1.201 Introduction to Transportation Systems Final Exam Dec 20, 2006 • This exam is graded out of 100 points, and is worth 30% of the final grade • There are 4 questions worth 25 points each • Each question should take approximately 45 minutes • If you are stuck, please move ahead, and make sure that you get to every question • Open book and open notes • Computers are not allowed • Best of luck!Question 1 (25 points) composed of equally-weighed 1A and 1B 1A - Congestion Pricing in New York City (12.5 points) Consider this recent article from the New York Times of November 24th, 2006 (edited by 1.201 teaching staff) headlined “Bigger Push for Charging Drivers Who Use the Busiest Streets.” This article described the use of congestion pricing, charging drivers for driving into parts of Manhattan as a way of reducing traffic congestion. And then answer the following questions: 1. Identify three of the 30 key points you think are most important for this situation and justify your choices in a few sentences. (2.5) 2. List five groups of stakeholders and participants relating to this complex transportation situation and discuss their view—in a sentence or two-- of the congestion pricing plan advanced in this article. (3.0) 3. You are an aide to New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. He has asked you to write a memo (one page in the blue book) suggesting a plan for how New York City might spend the monies collected through congestion charging in a way that makes transportation sense as well as political sense. Please write such a memo. (7.0) ______________________________________________________________________ Abstracted from “Bigger Push for Charging Drivers Who Use the Busiest Streets,” The New York Times, November 24, 2006. by William Neuman Congestion pricing, the idea of charging drivers for bringing vehicles into the busiest parts of Manhattan, has become a key strategy for transportation advocates and urban planners in New York. A diverse array of civic and community groups – including such unlikely allies as conservative scholars and take-back-the-streets cycling advocates – are cautiously moving to raise the subject of congestion pricing in the hope of overcoming the resistance of New Yorkers and their political leaders. They are also hoping to influence a long-term strategic plan the city is preparing, which they expect will address traffic congestion. “There are a number of groups, who come at this from very different perspectives, who don’t generally agree on a lot, who want to see this happen,” said Jeremy Soffin, vice president for public affairs of the Regional Plan Association, which studies transportation and development issues. “There’s been a concerted effort to work together.”Now, an influential business group called the “Partnership for New York” expects to release a revamped study in early December that will analyze the cost of clogged streets, estimated at $12 billion to $15 billion a year. A related study done with Environmental Defense, a national environmental group, will look at the environmental costs of excess traffic and at the potential for congestion pricing to reduce traffic and thereby cut air pollution and, as a result, illnesses like asthma. Ms. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York, plans to discuss the economic study at a forum on Dec. 7 sponsored by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research organization that is set to release a report of its own “on the feasibility of road pricing in New York.” The report is to include the results of focus groups meant to gauge the attitudes of New Yorkers toward such a program. Some grass-roots groups have already begun to take up the issue. On Nov. 14, about 50 people from a coalition of 125 civic and community groups gathered on the steps of City Hall to ask that New York Mayor Bloomberg consider a series of measures to reduce traffic. The coalition is led by Transportation Alternatives, an organization that promotes mass transit and works to make streets more welcoming to pedestrians and cyclists. It includes neighborhood groups like Sustainable South Bronx and biking advocates like the FreeWheels Bicycle Defense Fund. The coalition wants more speed bumps on neighborhood streets and a crackdown on illegal parking, but it also asks that the city study congestion pricing. ''Among all the measures we're discussing, it has the most potential for reducing traffic,'' said Paul Steely White, the director of Transportation Alternatives. He acknowledged that it would be a big change for drivers to pay to use streets that they are accustomed to using free and that there was a lot of political ground to cover first. Mr. White said any congestion pricing program would have to be combined with -- or preferably preceded by -- other measures like improving bus service and smoothing traffic flow. His group has asked the city to move beyond what has already been done to reduce the number of parking permits given to city employees, who drive to work in large numbers. Transportation Alternatives would also like to see more Midtown parking spaces converted to loading zones so that streets are not clogged with double-parked trucks unloading goods. Advocates of congestion pricing are reluctant to make specific proposals on how it could be carried out in New York, but they often point to London as an example of a successful program.Championed by an activist mayor, London's program began in early 2003 and has significantly reduced traffic and sped up bus lines. London drivers must pay as much as $19 a day to enter the road pricing zone in the city center. They can pay in a variety of ways, including online, by phone, by mail or at designated shops or gas stations. Cameras around the congestion zone read vehicle license plates and feed the numbers to a computer that checks to see who paid their fees. Those who have not paid can be fined. One of the most outspoken opponents of congestion pricing in New York has been David I. Weprin, a City Council member who represents some neighborhoods in eastern Queens that are far from subway lines and where residents with jobs in Manhattan are more likely to drive to work. He said congestion pricing amounted to an unfair tax on residents in those areas, many of whom can ill afford it. ''The potential for causing hardship to people who rely on their cars in boroughs other than Manhattan is too