New York could start charging drivers $15 to enter Manhattan as soon as mid-June, a lawyer for the state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority told a judge at a hearing on New Jersey’s lawsuit to block the plan.
The MTA may decide on the final tolling structure by the end of March, attorney Mark Chertok told Judge Leo Gordon during a status conference Tuesday in Newark. That would lead to several further steps in the approval process. The toll, to be imposed on motorists driving into Manhattan’s central business district, would be the first of its kind in the US.
I appreciate this… but I do also wish it was wealth or car model scaled.
There’s a discount for low income residents from what I recall (although I believe it’s small). I agree that SUVs and pickup trucks should be hit harder, but perhaps that can be added down the line.
EDIT: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/nyregion/tolls-congestion-pricing-nyc.html
Low-income drivers will get 50 percent off tolls during the day after the first 10 trips in a calendar month. It will also be much cheaper to drive at night: Between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., fees will be reduced by 75 percent.
And:
people whose primary residence is inside the tolling district and whose income is below $60,000 would be eligible for a state tax credit equal to the amount of their tolls.
On the car model point, perhaps SUVs and pickup trucks could be pushed into the “small truck” category, raising the fee to $24. These “cars” exist due to dodging the efficiency standards that apply to normal cars, so they should be treated as the light trucks that they actually are.
Disagree. I see where you’re coming from, but make it flat fee, and give lower income cheaper metro passes. Make it stupid easy and cheap for them to transit into the city.
I wish it were a straight ban and while I appreciate the desire to make it progressive, the fact is in the most well-connected city in the US, the goal isn’t to generate revenue from this, it is to reduce the amount of cars, and that includes poor people in non-suvs.
There are some income thresholds that cap fees, and the charge is lower for passenger vehicles than commercial vehicles. It’s not perfect, and I’d like to see higher fees for pickup trucks and SUVs, but there are some fee tiers.
Think they could use the fees to subsidize public transit in and out of the city? I’d imagine most of the car traffic is people entering Manhattan from out of NYC or leaving it, so it would be nice if they further incentivized that by making the PATH, LIRR or NJT cheaper, but that may be interstate commerce.
I generally support this, but I think Murphy’s comments are sensible here, though, maybe not the lawsuit that’s causing issues.
The MTA would give a credit to drivers paying tolls for the Lincoln, Holland and Queens-Midtown tunnels and the Hugh L. Carey bypass to the financial district from Brooklyn, also known as the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel.
So, would people taking one of these have their toll applied to the congestion fee? I’m a little unclear on that. The GW isn’t listed there, but I suppose that’s sensible since it drops ya out north of 60th.
I’m not sure making transit cheaper is the right thing to do when the money would better be spent on making the service more attractive, iirc PATH could use much higher frequencies.
No toll credits for the GWB, and the credit on other crossings is limited to $5 off the the daytime toll of $15, no credit during nights and weekends because the toll drops to $3.75 at those times.
ETA - my prices are ezpass discounted ones
Direct Link to Price Chart P1 EZPass P2 “Other Rates” (TollsByMail)
Well that’s disappointing. Kinda seems like NYC is double dipping on fees then. Congestion pricing is a sensible thing to do, but it seems the way NYC is implementing is fairly inconsiderate and slightly opportunistic. Especially with the way its handling low income drivers. It should also scale up for higher income drivers.
When the idea first came up with Bloomberg, it was gonna be an $8 toll and a full toll credit for the then about $4 and change toll (ezpass price, $6 cash) while using ezpass. Immediately after that plan came out the Port Authority (which runs Holland and Lincoln) immediately raised their ezpass price for the tunnels to $8. For a time I believe all toll credits were taken off the table because of what the PA did 15 years ago, and toll credits have been very contentious since.
Too bad they only set these up in wealthy areas.
