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Executive Summary

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Formed in 2010 in response to the growing crisis facing the City’s transportation system — inadequate service, escalating fares and tolls, and a dwindling funding base — Move NY is a growing and diverse coalition of stakeholders representing regional business associations, trade unions, clergy, civic leaders, transportation and environmental advocates, and goodgovernance organizations. Move NY’s mission is to build support for a master transportation plan — developed by traffic guru “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz and the Move NY team — for the New York metropolitan region. As now envisioned, the Move NY Fair Plan will generate the revenues needed to make major investments in maintaining and modernizing our mass transit system and road network, bring toll equity to the region’s commuters and businesses, and reduce the grinding traffic jams that plague the metro region, its people, and the economy that sustains us.


A Transportation System in Crisis

Underfunded Transportation Infrastructure Chronically underfunded by the State and Federal governments, the MTA has been forced for decades to incur more and more debt to fund its operations and capital budgets. Drivers and transit riders have had to shoulder an increasing share of the burden of paying off and servicing that debt.
• Tolls and fares have risen four times in the last six years. • Tolls and fares will rise again in March 2015.
• Just 27% of NYCDOT’s 2013 $69 billion annual budget came from state and federal grants. • Just 14.9% of NYSDOT’s funding comes from the federal government.

Chronic, Economy-Sapping Gridlock
Gridlock threatens the health, safety, and sanity of pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike. It pollutes our air, elevates asthma rates, increases auto-related injuries and deaths, and makes our communities noisier.
• Traffic congestion costs our economy roughly $16 billion annually, which in turn saps job creation.
• Higher incidents of pedestrian and cyclist injuries and fatalities occur in the heavily congested communities near free East River bridges.
• Traffic congestion is particularly crippling to businesses that depend on making multiple delivery and service calls each day.

An Unfair, Regressive Tolling System
Drivers pay heavily to travel across less-congested bridges in the outer parts of the City, where transit options are minimal — essentially subsidizing free crossings into Manhattan’s Central Business District (CBD), where transit options are plentiful and gridlock is worst.
• Verrazano, Throgs Neck, Whitestone, and RFK bridge tolls are $8.00 cash/$5.54 E-ZPass one-way (March 2015).
• Henry Hudson bridge is $5.50 cash/$2.54 E-ZPass; Rockaway bridges are $4.00 cash/$2.08 E-ZPass (March 2015).
• More than a million car and truck trips in either direction cross each day for free over the four East River bridges and across 60th Street, a phenomenon known as “Bridge Shopping.”


How the Move NY Fair Plan Works

The Move NY Fair Plan proposes to set tolls according to a logical formula: higher tolls where transit options are most available and lower tolls where transit is either not available or a less viable option. This rationalization of tolls results in pricing all vehicle trips entering or exiting Manhattan south of 60th Street but lowers the price of most crossings with non-CBD origins or destinations.
• The new tolls on the four East River Bridges and the 60th Street cordon will be collected electronically, “at speed” with E-ZPass.
• Vehicles without E-ZPass will be billed via optical license-plate cameras and/or cell phone apps.
• No tolls will be imposed on the Harlem River bridges.
• Ratios between CBD tolls and other MTA bridges discounted under the Move NY Fair Plan will remain constant.


The Benefits

The Move NY Fair Plan will raise $1.5 billion in net revenue annually, even after covering the costs of lost toll revenues on existing tolled crossings and installing and administering the new tolling system. A quarter of these funds will be used to improve our roads and bridges with the remaining three-quarters dedicated to transit. There will be far-reaching benefits to drivers, riders, cyclists, and pedestrians alike, as well as to the region and economy as a whole.

Improved Travel
With fewer vehicle trips into the CBD, increased investment into transit alternatives, and the elimination of bridge shopping, the Move NY Fair Plan will increase mobility for users of every mode of transportation.
• 15-20% improvement in travel speeds south of 60th Street.
• 6% improvement in travel speeds on approaches to the CBD.
• 75 million hours per year saved in subway trips due to 21st century modernization of our of public transit system.
• 4-5% increase in taxi usage, and more fares per cabbie shift.
• 110,000 net additional trips to the CBD per day, but 100,000 fewer auto entries.

Boosting the Economy & Creating Jobs
Beyond the value of saving New Yorkers time, the Move NY Fair Plan will substantially benefit the regional economy:
• 30,000+ new, annually recurring jobs;
• $2.8 billion in additional annual economic output; and
• $168 million in additional annual sales and income tax
revenue.

Filling Transit Gaps
The Move NY Fair Plan will make our transit and transportation system more accessible and more affordable for all New Yorkers, no matter if one is a city dweller or a suburbanite, by:
• Restoring more bus service that was cut in 2010;
• Adding Express Bus routes and increasing Express
Bus service;
• Extending City Ticket to seven days per week on Metro
North and LIRR and reducing fares to $6 peak/$4 off-peak
and Express Buses to $5;
• Expediting deployment of new Select Bus Service/Bus
Rapid Transit in all five boroughs;
• Subsidizing expansion of county bus systems in Nassau,
Suffolk, Westchester, and Rockland Counties;
• Investing in transit-oriented development and increasing
parking capacity at Metro North and LIRR stations; and
• Expanding ferry service.

Modernizing Our Transit System
The Move NY Fair Plan will make it easier, faster, more reliable, and more comfortable to get around the city on our subway system by enabling the MTA to accelerate making investments that will greatly improve the straphanger experience systemwide:
• Communications-based Train Control (CBTC) — which
means more frequent and less crowded subways;
• Contact-less payment system;
• Increased rate of station rehabilitations;
• Increased handicap accessibility; and
• Countdown clocks deployed system-wide.