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Mayor introduces congestion pricing in Central Business District of Manhattan, no toll booths, poll collection via video camera license plate recording, commuter tax, reduce congestion
I honestly don't see what the big deal is. Most people are already paying $6 to get into the city, so as long as you have EZ-pass it will only be $2 extra. This is not a million dollar tax, for your average person it will only end up costing an extra $2. That is unless you are one of the people using one of the free bridges over the east river.
The public transit system is fairly congested at the moment, but once it receives the money from this program they will certainly start purchasing more subway trains, buses, and coach buses. So I think it will even out eventually. Of course at first it will be rough, but after a while things will go back to normal for public transit, the roads will be slightly less congested, and the MTA will be in better financial shape. I see only benefits here.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is. Most people are already paying $6 to get into the city, so as long as you have EZ-pass it will only be $2 extra. This is not a million dollar tax, for your average person it will only end up costing an extra $2. That is unless you are one of the people using one of the free bridges over the east river.
The public transit system is fairly congested at the moment, but once it receives the money from this program they will certainly start purchasing more subway trains, buses, and coach buses. So I think it will even out eventually. Of course at first it will be rough, but after a while things will go back to normal for public transit, the roads will be slightly less congested, and the MTA will be in better financial shape. I see only benefits here.
The problem is that this city has the highest disparity between the rich and the poor. No it is not a million dollar tax but 8 bucks to get into the city during peak hours is a lot of $$ for those living in the lower middle class range. The rich,like Mayor Mike will be unaffected . If 8 bucks is not much then you should have no problem paying a $4.00 fare or a $150 dollar monthly metrocard.
The best idea was a $0.50 cent toll for the east river bridges that was proposed a few years back to generate money for the city. I can even see a dollar working out but 8 bucks to commute is excessive.
And unless the subway has dramatically changed in the past 13 months since I've left the city putting the revenue directly into the MTA's coffers is a huge mistake as they are a blackhole when it comes to finances.
If you guys want less congestion and safer roadways then I suggest putting a cap on the number of taxicabs that enter the city. Yeah I know that Manhattan is a dense area of population but must 15000 yellow cabs all roam the streets between 86th and Chambers St? Why don't they have 5000 of the yellow cabs roam the outer boroughs via new taxi stands.
Like another recent poster, I just stumbled on this thread and found it interesting. As someone who grew up in Buffalo, but who after living in NYC for over a decade has just moved to Westchester - and as someone who has actually BEEN to Warwick, NY, a charming town - I personally understand the different sides of this debate.
I think the focus on "rights" is completely misplaced. I am not a constitutional scholar, but last time I checked, no one is guaranteed the right to cross a bridge, enter a tunnel, enter a building, or pass a city limit whenever they like at no cost. We don't have a right to drive on the streets of Manhattan, esp. when most Manhattanites don't have cars, yet they are paying for the upkeep of their streets for those of us living in suburbia to use. Our parking garage tax payments don't cover the costs of that, sorry. We do not have a right to tell NYC what to do when we don't live there. If we like, we can all charge them to come into our towns - which reveals the truth of this, and that is that NYC is the driver for the entire region around it. NYC residents don't often need to go to the suburbs, but suburbanites, they need the city, and its vibrant business community, its amenities. But they resent needing it, too. What's articulated here is a dialogue of how strong the resentment can get before suburbanites just leave the region.
This is, ultimately, about space. There is not enough space for all the cars that are trying to get into Manhattan. The point is to use a powerful incentive - COST - to motivate those who do not need to be in the city during peak hours to come in at another, less crowded time. As someone who frequently had (had, note the past tense) a "need" to drive out of the city in the extremely early AM and drive back into the city at peak AM rush hour, I can tell you that there is a massive productivity cost to congestion. All those hours I spent unnecessarily sitting on the West Side Highway were hours I could have spent generating business/corporate tax revenues for NYC and personal tax revenues for NYC, NYS and the Feds. Tired of that, I moved to Westchester, to a "smart growth, transit-oriented" development right next to a Metro North stop. I was also tired of the constant honking and fumes in Manhattan, where I lived. The quality of life in Manhattan is seriously harmed, too, though I believe the business productivity costs lost due to congestion are key. In addition to sitting on the West Side Hwy, I've sat on Park Avenue with my colleagues, trying to get to an uptown meeting only to be jammed up for blocks by... a Stepford wife with Jersey plates bringing her lapdog in for some shopping on 57th Street. Are you kidding me? Make her pay. Make us pay, too, we'd gladly do it to get to our meeting four times faster and do more deals and make more money for the city, which is fighting for its very survival against rival London, which has surpassed us as the financial capital of the world DESPITE having an evil congestion charge. Of course, part of the reason it works there (I spend several WEEKS there a year on business) is b/c they have a gas/petrol tax that is multiples of ours, so that buying a gallon of gas is 4-5 times what it costs here. That discourages car-centric housing and commercial development and consumer demand for such development, and the taxes funds that vast network of transportation they have there in the UK.
Note that the proposed NYC congestion pricing plan does not charge you to enter the city on weekends or after 6 pm, or before 6 am. If I still "needed" to drive out then back into the city as I once did, I would try to rearrange my schedule around these time frames. So, if you really want to meet your tea supplier on a weekday once a month, couldn't you get up at 4 am, leave Warwick by 4:30, and get into Manhattan before 6 am? Or could the tea supplier meet on a Saturday? Couldn't you take your dog to Animal Medical Center on the weekend? My cat gets appts. there on Sat just fine. And isn't that orchid show also on the weekend? When the charge doesn't apply?
I write "need" in quotes, b/c many people seem to mistake a "need" for what is really a glorified "want". If you really "need" to do something in Manhattan, you can find a way to get into the city outside of the 6 am-6pm weekday time frame and avoid the charge, if it's that important to you. And that's what the point is: to divert some of that traffic to times when the roads are less full, using money as a motivator.
I personally don't understand why anyone who truly "needed" to visit Manhattan on a semi-regular basis would ever live in Warwick, where Metro North doesn't even stop. Is there no comparable housing/schools at a similar price in towns that have rail connections?
And so this is also about housing. NY and its suburbs need housing that is well connected to regional transportation links. The fact is that there ARE too many cars going into Manhattan at peak hours, and will only get worse as the region's population swells. We need to build houses around our existing transport infrastructure, and expand that infrastructure, too. But how to pay for that transport? Hence the congestion charge.
As for the outer borough guy who has to drive into Manhattan for work and school, I feel his pain, but according to the fact sheet I've linked above, the data (and the Census collects this data) shows that you are a rarity indeed. The vast majority of outer borough residents do not commute into the city via car, and of those that do, most don't do so b/c there is no public transportation available.
Looks like congestion pricing is making a come back, sort of. Pedro Espada, one of the Bronx's many elected hucksters, is now pushing congestion pricing to keep the MTA solvent. BUT WAIT! Espada wants tolls on all bridges going to and from Manhattan/Brooklyn/Queens, NOT any from the Bronx! He is simply wanting to tax drivers coming into Manhattan from everywhere BUT the Bronx, assuring his constituents ride for free. The usual small minded, self-serving nonsense from another Bronx clown. I wonder if other clowns like Ruben Diaz will jump on board with this idea, seeing as they all were against it last year.
I know a few people who work for the MTA and I dont think the congestion prices will take off...too many people will protest and with the recession in place your dealing with some mean citizens of the city when you try to start with congetion prices...My MTA friends told me that this is mostly media BS.
Seeing as we have serious funding issues, I would think now is one of the rare times where congestion pricing is possible. There is no money, and this generates revenue...I don't think Pedro's plan would fly of course..who would exempt the Bronx? What a scheister/idiot...but I do think Albany will revisit the issue.
Looks like congestion pricing is making a come back, sort of. Pedro Espada, one of the Bronx's many elected hucksters, is now pushing congestion pricing to keep the MTA solvent. BUT WAIT! Espada wants tolls on all bridges going to and from Manhattan/Brooklyn/Queens, NOT any from the Bronx! He is simply wanting to tax drivers coming into Manhattan from everywhere BUT the Bronx, assuring his constituents ride for free. The usual small minded, self-serving nonsense from another Bronx clown. I wonder if other clowns like Ruben Diaz will jump on board with this idea, seeing as they all were against it last year.
Not only does Espada wants his Bronxites to be the only ones to drive into the CBD free, but I'm guessing he and others from the West bronx want to maintain free driving to Upper Manhattan (especially Washington Heights, Inwood, and Harlem). I'm guessing Espada and others feel that the bridges connecting the West Bronx to Upper Manhattan connect families (especially Dominicans and Blacks) together.
The Mayor's plan is an interesting (if not fascinating) attempt to solve an old problem. Open up a history book: just about a hundred years ago, street traffic in Manhattan was so bad that it could take half a day to get from the Financial District to midtown. The solution at the time was to construct the subway.
Apparently now that traffic is becoming a serious problem yet again, the idea that we could have--oh, just for the sake of speculation--new subways on Second and Ninth Avenue (or, bite thy tongue, expanded bus service along the north-south avenues in Manhattan), doesn't even enter the picture. Now we're offered "congestion pricing." By a Mayor who is, in real terms, nothing more than a carpetbagger. It wouldn't be quite so awful if he was a New Yorker.
From my personal perspective, the only good thing about this is that I don't own a car.
The idea that Bloomy is a carpetbagger I see is a GOOD thing and the reason why he was able to get so much done. What would have become of this city if we had such tried and true NYers as Fernando Ferrer running the show? I am glad to have this carpet bagger...as this city produces too many self-serving, voter pandering politicians with no business acumen other than "I will give you this if you give me XXXX amount of money." That strategy doesn't work..never has.
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