![]() ![]() Malliotakis and Gottheimer argue that it’s unfair for drivers to subsidize the MTA, which they say does not spend money efficiently. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., who represents Staten Island - the only borough without a subway stop, whose drivers pay to cross the Verrazano Bridge to Brooklyn on their way to Manhattan - have introduced a bill in Congress that would block congestion pricing. Drivers from New Jersey already pay tolls on the bridges and tunnels across the Hudson River and many of their elected officials are demanding that those tolls be reduced from their fee for entering the congestion zone, a carveout that would require higher tolls for entering the congestion zone to make up for the lost revenue. (Jenn Moreno/VIEWpress/Corbis via Getty Images)īut the group that threatens to do the most to undermine congestion pricing isn’t even in New York, it’s in New Jersey. Then there are NYPD officers, whose largest union is demanding an exemption on the grounds that their work schedule requires flexibility that only a private vehicle can provide.Ĭars in New York City's Times Square. But many other groups want exemptions, including taxi drivers, drivers for ride-hailing apps like Uber and small businesses like commercial bakeries that deliver their products in Manhattan. People who live inside the congestion zone itself and make less than $60,000 will get a tax rebate for what they pay in tolls. Under the new law, the only two groups that must be exempted are vehicles carrying a person with disabilities and emergency vehicles. The reason for that wide range reflects the difficult process that lies ahead: determining who gets exemptions from paying higher tolls. The surge pricing fees to achieve that could be anywhere from $9 to $23 for passenger vehicles and between $12 and $82 for trucks. New York’s 2019 legislation requires that the MTA set a fee that will raise roughly $1 billion per year. “The stick and the carrot are dividing the CO2 reductions roughly half and half - the stick being the immediate impact of the toll and the carrot being that, over time, subway service gets better, it gets more frequent, it gets more reliable,” Komanoff told Yahoo News.Īfter London began charging drivers who entered the Central Business District during the daytime in 2003, the city’s particulate and nitrogen oxides pollution decreased by 12% and carbon dioxide dropped by 20%, according to the FHWA. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)Īlon Levy, a fellow in the Transportation and Land Use program of the NYU Marron Institute, has calculated that if every subway and bus arrived at six-minute intervals - a slight increase in transit service that would cost $250 million per year to implement - transit ridership would go up by 15%. Morning commuters wait for overcrowded subway trains in Brooklyn, N.Y. That’s because some car trips will be skipped to avoid paying the toll and the tolling revenue will be used to improve mass transit service, he said, which would, in turn, induce more commuters to take transit instead of their car. He estimates that congestion pricing will reduce New York’s carbon dioxide emissions by 1 million metric tons per year - the equivalent to taking 216,000 cars off the road entirely. ![]() Transportation analyst Charles Komanoff has modeled how congestion pricing will alter how many cars and trucks enter the lower half of Manhattan. ![]() The agency has a $54.8 billion plan to update signaling, add elevators to 70 stations and make other infrastructure improvements, but it needs the congestion pricing revenue to pay for it - especially since the pandemic caused subway ridership to plummet, from which it has only partially recovered. And more than 30 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, only one-quarter of subway stations in the system are wheelchair-accessible. But the nation’s oldest subway system is aging poorly, with outdated signaling systems and never-ending repair work causing less reliable and slower service. city: 58% of commuters use public transit, compared to 5% nationally, as do 85% of commuters going to Manhattan's central business district. New York City is by far the most transit-dependent U.S. ![]()
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