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Mayor Bloomberg won't allow 311 operators internet access because he's afraid they'd shop at work.

The 311 non-emergency government information system is a program Mayor Bloomberg loves to brag about, touting it as among his greatest accomplishments during the 05 campaign.

311 operators' mission is to help citizens navigate the often confusing government agency maze. Theoretically, 311 could duplicate much of what the Public Advocate's office is charged with doing as the people's ombudsman. But that's theory. In reality, 311 is not much more useful than 411 directory assistance operators, with 311 often referring callers back to the agency whose non-responsiveness or unavailability, if the problem arises after the agency is closed, prompted the 311 call to begin with. One reason for the department's relative uselessness, is their lack of internet access.

It blows my mid, that in 2007, 14 years after the web became a mainstream information resource, that New York City won't allow people whose primary responsibility is to provide information, internet access.

I first became aware of 311 operators not having internet access in August 2005, nearly 2 years ago.  read more »

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David Saltonstall of the Daily News has a very interesting piece on the unusually, shall we say, sanitary condition of Rudy Giuliani's mayoral archives. Seems Rudy's people snapped up over 2,000 boxes of records from City Hall when he left office, with the promise that the newly-ex-mayor would personally pay to have them privately archived.

And he did. Only, the files were returned without a detailed index -- which makes it extremely difficult to search them. What's more, based on what reporters have found so far, history seems to have decided to be somewhat kinder to Rudy since his people borrowed the records:

A file labeled "Private Life/Divorce" offers nothing more than a few old press clippings about his breakup with Donna Hanover, as well as a transcript from the May 2000 press conference where he described his then-girlfriend and now-wife, Judith Nathan, as "a very good friend."

Meanwhile, Hanover's papers as First Lady have been all but erased. "This subgroup was not filmed," is all the archive says.

Documents from the historic weeks after 9/11 seem similarly scant. Instead of memos detailing concerns about air quality or coordination among agencies, the record consists of a few dry reports that sketch efforts to restore the city bureaucracy. [...]  read more »

Max Heiman of Rockefeller University's "How Green R U" blog points out one thing that's missing from Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC: a mandate for improving the fuel efficiency of New York's taxis. The city has begun experimenting with a small number of hybrid taxis, and as Heiman argues, the logic for converting the whole fleet is pretty compelling:

As this op-ed in the Times City section points out, there are nearly 13,000 taxis in NYC, together driving on the order of 800 million miles per year. More than 9 out of 10 cabs on the street are Crown Vics, which are lucky to get 18 mpg.

The entire fleet turns over every three years, so a fuel efficiency standard put in place today would convert every taxi in the city to a higher standard by 2010. The authors say that the Taxi and Limousine Commission has looked at hybrid taxis that get 39 mpg and average just about $2500 more than the Crown Vic, while saving $3700 in gas each year.

This just seem like a no-brainer to me, and I don’t get why it wasn’t in Bloomberg’s plan.

I agree.

I'm not normally a Bloomberg booster, but the mayor's PlaNYC is really praiseworthy. Daniel has done a great job linking to reporting and analysis on the specific proposal for congestion pricing. He notes, correctly, that the devil is in the details. I want to argue that when you consider the details, congestion pricing comes out looking like an excellent - even crucial - idea.

It's true that congestion charges, viewed in isolation, would constitute a regressive tax (though New Yorkers paying an $8 fee would have it easy compared to Londoners, who pay twice as much). But the regressiveness can be mitigated. As Jackie Ashley wrote in the Guardian in February, "We need sharp, specialised instruments, not blunt ones." Congestion charges could be offset somewhat by reductions in other regressive taxes or fees; those who are particularly reliant on their cars - for instance, people with disabilities - could be provided with exemptions. This article in the Daily News suggests additional ways to ease the burden where appropriate: for instance, by allowing drivers five free trips a year and by reducing bus fares in neighborhoods not served by subways.

Balancing the burden would help make congestion pricing less regressive. But in a larger sense, it's a very progressive idea - especially when you consider that fewer than 5% of New Yorkers actually drive to work in Manhattan. Like a carbon tax, congestion charging would be a means of using tax policy to discourage behavior that hurts the public interest. Traffic congestion damages public health and costs the city billions of dollars a year; it also contributes to global climate change. And it is inherently progressive - redistributive - to focus transportation policy on improving mass transit as opposed to automobile traffic.

The real key, and the reason Mayor Bloomberg deserves a good deal of praise, is that congestion pricing is understood as being only one element in a far-sighted plan to address the considerable challenges New York faces over the next two decades. Give Bloomberg credit - he recognized a moment of fiscal and political opportunity, and rather than squandering it, he's using it to the public's advantage. It's only when you look at how congestion pricing fits into this larger strategy that you realize how progressive it actually is.

Think of PlaNYC as comprising four complementary plans. Congestion pricing is important to and made more progressive by each of them:  read more »

It’s been so widely reported, I hesitate to write about it, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the mayor I mostly prefer to hate, with much fanfare, proposed an interesting “congestion pricing plan” to charge autos and trucks for entering Manhattan below 86th Street during the hours 6AM to 6PM. The prize for clearest outline of the plan goes to Daily Politics newcomer Elizabeth Benjamin here. . Thanks.

See also this from the News print edition and this and this Monday Editorial from the NY Times as well as this Editorial from Monday's Daily News. In her comments (below) Ann Seligman of Environmental Defense, wisely suggests you & I review the Gotham Gazette article by Bruce Schaller . It's a good article with even better links; click away. Sewall Chan has a story at Empire Zone about a coalition of 70 groups -- including the NYC Central Labor Council supporting the proposal.

While I will write about my views of the plan after I understand it more, others (either quicker studies, more glib, more thoughtful) have written about it already at Empire Zone and here and here at Politiker.

The text of the Mayor’s plan is here .

Transportation Alternatives, my favorite transit advocacy group  read more »