New York City’s congestion pricing began this past Sunday
Somehow I’d missed this news until right before it was about to go into effect. I had noticed something similar in European cities the last time I visited Italy, which was six years ago – either fines or surcharges for driving within what once was the city’s heart. Well, now it’s come to New York.
Here’s how it works in New York:
The decision Friday evening by U.S. Senior Judge Leo Gordon clears the way for the MTA to begin charging the toll as scheduled on Sunday, the culmination of a years-long planning process for a program designed to decrease traffic in Midtown and Lower Manhattan while raising billions of dollars for the MTA. …
Passenger vehicles with E-ZPass will be charged the base $9 toll from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. Overnight, the toll is $2.25. The toll is higher for commercial vehicles like trucks and buses, and lower for motorcycles.
Uber and Lyft trips into the tolling district will be charged $1.50, while taxis and cabs face a charge of $0.75.
Trump is against it, and it required federal approval so that might matter.
Of course, Manhattan traffic has been awful for a long time. Then again, the NY subway has gotten more dangerous. Will people feel forced onto it?
And it’s not just going to affect Manhattan. Here’s what’s also predicted:
Commuters to the Big Apple will be turning neighborhoods across the city into their own personal parking lots beginning this week, ditching their rides to save their wallets because of the $9 congestion pricing plan, concerned residents told The Post.
The plan is expected to upend neighborhoods closest to the 60th Street tolling zone with nightmarish gridlock as a surge of drivers begin scouring for free parking spots. …
The Upper West Side and Harlem are also expected to get slammed — a problem when parking spaces are already a precious commodity. …
Communities such as Long Island City in Queens, the South Bronx, and ritzy Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Park Slope in Brooklyn are fearing their quality of life will be uprooted — not only by their own drivers but also those schlepping to the Big Apple from New Jersey, upstate New York, Long Island and Staten Island.
Here’s a caption to a photo at the linked article:
“My constituents who still have no real public transit connection to Manhattan are looking forward to treating the posh, transit-rich, gentrified, brownstone Brooklyn as their new park-and-ride,” quipped NYC Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).
I’m not sure what Borelli means by “real.” Staten Islanders have the ferry, which is plenty real but drops them off at the southern tip of Manhattan. They also have various buses that journey across various bridges.
As I said, driving in Manhattan has been a nightmare for a long time. This is an attempt to discourage people from even trying it. But the law of unintended consequences may make things worse. Actually, that may be the goal – making it so bad that cars are banned altogether in Manhattan.
I hadn’t heard of any other city in the US adopting this method, and in fact New York is the only one. So far:
Just a comment on another cost increase. I just purchased 18 eggs, cost was $11. CO has gone to “cage free” eggs. Price increase actually started several months ago, but on Jan 1, the mandate kicked in so the prices shot up.
Than you Gov. Polis and Dems in the state house.
Then again, the NY subway has gotten more dangerous. Will people feel forced onto it?
Went into Manhattan last night for dinner for wife’s birthday.
We took the 6 – the local – from GCT to 77th Street. No one in either station was within 5 feet of the platform edge and pretty much all the available wall space was taken up with people waiting…and watching out.
I lived in Brooklyn during the last Koch term and in Manhattan for Dinkins; the subway was a cesspit and crime was bad. I’ve been riding the subway since 1985.
I’ve never seen that before.
This could work IF New York were to put a heavy police presence on all the subway lines, stop assaults as they happen, and stop releasing criminals with no bail. Not likely to happen.
NYC made no exemptions for firefighters. Fire department equipment, and fire fighters in private autos, are frequently moved around the city as needed. Individual fire fighters are going to be leaving their cars at home, and will now have limited ability to re-deploy carrying 85 lbs. of gear.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/fdny-union-leaders-warn-against-congestion-pricing-after-being-denied-exemption-dont-go-down-road
We have been taking advantage of on street parking in NYC since our son started his PhD at Columbia 5 years ago. An hour drive and always found a spot within a block from his apartment. Quick pitstop before taking the subway to ultimate destination. Hope this change doesn’t push us back onto metro north!
Government “of the people, by the people, for the people” was a lie when first uttered, and is a lie today. We are ruled by the un-elected tenured bureaucrats, almost all are Democrats.
I see a 2nd Civil War in our future but will not live to see it.
I hear turnstyle jumping is rampant in New York and there is almost no attempt to arrest jumpers and no consequences when they are arrested.
How much revenue does the MTA budget lose due to this?
Some variant of this is a satisfactory idea. You have to have toll booths and police forces to ticket people. You also need to improve the level of security on mass transit. Which means arresting people, holding them in detention, and punishing them. New York’s political class does not wish to do the latter.
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One way to approach this problem might be to have special license plates distributed via multiple price auctions. You’d have one sort that permitted the bearer to drive in Manhattan at non-peak hours and you’d have another sort which permitted the bearer to drive in Manhattan at any time. Calculate a certain carrying capacity. Have an administrative allocation for public construction and another for emergency services. Auction off a ration of season passes. Auction off a ration of day passes.
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Another thing you might do is build parking garages proximate to entryways into Manhattan.
I see a 2nd Civil War in our future but will not live to see it.
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What’s been lacking in Manhattan is a satisfying method of allocating the use of common property resources. Get a grip.
Art Deco,
Such license plate measures have been in place in Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, Mexico City and other places. I forget which big city I was in, but they had a program where odd numbered plates could access the city on M-W, even on T-Th and maybe both on Friday (I don’t remember the specifics). But one of the results was the wealthy bought a second car. Also, black market plates were a lucrative business.
I doubt we’re far from some municipality, perhaps an entire state, requiring some sort of trackable device in your vehicle to access an area and that device must be tied to a pre-paid account that is billed by milage, perhaps even with surcharges for certain days and times. That’s how most toll roads work now. My I-Pass (which now works in PA, FL, GA {other places?}) keeps a minimum of $25 whether I use it or not. Love to know what they make on the float having all that cash on hand.
Ever get the feeling that TPTB want to discourage the great unwashed from having the ability to move around quickly and conveniently?
My wife and I just returned from vacation, and had to pass through the Houston (IAH) and Denver airports on our way home. Both airports are humongous, and the terminal where you arrive is seldom the terminal you need to be in to get your connecting flight. I remarked to my wife “who on earth thinks these type of airports are a good idea?”
Then it hit me: the people who think these are a good idea are the politicians and the people who make money from them. Of course, those people don’t actually have to use those airports; they fly private, often out of executive airports.
The Los Angeles area on the other hand has 5 airports (6 if you count San Bernardino), with plans to bring airline service back to a 7th, Palmdale, which is in the high desert northeast of the L.A. Basin. Having multiple airports instead of just one great big one is one of the very few things CA has done right, although at least 4 of those airports would probably not exist were it not for Douglas Aircraft, Lockheed, and the USAF.
It’s been over a half century since I lived in the NYC area, but then, most residents of Staten Island, given the choice would opt to divorce from NYC. As long as they didn’t get attached to Joisey. 🙂
Just more proof that ultimately, all taxes are taxes on the poor.
Just more proof that ultimately, all taxes are taxes on the poor.
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It is not proof of that proposition and the proposition itself is stupid.
Perhaps it’s time that Manhattan, Brooklyn, etc.: metropolitan New York City, be established as a separate state so that the rest of the state can be saved from their lunatic population.
Ever get the feeling that TPTB want to discourage the great unwashed from having the ability to move around quickly and conveniently?
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Not especially. That aside, you have an area with a population density of 75,000 persons per square mile and chronically congested streets. Any ideas for ameliorating that situation?
Perhaps it’s time that Manhattan, Brooklyn, etc.: metropolitan New York City, be established as a separate state so that the rest of the state can be saved from their lunatic population.
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The political culture of metropolitan New York is bad. It might be better if the entire settlement (extending over nine counties in New York and ten in New Jersey) were in one jurisdiction. Having grown up Upstate, I can tell you the place has its own political pathologies and suffers due to them.
Art Deco on January 7, 2025 at 6:20 pm said:
Just more proof that ultimately, all taxes are taxes on the poor.
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It is not proof of that proposition and the proposition itself is stupid.
Your response is moronic. All taxes affect the poor adversely. Remember when there was a tax on yachts? That didn’t affect the wealthy, they simply went elsewhere to purchase yachts. It did affect the poor, who lost jobs. All taxes affect the poor, either directly or indirectly. To believe otherwise is foolish in the extreme.
But one of the results was the wealthy bought a second car.
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A multiple price auction would tend to ration berths to people with means and motivation. That happens with price systems.
To believe otherwise is foolish in the extreme.
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If I follow your logic, we can benefit the poor via abolition of government. Joseph Sobran ‘reasoned’ himself into such nonsense.
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Different sorts of taxes allocate the burdens of paying for government on different segments of the population. Your thesis is that everyone adjusts their behavior at all times so that only the impecunious feel an impact. That’s a bizarre thesis and no it is not demonstrated simply because you had the audacity to offer it. Sober up.
Sgt, at least DIA has the trains, and they are a straight shot from terminal to terminal. Denver is the pop center of CO, don’t think you could put in a moderate sized airport anywhere but Colo Sp., which does have one, just not international.
Try Frankfort, Heathrow, Munich airport if you really want to hate one. Oh, and Dallas, O’Hara can be added to the list. I am sure there are lots of others.
Well, I had no plans to be driving in or through Manhattan anyway, but it will be interesting to see if things like some noticeable environmental effect, as the NJ side asserts will come, end up appearing. I would need some little bit of convincing on that, though, because I wouldn’t imagine at first glance that the cars that would be landing in Manhattan and will henceforth supposedly be landing in Secaucus or Harrison instead would make much of a difference in the overall pollution profile of the tri-state area.
If one is worried about NOx output, for example, that region is all one big atmospheric stew, pretty much, no? Or if road wear is a concern, well, “roads” don’t particularly qualify as “environment” to my mind. If the roads get more worn in Bergen County as opposed to Kings… is it just a question of NJ wanting and wishing for a slice of the pie? I don’t quite get it just yet.
mikeski’s note about the behavior changes in the subway is of interest. I’m surprised it took this long for that sort of thing to manifest. If I were spending any time in the five boroughs, I would certainly adopt that tactic.
In sum, I think Canada must be annexed.
One thing I can predict with confidence is that the revenue from this will fall well short of their projections.
The hard cut-off at 60th Street seems like a bad idea, for the reasons mentioned. Maybe it’s hard to design something with more gradations, but it’s bad for the adjacent neighborhoods. I also suspect it will add significantly to the congestion on the GW Bridge, as a way to get into Manhattan north of midtown.
As for Staten Island, my impression from people who live there is that the ferry doesn’t really work for most people. You have to get to the terminal on SI, and then from South Ferry at the lower tip of Manhattan to wherever you’re going, and the ride itself is about a half hour. The express buses are better, but again if you have to get somewhere remote from downtown it’s a long haul.
One thing I can predict with confidence is that the revenue from this will fall well short of their projections.
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Here’s a suggestion: put the revenue in a holding fund along with revenue from fines, civil forfeitures, judgments, indemnities, vice levies, Pigou levies, unclaimed property &c. At the end of the fiscal year, remit the contents of the fund to the general public on a per capita basis, using data supplied by the state department of taxation and finance. The point of the congestion pricing (and other measures) is to change relative prices and modify the market choices people make, not to raise revenue. Rely on property taxes, value-added taxes, and service fees to finance the city government (as well as grants from the state government).
So…how much does a seething population cost?
So…how much does a seething population cost?
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What do you want to do about the traffic jams?
Good question…
Hey, MAYBE one could start with the rancid, deep-seated, debilitating corruption and lying…?
Maybe.
Maybe not…
“The MTA is wasting billions on NYC’s congesting pricing plan”—
https://nypost.com/2025/01/07/opinion/the-mta-is-wasting-billions-on-nycs-congesting-pricing-plan/
Opening grafs:
Hey, MAYBE one could start with the rancid, deep-seated, debilitating corruption and lying…?
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Addressing such problems is a good thing, but it’s not going to help you alleviate congestion in Manhattan.
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“Here’s a suggestion: put the revenue in a holding fund along with revenue from fines, civil forfeitures, judgments, indemnities, vice levies, Pigou levies, unclaimed property &c. At the end of the fiscal year, remit the contents of the fund to the general public on a per capita basis”
Better yet, cut other taxes. Some chance. They explicitly said the revenue would go to public transit, as though money isn’t fungible. Remember how lottery revenues were “earmarked” for education?
Better yet, cut other taxes. Some chance. They explicitly said the revenue would go to public transit, as though money isn’t fungible. Remember how lottery revenues were “earmarked” for education?
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That’s not better yet.
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If you can contrive a way to deliver equivalent services at lower cost or to improve services at no added cost, do that. If you can discern activities which ought to be discontinued, do that. The appropriate level of taxation is invariably that which finances your planned expenditure.
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Lotteries are a scam. You want to gamble, hit the Indian casino or the race track.
Yet another reason NEVER to visit NYC.
Come on guys, I was already convinced that I’d rather beat my toenails off with a hammer than visit your hellhole. You don’t have to keep giving me more reasons to never visit.
You don’t have to keep giving me more reasons to never visit.
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Greater New York splays over 19 counties. About 9% of the population of the whole lives in Manhattan, with another block of local residents commuting into Manhattan. Manhattan has an issue with traffic congestion. If you drive through Manhattan as we speak, you will face traffic congestion. The idea is to ration street space so the traffic actually flows, making use of prices as a rationing mechanism. This makes New York as a whole less pleasing just how?