According to Charles Komanoff, a national expert on congestion pricing and traffic modeling, and former head of Transportation Alternatives, “Mayor Adams has made a bad decision to waive the de Blasio-era cap on the number of ride-hail vehicles allowed in New York City, so long as the extra cars are electric. Let’s get it straight once and for all: Replacing the existing 78,000 Ubers and Lyfts with electrics would be a positive step, albeit a modest one. But adding space-hogging vehicles – of any propulsion – takes us backwards. Not just in terms of worsening street and highway gridlock but because the added congestion ensures increased emissions from the combustion vehicles still on the road.”
Komanoff, whose October editorial ran in media outlet, StreetsBlog, went on to add the following: “Increases in vehicular volumes intensify stop-and-go driving – a condition that degrades engine combustion efficiency. That means greater emissions of… toxic pollutants. Each additional EV will – contrary to what the mayor said – compound New York’s air pollution while pushing the city and state’s climate goals further out of reach. There’s also the touchy matter of emissions from generating the additional electricity to continually recharge all those new EV taxis: the power grid from which the EVs will draw their supposedly clean fuel is startlingly dirty. If congestion pricing, which indisputably will cut down on vehicle volumes, warranted an exhaustive review, then certainly allowing additional vehicles on our streets should receive at least a cursory check.”
Source: StreetsBlog
