You know the old joke that ends "We've already established what you are. We're just haggling over price"? Same deal here. Despite public outcry that forced Mayor Bloomberg to make congestion charging someone else's fault– a 17 member commission– The New York Times wants to keep the "dream" alive. Apparently, congestion charging is THE answer to gridlock. "London proved as much when it adopted congestion pricing, charging drivers to use certain streets. Traffic moved faster, tailpipe emissions went down and the fees collected went to improve public transportation." Uh, no. No. And no. While The Old Gray Lady is ready for NYC motorists to lay down (bend over?) for a regressive tax/PC money grab, the newspaper of record doesn't like "the unworkable suggestion of rationing entry to the city each day based on the last digit of license plates. There are other duds, including the idea — sure to die in Albany — of putting tolls on toll-free bridges over the East and Harlem Rivers. An $8 surcharge on taxi rides, part of another proposal, is another nonstarter." Those crazy commissioners, eh? And the winner is… forcing "most cars $8 and trucks $21 to drive on the city’s busiest streets during weekdays." Fare enough?
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
I wonder how many protesting motorists it would take to shut down the city…
…just saying. Tow trucks can only move cars so fast.
There already is a congestion charge in NYC. Try parking there for any appreciable amount of time. I guess that does nothing to all those people who just come to drive around in traffic all day, but for the rest another $8 on top of the $7/half hour they already pay will do nothing to deter them.
A Tax, hidden under “environmentalism”, along with a level of surveillance Orwell would love.
All you guys who live in Manhattan and register your cars ‘elsewhere’, listen up. I can hardly wait for the screaming when all those cars insured in “the hamptons”, “the berkshires” and “upstate” get tax notices from the ever hungry city of new york, not to mention the interest of the insurance industry who might want to know that that car registered in Woodstock, NY really lives on the Upper East Side.
Involved in a lawsuit ? Congestion charge records, like EZ pass, will become relevant for divorce lawyers.
Do we really want a world where the government is in charge of all comings and goings ? You could reduce congestion without a fee, but the Federal requirements are for a fee, so that private industry gets “theirs”, and if there is a fee, you can be assured of control. Congestion reduction without a tax is not part of the plan !!
Meanwhile, the MTA is propseing fare hikes on the Long Island Railroad and Metro North rail lines, as well as increases for monthly Metro Card users.
I think the congestion fee is a good idea. I drive into manhatten occasionally during the week for work, it is a madhouse, but most of the madness is taxis anyway. If they REALLY want to collect some money, meter horn blasts in taxis, charge for THEM. Should be simple enough to monitor.
I beleive that it should be expensive to drive in NYC, because there are so many other options.
PS My friends in London say that traffic is as bad as it ever was, because people have simply absorbed the congestion fee, much like we have simply absorbed the huge increase in gas prices. Scuttlebutt has it that the city is thinking about doubling or even tripeling the fee.
It is an interesting that we have barely changed our driving habits between 95 cent a gallon gas and 3.50 per. There is a lesson there that lots of folks are looking at, smiling greedily.
It would appear that we will pay anything… ANYTHING… to be able to drive wherever we want whenever we want, in whatever we like.
PPS – i believe that public transit should be as cheap as possible or even free – to get people out of their cars – and it makes perfect sense for car owners to pay for that. And I own a car.
If there’s a lesson to be learned from the UK, it’s that people shouldn’t take it lying down.
The British are known throughout Europe as the most apathetic nation when it comes to taking whatever our inept politicians throw at us.
The US and the UK should learn from the French and the Italians who don’t let their politicians exploit them without a fight.
DrivingCourse: “The US and the UK should learn from the French and the Italians who don’t let their politicians exploit them without a fight.”
Yeah, they let the German politicians exploit them instead…
Jerseydevil, there really aren’t many other options, especially for those who drive through Manhattan where those drivers would shoulder most of the congestion charge.
Drivers coming in from New Jersey would be doubly screwed since there is no way to get into the city without paying a bridge or tunnel fee to begin with.
quasimondo:
agreed, but on one in their right mind would drive through manhatten to get to somewhere else, unless there was a gun to your head. I go around manhatten alot, you learn these things if u dont wanna grow old in traffic.
I also am very familiar with the tolls, the hightest one that i know is the 9 bucks for a trip on the Verazzano, after the 6 bucks for a trip on the Goethels (both thankfully collected in one direction only), so if you are picking up someone at JFK, it can cost over 20 bucks with turnpike fees. It’s a crouded corner of the universe.
Take the train. If u wanna drive, pay.
so if they are only going to do a few streets….everyone is just going to go to the next block over making traffic even worse. its all or nothing.
Unless you’re delivering something large why drive into NYC, especially Manhattan, in the first place? The last few times I visited Manhattan I found a NJ Transit stop just over the river. Parking in the garage at the stop was only $5/day. Between that, NJ Transit tickets, a day pass for the NYC Metro, and a little in NJ Turnpike tolls I it came to $30 or so not including the cost of driving to the train stop.
jerseydevil:
Except there aren’t other options for people like my father, who works on the pumps and motors that heat and cool apartment buildings. So he’s usually in the city every day with his van, hauling pumps and motors back and forth from his shop in Queens. He already pays a ton for gas (as you might expect, vans don’t get the best MPG) and now he’s going to have to pay even more to get into the city ($105 a week if his van is classified as a truck!).
Honestly, if you’re going to have a congestion charge, charge the people who do have the option of taking the train or bus and not those who don’t. Leave commercial plates exempt from the charge and if people start abusing it (registering Merc SLKs as commercial vehicles) make more crossings open to non-commercial vehicles only.
agreed, but on one in their right mind would drive through manhatten to get to somewhere else, unless there was a gun to your head. I go around manhatten alot, you learn these things if u dont wanna grow old in traffic.
People like me, who live in Brooklyn, but work in Hoboken. While it may be easier in theory to just move to New Jersey, the truth is that I’ve tried that for a few years and I absolutely hated living out there. Between bad taxes, bad politicians, and an unusual amount of crime occuring in a ‘good’ neighborhood like I lived in, living out there to save a few bucks on gas and tolls just wasn’t worth it for me.
I hope NYC charges $50/day for their congestion fee. It’ll just drive more business out of Manhattan and into the Garden State/Conn./Philly.
Assuming of course His Lordship King Jon Corzine I’s plan for quadrupling tolls in NJ doesn’t drive all of our business out to Delaware/Md/Southland.
If they want to relieve congestion, have the cabbies switch to Toyota Prius or Corollas. We have Prius cabs here in Vancouver and they work great. There is enough room in them for 2/3 people, they sit silent when waiting at traffic lights, they can handle a decent amount of luggage (Hatchbacks, people, the way of the future) and it makes the fleet look ‘green’. One hardly sees Crown Vics anymore.
NYC has one of the best public transit systems in the world. Why would anyone need or want to take a car into the city? Quite stressful I would imagine.
Jersey Devil: agreed, but on one in their right mind would drive through manhatten to get to somewhere else, unless there was a gun to your head.
I must be daft then. When I drive from Boston to DC, I go from Westchester to the West Side Highway, and over the GW Bridge. And when I go from Mt. Vernon to Brooklyn, I generally go down the West Side Highway to the Battery Tunnel, and then around the Belt.
radimus:
“Unless you’re delivering something large why drive into NYC, especially Manhattan, in the first place? The last few times I visited Manhattan I found a NJ Transit stop just over the river. Parking in the garage at the stop was only $5/day.”
But the path stops running at 12:00, which doesn’t work out too good if you’re hitting the bars but don’t want to stay in the city overnight.
Asked about the congestion charge in London, one of my friends, just back from there said: “Yes the congestion charge seems to work very nicely, the traffic was very gentle and mostly cabs and buses.”
# David Holzman :
I must be daft then. When I drive from Boston to DC, I go from Westchester to the West Side Highway, and over the GW Bridge. And when I go from Mt. Vernon to Brooklyn, I generally go down the West Side Highway to the Battery Tunnel, and then around the Belt.
you really should try the tappan zee bridge
moraviapils :
Leave commercial plates exempt from the charge and if people start abusing it (registering Merc SLKs as commercial vehicles) make more crossings open to non-commercial vehicles only
good point. there needs to be an exemption or at least a lower price for commercial vehicles.
# SexCpotatoes :
I wonder how many protesting motorists it would take to shut down the city.
it’s statements like this that show how poorly people who don’t live in manhattan understand the situation. many of us would actually be happier if cars were banned on the island. driving is a privilege that has been sorely abused here.
the key to making the congestion tax work is mass transit. unfotunately, the upstate politicians and washington would rather subsidize highways and airports than mass transit. and don’t get me started on the subject of oil wars…
Jersey Devil: agreed, but on one in their right mind would drive through manhatten to get to somewhere else, unless there was a gun to your head.
Agreeing with David Hotzman- I live on Long Island and the best way for me to get to Seacaucus is the Midtown Tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel. BUT, if this pricing is going to allow me to fly through the city because of less traffic, I am in (within reason).
# Nopanegain : Agreeing with David Hotzman- I live on Long Island and the best way for me to get to Seacaucus is the Midtown Tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel. BUT, if this pricing is going to allow me to fly through the city because of less traffic, I am in (within reason).
yes, but you are causing traffic jams where i live. so, i would suggest that you either…
a) take mass transit lirr to njt
or
b) take the george washington bridge
granted, these are not great solutions. robt moses actually planned on building an elevated highway down 34th street to connect the midtown tunnel to the lincoln tunnel. fortunately, that never happened.
I call BS on everyone who argues that congestion pricing won’t work, is regressive, etc. First of all, go back to economics 101 – people respond to incentives. Second of all, the cost of parking is not a “tax” already in place – much of the congestion problem today is from people driving around looking for free/cheap street parking, so in addition to congestion pricing the city should eliminate free street parking and raise parking meter rates to be comparable to parking garages (i.e. $10/hr minimum, $20-30/hr in high-demand neighborhoods). Third of all, who is this plan supposedly “regressive” against? In New York city, even in the boroughs, poor people don’t commute to midtown Manhattan by car, and Manhattan workers who can afford to commute by car are not poor. Finally, have you driven the LIE at rush hour lately? You really think we all wouldn’t be better off in this city if a few more people rode public transit and a few less drove – solo, mostly – clogging up access to and from the airports?
The only two groups truly affected by congestion pricing are (1) city workers who use “official” permits to get away with parking illegally and thus cheaply (a perk Bloomberg is trying to do away with, much to their chagrin), and (2) New Jersey, Westchester, Long Island and Connecticut residents who for god-knows-what-reason would rather sit in standstill traffic alone doing nothing than sit on a train and read or work for no more time than it takes them to drive anyway. I would point out that Bloomberg is Mayor of New York City, not Governor of The Entire Tri-State Area. His responsibility is to New Yorkers, not commuters, and if commuters don’t like the plan they can get over it or move somewhere else.
Question: what’s wrong with traffic congestion?
If we accept that today’s cars are one hundred times cleaner than they were only twenty years ago, unless you’re a global warming fighter, who cares if people are stuck in traffic?
Since when did traffic jams become anyone’s problem other than the people who choose to get stuck in them? Since the pols realized there’s money in them thar jams?
My hometown of Providence decided to kill congestion in the downtown area (and compete with the out of town malls) by pedestrianizing the two central arteries running through the main shopping district and sticking the bus station right in the middle of what was once a proud city square.
Traffic was duly decimated. And the town DIED. Downtown Providence went from being a vibrant New England city to a literal ghost town populated by some of the scariest urban dwellers you’ll ever see outside of a post-apocalyptic zombie movie.
The streets are STILL pedestrianized and the town is STILL dead, some forty years later.
Be careful what you wish for.
There’s a giant leap from reducing congestion to eliminating vehicular traffic.
Donal :
There’s a giant leap from reducing congestion to eliminating vehicular traffic.
Not as great as you might imagine.
But again, to the main point: what’s wrong with congestion?
I reckon it’s a self-policing feedback loop kinda deal. If people don’t like it, they don’t drive in it. If they don’t like the alternatives, they move away from the congestion.
What’s wrong with that? OTHER than revenue raising, why should the government interfere?
And before you get started, I’m not buying that “congestion costs our economy $xb a minute.” So does alcohol abuse. It’s just part of the cost of doing biz. Period.
The government is interfering because people are asking it too.
People who sit in congestion gripe about it and want the government to do something because they don’t want to take personal responsibility for their own choice. They are sitting in traffic jams because they chose to live somewhere that requires them to sit in traffic jams. It’s easier to pass the problem off than actually do something about it.
And if the people of NYC are asking the city government to do something about congestion, then Bloomberg and company will be happy to obilge them.
RF: Obviously there are negative externalities associated with traffic congestion, particularly in New York City where rail access is actually or effectively nonexistent at 2 of the 3 airports. Besides inconveniencing travelers (a bigger deal than in many places, given NYC’s status as an international business hub) it reduces fire, ambulance and police response times. This in turn requires the city to, for example, maintain more firehouses than would otherwise be necessary on some of the most valuable real estate in the world – clearly not an effective use of taxpayer money/assets. In a city where very few people drive, it’s not just drivers who are inconvenienced by congestion, and people (especially non-residents) need to understand that.
The comparison to Providence isn’t really fair. Providence has never had a public transit infrastructure remotely comparable to New York City. It is a city where you almost must drive; New York is a city where few drive and where you’re generally better off not driving. The potential set of consequences from limiting auto access are completely different for the two cities.