Theodore Kheel

NNF’s founder, Theodore Kheel, was a longstanding advocate of mass transit. As early as 1965, he made headlines urging that tolls charged to drive cars into NYC be doubled and the proceeds used to help the City’s struggling transit system. Over the following decades, he continued to speak out, write, and even litigate in an effort to achieve a more balanced transportation system for New York-- one where driving was not unduly encouraged and mass transit was adequately funded.
As head of Nurture New York’s Nature, a program of NNF, Kheel conceived a new project in 2007 to help the cause of balanced transportation. At the time, Mayor Bloomberg was advocating a congestion pricing plan that would charge cars coming into the city about $10 a trip, and use the proceeds to raise public funds, which could be used for mass transit among other projects. In response, Kheel announced a $100,000 grant to study the feasibility of a “Bolder Plan”, one that would impose a charge on incoming cars sufficient to totally eliminate the transit fare in the Manhattan business district. The project culminated in a report, called “Balancing Free Transit and Congestion Pricing”. Free Transit Report (PDF), which Kheel sent to New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg, with the following introduction:

"The fundamental principle behind the plan is that car travel and mass transit are interrelated, like two sides of an equation, two weights counterpoised on a scale. Ideally, there should be a balance, but instead, our system is enormously, unconscionably out of balance. This report shows how we can correct that."

https://nurturenature.org/pages/transit-reform