates are the many cars that find new ways to cover up their plates, which has also recently ticked up in frequency. The NYPD is still working on finding better ways to deal with this issue.

Now that congestion pricing is on pause, there’s also a real concern behind what these cameras may be used for today. The MTA has announced no plans, but it could be used to collect more data on drivers, but also just be additional tools for surveillance, without the benefits of congestion pricing.

Why is congestion pricing a good idea?

Traffic congestion has always been a major problem. Road wear and tear is funded through general and fuel taxes, with tolls supplementing any additional costs to construct, maintain or improve those infrastructure projects.

But as a multitude of major external problems around urban development and climate change continue to rise around traffic congestion, economists like Arthur Pigou and William Vickrey saw taxation as a way to align private costs with more social costs to reduce the negative externalities of road usage — aka, congestion pricing.

This is how I like about why congestion pricing conceptually makes sense:

• Each additional vehicle on the road adds to increased travel time, increased fuel consumption, increased environmental pollution, and increased chance of an accident on the road — external costs that affect everyone, including the driver.

• Road space is limited, especially during peak times. Dynamic pricing during peak time ensures that the road is for those that value it the most and can afford to pay for it through the idea of marginal social cost, essentially correcting a market failure (given road usage today is “free”) as the price reflects the cost of one additional driver using the road during peak times.

• Prices will shift behavioral change with less drivers, mitigating the risks of congestion and thus further reducing the external costs, as drivers consider other travel options, alternative routes or adjust schedules, leading to a safer road and less noise/emission pollution. Goods and services will be delivered faster.

• With additional revenue for improvements, this can be invested into transportation infrastructure that is needed to help the majority of folks in that region, which for most cities is public transit. This incentivizes even more folks to find alternatives to drive, further reducing externality costs with congestion.

By compensating social congestion costs of individual drivers through private congestion pricing, it encourages more efficient road use and reduces congestion for an overall more sustainable and equitable transportation system.

Feel free to read more about Vickrey’s work. Additional things he advocates revolve around parking charges, which itself is a hot button topic that I will write more about in a future piece.

What changed over time?

Many cities began implementing their own versions of congestion pricing to see if they could reduce traffic and found major success, proving the theories proposed by economists around congestion pricing.

Singapore was one of the first major cities to introduce a version of congestion pricing, all the way back in 1975, with real-time data to adjust to traffic flow. Combined with increased parking fees, license plate enforcement, around 20% of congestion decreased and a revenue 9x the cost. They continued with a second phase in 1998 with a more automatic pricing system, increased buses and bus frequency, and new HOV+4 lanes — offsetting the $25M cost with around $150M in net revenue. Traffic was drastically reduced, with increased average speeds for those still driving, in addition to increased ridership and public infrastructure improvements.

London started investigating congestion pricing with feasibility surveys in 1964, before finally introducing a plan in central neighborhoods including the Inner Ring Road in 2003, reducing congestion by 30%, improving travel time reliability, and lowering vehicle emissions. Stockholm initially ran a trial during 2006, before making it permanent as it saw around 30-50% of its overall traffic reduce and overall pollution level dramatically decrease, with a slight 4% increase to public transit usage.

Other cities including Oslo, Milan, Beijing, and Dubai have all introduced or are in the process of introducing a form of congestion pricing that has brought about success at reducing traffic and improving public transportation.

Yet, there is one consistent thread through most of these implementations: negative public opinion before rollout transitions into fairly positive pivot after rollout.

Researchers in Oslo tried to collect information around this, but there are limited studies tracking the behavior folks had before and after congestion pricing was implemented in cities. Factors such as their willingness to pay, whether residents drive a car, their age and educational level, fuel type and geographic area all play into determining whether they are willing to try out congestion pricing.

What is obvious is that targeting groups that are more likely to have negative attitudes towards congestion pricing is critical to ensuring there is increase support. And this can be done by addressing some of the concerns folks may have.

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What are some of its biggest criticisms?

One of the biggest challenges is the mental paradigm shift required to move from assuming that the road is free for drivers to having to pay for this amenity. In fact, most folks at public hearings are pushing back that they don’t believe they should be penalized for being able to afford a car and live in Manhattan.

But it is specifically these types of folks that are most capable of paying the fees if they are committed to driving around the city. Drivers must begin seeing this as part of the investment to owning and operating a car within the area, even if it may be hard to stomach the increased cost.

But don’t a lot of people drive into the city for work? What about middle class or lower-income workers that can’t handle the additional cost?

The Community Service Society of New York (CSS) has consistently debunked this question, using available census data from the 2015-2019 American Community Survey Five-Year.

No more than 4% of all income from outer-borough residents (Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island) will regularly pay a congestion fee, as a majority of residents depend on public transit for work. Only 2% of those in poverty (around 5000 residents) would be charged with congestion pricing, with many of those able to apply for discounts.

Most New Yorkers that have cars in the outer boroughs are well off and should be the ones targeted by congestion pricing. Most low-income essential workers use public transportation to enter the city, with only 3% potentially being charged as part of their daily commute.

This not only indicates the lack of concern for people driving into the city for work, but it also stands that everyone, especially those with lower incomes, benefits from increased revenue to improve public transportation. And those that need to drive will reach their destination faster, increasing speed for goods and services.

I agree that there is a financial challenge for workers that require a car to carry tools, such as construction workers, electricians and other tradespeople. Gig drivers or workers that work at non-typical hours will also need to pay an additional cost.

And it is not always certain where this increase in cost will go. Goods and service drivers most likely pass this additional cost to their clients in the center of the city, making their service more expensive and adjust demand as union groups from across NJ and around NYC have voiced their dissent consistently with multiple lawsuits designed to block the plan, including one by NJ Gov. Phil Murphy.

But reviewing the data from other cities that have implemented congestion pricing, this financial burden doesn’t appear to have as large of an effect on these groups as many argue.

This does not mean that there should not be constant communication with workers. There just currently is not a good way to understand the types of drivers entering the city without seeing the effect after congestion pricing is implemented — adjustments should be made if needed to support different groups if there are drastic unintended effects.

This isn’t the best answer, but considering the number of people we can and will support with all the benefits of congestion pricing, it may be a necessary initial tradeoff.

Has there been enough increased service to support those commuting from outer boroughs instead of driving?

This is one of the other major problems with current plan. Union groups like the Transport Workers Union believe their has not been enough increased bus service before the pricing plan.

The first rollout of the congestion pricing plan is at its most critical as increased bus services and more reliable trains requires a dedicated commitment to improve the transportation conditions of those commuting from further locations.

We must continue to be vigilant to ensure the MTA or the city expands transit for folks that commute into the city. Consistent lessons from other cities is that there must be actionable public transit improvements, additional safety for bikers/commuters, and increased enforcement of parking and traffic to see success.

Won’t we be directing traffic towards other neighborhoods instead then? Will this just be moving congestion towards other parts of NYC, maybe even a few blocks up?

There’s the potential for this to happen, and will require active readjustment and monitoring to see how people respond. Drivers may immediately respond to avoiding fees by driving to nearby streets or neighborhoods that won’t expect this increased amount of traffic. Precautions around traffic calming measures to discourage cut-through traffic like speed bumps, road closures, and community support can help take care of immediate traffic problems.

Outer-borough residents may not see this initial benefit, as this mainly focuses on Manhattan — but people will adjust. Over time, people will normalize to deciding whether they are willing to take more time or money to look for ways around congestion pricing, pay for congestion pricing, or begin taking transit. This is the main purpose of the policy.

Why is congestion pricing one of the biggest ways to help generate revenue for public transit? Why not address other ways to get revenue like reducing fare evasion or receiving more government grants?

The impact of fare evasion and other sources of revenue are significantly smaller at scale compared to congestion pricing.

Fare evasion is estimated to amount to $690M lost, compared to the $15B from congestion pricing. The approach to tackling fare evasion also requires investigation per transit system and location, making it less predictable to solve and maintain. This is not to say that we shouldn’t solve fare evasion, but the MTA is currently already working on addressing this, which in turn also requires more funding that could be benefitted from congestion pricing.

General discussion to direct more government grants toward public transit is difficult to achieve, but will require a major cultural shift. This will take time and will not have as much of an immediate impact in the national dialogue compared to congestion pricing.

Why are we even focusing on congestion pricing over other problems the city is facing around traffic and public transportation?

I agree! There are so many other problems the city is facing around traffic in the streets including bus and bike lanes being blocked by delivery trucks, construction workers, police cars; inefficient street design leading to confusing traffic jams with pedestrians and bikers; and just generally double-parked vehicles in random streets.

If anything, congestion pricing will help to reduce the overall number of cars on the road to allow for more space for those driving and cause less of these things to happen. But yes, these are all problems the city is still trying to address!

How long is it going to take to see any of the benefits from congestion pricing? It’s going to take longer than waiting in traffic.

It will take some time for benefits to be seen directly in public transit. Keep reading for a list of those improvements. But immediate benefits you may see include reduced traffic, reduced noise, and reduced pollution.

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What would the revenue earned by congestion pricing go towards?

The goal of the revenue is to spend around 80% of it on capital improvements to the subway and bus system, with the rest to be spent on the LIRR and Metro-North.

Money generated from the tolls is focused on a few main areas:

• Accessibility additions and replacements in stations with ramps, escalator and elevators that require updates.

• New and more reliable railcars and buses, making them more electric, more reliable and feel more modern with updated passenger information screens and brighter lighting.

• Signal modification to increase service reliability, reduce delays and accurately predict time to arrival for subway cars driving on the tracks.

• General station improvements to improve the overall customer experience and repairing critical infrastructure, with other structural components and upgrades of work equipment.

• General structure infrastructure improvements including power delivery, track upgrades, bridge repairs, and customer communication radio systems.

• Building out the Second Avenue Subway extending the Q up to 106, 116 and 125th street to connect with Metro North and M60 Bus Service to LaGuardia (although personally I can’t wait till they add a subway directly to LGA)

In addition, leading up to the congestion pricing plan, the MTA will work on increasing service on 12 subway lines, rolling out a redesign with the bus network, and making a large service increase with the Long Island Rail Road.

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How long has this plan been discussed in NYC?

Congestion pricing has been talked about for over 50 years already, and this plan would have been the first of its kind in the U.S.

Ever since it was originally floated around by urban planners and economists back in the 1970s-1990s, it has slowly gained traction through the years despite concerns around its impact towards businesses and residents. Mayor Michael Bloomberg back in 2007 announced congestion pricing below 86th street, before it got blocked by the New York State Assembly. Other advocacy groups, city officials, and even previous Gov. Andrew Cuomo tried to revive discussions and implement congestion pricing during the 2010s.

With the continued deterioration of the subway and lack of support to get funding, it became almost critical for a source of revenue to address NYC’s public transit. The rise of ride-sharing contributed to the very real and perceived increase of traffic congestion, leading folks to once again push towards congestion pricing.

Finally in 2019, that the New York State Legislature passed congestion pricing as part of the state budget, due to the hard work of groups like Transportation Alternative, Regional Plan Association, Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Riders Alliance, NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The implementation of cameras, toll gantries, and other environmental assessments was delayed due to COVID-19 and slow federal approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation (with a failure from the Trump Administration to provide guidance for the mandatory environmental review), before finally reaching the appropriate guidance from the Biden Administration. The 16-month review process then pushed the date to June 30th, 2024 before Gov. Hochul stopped it.

The difficulty of getting congestion pricing passed for NYC cannot be understated as it required approval from multiple different municipalities at multiple different levels. Compared to cities like London, this decision had to go through the city’s DOT, the state-run MTA, New Jersey’s PATH and NJ Transit, and Amtrak.

What’s happening now?

That’s the big question isn’t it?

Gov. Hochul halted rolling out congestion pricing because of proposed economic/equity concerns, general political pressure, and potential public backlash. She said it was too risky for the economy, with cited conversations that $15 is too high. But hope I’ve proven above that there is a strong case to try out congestion pricing.

We’re still waiting to see what Gov. Hochul is going to do to make this up. If anything, most people believe this move is going to backfire for her. Lawsuits are now being rolled out to contest her halt combatting her ability to stop this type of rollout and her oversight on the project.

I’ll follow up this piece with what can potentially be done to get this over the line.

Even after all this, I’m still not convinced.

While I’d like to say that may just be somewhere we agree to disagree, I will keep trying to work at convincing folks like you that change must happen to traffic. This is not the city I believe most of us want to live in and it can be better. It’s hard to conceptualize this change.

It may just take going to a place that has congestion pricing to change your mind.

Starting this fall, I will begin my journey as an urban planner. And while I’ve tried many times over the past three years to start writing something up again, I figured this newsletter is a little more concrete than fictional pieces with no clear end in sight. And what I know I’m good at is investigating different spaces and problems, providing context, and giving a strong opinion about it.

So this writing blog will be a place for you to join me in learning more about the spaces in our neighborhood and how they came to be — whether it be a generic reason for why the library exists or the creation of a local pedestrian bridge, all of these places make up the neighborhood you live in.

Subscribe if you want to join me in the journey for those spaces in our neighborhood.