And Did We Mention How Much Money We’d Raise?

Just in case the primary reason for instituting congestion pricing was unclear:

Queens politicians have been among the most steadfast opponents of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan. Only 2 of the borough’s 23 state legislators have so far spoken up for the scheme.

That’s confounding to Rohit Aggarwala, the city’s director of long-term planning and sustainability. He’s spent the last year crafting PlaNYC, which promotes 127 measures for not only a greener city but one that can accommodate a million more inhabitants by 2030. Congestion pricing is just part of the plan, but Aggarwala believes it may be the least understood.

. . .

The biggest benefit would be immediate improvements to mass transit, often in areas that are now lacking subway access. The congestion pricing system would claim $200 million of an anticipated $500 million federal grant, Aggarwala said, and the remainder would go to better transit.

“You can’t build a subway in five years, but you could increase bus frequency,” he said. “You could put in this signal-prioritization system so that the bus sends a signal to the traffic light and can get through. You can add new bus routes, either express or regular, and facilitate connections. There are places where the subway stations are three blocks apart, and we haven’t put in a free transfer. Well, with MetroCard you can do that very easily now — it’s a programming thing. You don’t have to build a tunnel anymore.”

He sees congestion pricing as a comprehensive, evolving plan, with dedicated bus lanes over East River bridges to compensate for increased subway ridership. An L train rider at Bedford Avenue, for example, may choose to switch to a bus for a one-seat ride to his Lower Manhattan office.

More importantly, the plan will take pressure off an already debt-ridden Metropolitan Transportation Authority, allowing it not only to provide better service but to keep fares down.

Congestion pricing, Aggarwala said, may save the Second Ave. Subway, East Side Access and other transit expansion projects.

“We need to come up with $31 billion in transit investment,” Aggarwala said. “That was really the fundamental place we started this plan. It wasn’t, well, do we do congestion pricing or not? It was, how do we solve this problem?”

For all the benefits of congestion pricing, it’s funny that you don’t see “alleviating traffic congestion” listed — or “reducing pollution,” for that matter.