Some 80 percent of New Yorkers already travel by public transportation, but Mayor Bloomberg has promised increased subway service, faster bus routes and yes, congestion charges to push that percentage ever higher. In a dog-bites-man article, the NY Times observes that some New Yorkers remain fiercely loyal to their cars. Despite traffic jams, honking horns and urban road rage, drivers value the freedom to come and go as they choose: "It gets me closer to the job," says George Ballina, sitting in the car with his wife in Lower Manhattan. "From the train you have to walk. … it's an hour and 15 minutes with the train and about 18 minutes with the car. Big difference." Also not surprising is that drivers prefer to avoid dealing with other people — to have their own quiet space and amenities: "I really make my car comfortable," says Warren William of his touch-screen DVD with speakers lining the doors and trunk. "Every time I step in my car, I have my system, I have my music. I like it really nice and quiet. I like the peacefulness."
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I’m against congestion pricing. I live in Manhattan. I take the subway to work. I’d rather that all those drivers stay in their cars and out of the subway which is already far too crowded. Adding angry, displaced drivers to the mix is gonna get ugly fast.
Also the rush to judgement here is because some $348 million in Federal money will go away if we don’t implement congestion pricing by some arbitrary deadline. If the past is any guide, the MTA can make $348 million evaporate in one little “oops, we made a mistake in our budget” moment.
Nobody is telling those people they can’t drive, they just have to pay a little more for it. In NYC, this charge isn’t all that much money.
$350 million is nothing in a new york budget. Bloomberg was on ny1 this morning saying “you will see an improvement in public transportation immediately if this gets passed”. Well cough cough bullshit!
@Buick61 – there are many people who don’t have access to subways in the outer boroughs who drive to work in manhattan every day. Plenty of them just make enough to pay their bills every month, so what do you know?
And when they don’t give up their cars, what’s next? A congestion charge of $16?
Mayor Bloomberg’s promise of increased subway service is an empty one. He made this promise before to justify upping subway fares, and when the MTA failed to deliver, he blamed it on lost revenue from the declining real estate market.
The real reason Bloomberg wants this plan is because he can hand his business friends those fat contracts to build the system of thousands of cameras that will enforce the plan.
And another thing, the proposed congestion charge for trucks will force more deliveries into the evening hours. Oh, joy. There just isn’t enough noise outside my window every night as it is.
While we’re at it, let’s do the math. Say that the congestion charge is 100% effective. That means no revenue. And lots more people riding mass transit. Since the MTA fare is already subsidized, that means even bigger MTA deficits which means more taxes. But, hey, we’ll have fewer cars in lower Manhattan so we all win, right?
I know that it won’t be 100% effective. But there is a point where this plan becomes revenue-negative and therefore costs money. I’m guessing that if you reduce the number of cars by less than half, you reach that point.
People love their cars??
DUH.
NYC is sounding almost as crazy as London. But, hey, if Europe does it, it must be a great idea, yeah?
It’s not crazy at all. Not that it should be a surprise at this site, but you’re all drinking the pro-car Kool Aid.
What is crazy is that Manhattan is only 14 miles long and filled with over 5 million people every weekday.
Every anti-congestion pricing advocate conveniently forgets that 95% of New Yorkers who commute to Manhattan use mass transit already. The other 5% clog the streets. Delivery trucks can’t get through. Pedestrians and bikers fight for space. Tempers flare.
The majority of those 5% who drive into Manhattan are high income enough to afford the extra $8 a day. Once you drive in, where do you park without paying $20-plus a day? That’s why lower income people are mostly unaffected by this, and saying otherwise is crap.
People who provide vital services like police, fire, hospital workers yet live outside NYC usually commute by car during off hours. Those that do go in during the day hours will get some breaks — their unions will demand and get it. And if they live within mass transit, why the hell do they need their cars in Manhattan? That sense of entitlement just doesn’t wash anymore in a business district overrunning with private cars.
Another 1.5 million people will move to NYC by 2030. What are we going to do? Keep building more parking lots?What the outer boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island need are better buses, subways and trains. How are we going to pay for that?
Dependence on the auto is still going to exist here in NYC. No eco-greenie, anti-car weenie with any sense of realism believes that will change substantially. Car ownership is as aspirational in NYC as anywhere else. But the reality is that most people in NYC can’t afford or find space to park cars. The difference here — unlike the Midwest, South or most suburban-based metropolitan areas — is that a transportation policy that favors the auto just doesn’t work in Manhattan.
I’m not saying congestion pricing is perfect — it hardly is. But I don’t see any decent alternatives. Come up with a better plan to reduce private car congestion in Manhattan’s business districts, and the politicians will listen. No one has yet.
In the meantime, letting that Federal money expire is just gutless pandering by politicians. Keeping the status quo for private autos in Manhattan is unacceptable in this day and age.
amen to bomberpete! all you have to do in my neighborhood is look at canal street to see how out of hand commuter traffic has gotten here. it’s bumper to bumper all day long from the manhattan bridge (brooklyn) to the holland tunnel (nj). the primary reason is because tractor trailer trucks choose to go through manhattan to travel between jersey and long island. is it to save time? no, it’s generally faster to take the interstate across staten island. the reason is that they are trying to avoid the tolls on the veranzano-narrows bridge.
another example, city buses are for all practical purposes unusable during business hours because not only is traffic congested but cars are double and triple parked in the bus and bike lanes. you can frequently get to your destination faster by walking. i could go on and on…
my family has to cross these streets. we have to breathe the air. if it’s not worth it to you to pay the congestion fees and tolls, take mass transit. if it’s not worth it to you to take mass transit, then stay home.
Right sentiment but wrong so-called “solution”. The bumper-to-bumper traffic alone is enough to prevent people from driving unless they absolutely have to. I will not drive in midtown during the week for any reason whatsoever. I take the train because of the traffic, not the price. I too would like to see traffic reduced, however I don’t see congestion pricing reducing it. It will just be a new burden on people who have to drive, but they will still have to.
Don’t forget the MTA was running a budget surplus this year and they magically “disappeared” it. They have to be forced to build improvements, and that should’ve been done already. They don’t need more money, they need to be made to use the money they already have for improvements, by us, using our votes for politicians who will push them.
If you live here you also realize that the subway system is at capacity. How do you expect the subway to handle more people if congestion pricing actually works? It’s insane to pass this without having a second ave. subway up and running.
Not to mention you want to add a tax to people at the start of a recession? At the same time discourage shopping during the week? Think about the economics, and hidden costs that will hit everyone. Like I said, I’m all for traffic reduction, this is just a bad plan. No plan is better than a stupid one that hurts everyone. Think about your lovely subway ride to work with a hundred thousand extra people crammed in. Bleah!!!
Look, no one wants to face the real problem which is that without a very big chunk of money applied to infrastructure in the form of new mass transit lines, there is no magic solution. And that, dear fellow New Yorkers, will cost a lot of tax dollars.
So we have congestion pricing instead. Will it affect the high-rollers? Yes. They will have fewer Camrys conpeting with their BMWs for space in the Holland Tunnel. Will it affect said Camry owner? Yes. He/She will be stuffed even further into crowded LIRR, NJT and MetroNorth trains. And, again, every new mass transit commuter costs the MTA more than a dollar per ride beyond the fare.
Look, I’d love to keep the car commuters out of Manhattan as much as the next person. But there are very real sacrifices being asked of people who can’t really afford it. On top of that, those for whom the fee is inconsequential get to have a better experience.
It’s a half-assed plan. It’s cowardly because it sidesteps the real issue which is massive investment in public transit. It’s a money grab because we New Yorkers know that the MTA can’t be trusted to do an honest budget.
It’s amazing how many of you miss the point: the congestion charge will make the BUSES RUN BETTER.
Yes, and making buses run better is really what’s needed. The M23 “pokey” bus takes over 30 minutes to go from its East Side start point to Seventh Avenue. It’s ridiculous. Walking is faster, but that’s no good for the disabled, the elderly or in the heavy rain. And that’s all because of too many vehicles that aren’t needed on the streets. As for the crowded trains, buses and subways — we’ll get more of them. That’s what the plan budgets for. The Feds earmarked that money. They aren’t going to let the MTA B.S. around with this the way NYC and the state legislature have.
amen to bomberpete! all you have to do in my neighborhood is look at canal street to see how out of hand commuter traffic has gotten here. it’s bumper to bumper all day long from the manhattan bridge (brooklyn) to the holland tunnel (nj). the primary reason is because tractor trailer trucks choose to go through manhattan to travel between jersey and long island. is it to save time? no, it’s generally faster to take the interstate across staten island. the reason is that they are trying to avoid the tolls on the veranzano-narrows bridge.
Trucks aren’t allowed to use the Holland Tunnel and haven’t been able to do so since 9/11.
another example, city buses are for all practical purposes unusable during business hours because not only is traffic congested but cars are double and triple parked in the bus and bike lanes. you can frequently get to your destination faster by walking. i could go on and on…
That sounds more like a parking issue, not congestion one. If the city stepped up enforcement and towing like they do during the holiday season, this wouldn’t be an issue.
my family has to cross these streets. we have to breathe the air. if it’s not worth it to you to pay the congestion fees and tolls, take mass transit. if it’s not worth it to you to take mass transit, then stay home.
So do people in the outer boroughs, and all this plan does is push your pollution problems off to them. Should your health and safety come at their expense?
They aren’t going to let the MTA B.S. around with this the way NYC and the state legislature have.
Yeah, and Spitzer was going to finally fix the problem in Albany. Sorry, I don’t buy it.
Here’s a better suggestion for cross-town buses: Apply a more limited form of the plan and restrict non-bus traffic on 14th, 23rd, etc.
I kinda like the argument that this is just a rich guy making it harder for everyone except the other rich people to use the streets. The real beauty of this regressive scheme is that the rich won’t have to pay much more for it than anyone else does. The cost of everything delivered is likely to be raised on everyone in the city, even those who ride the subway now.
Once again, the greens and socialists are at odds over their stated ideologies, yet, they are in agreement on policy. Could it be what they really want is simply power? No, of course not, they have “good intentions”.
This article makes some interesting points:
http://www.fee.org/PUBLICATIONS/THE-FREEMAN/article.asp?aid=8226
“Congestion pricing will destroy the remnants of freedom and privacy, fundamentally alter commuting, hinder commerce, waste enormous sums of money on its cameras while transferring even more money from drivers to the state—all for single-digit reductions in Manhattan’s traffic. The city’s “administration expects congestion pricing to decrease vehicles entering Manhattan by 6% and increase speeds within the charging zone by 7%. In other words, the traffic improvement in Manhattan would be modest.” This from the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank and one of congestion pricing’s biggest cheerleaders. ”
and this is backed up by The Village Voice of all places!
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0803,rayman,78871,2.html
Their recent poll showed that a 57% majority of new yorkers oppose congestion pricing.
And that’s why I live & work in Jersey.
(Until His Lordship, the Most Exalted and Supreme King Corzine decides to make Jersey mirror NYC, forcing me to move to Pennsyltucky)
I can’t help thinking it will take an awful lot of congestion charge to get those people still in their cars out. I like to say that “you’d have to pry my cold, dead hands off the wheel,” but when I visit Manhattan, if I’m going downtown, I do’nt take the car. The parking is dreadful. Makes Boston look easy. And Boston makes Wash. DC look easy. The people who can afford the parking garages can easily afford the congestion charge. If I had money to burn on parking garages, I might still drive in Manhattan, although I love walking there when I have the time to go the distance.
While I agree that Bloomberg’s plan is ridiculous, it only encourages more motoring by blouse-wearing poodle-walkers at the expense of slobs from Wrong Island and Joisey, the fact is that motoring, as we know it, will soon be coming to an end. In a world of ever expanding population and decreasing resources, driving a motorized sofa 70 miles one way to work will no longer be a viable transportation paradigm. As fuel and other commodities increase in price, people will have no choice but to move back to coastal cities and the first ring suburbs. Where will all the cars fit? They won’t, that’s the fact. NYC needs to ban private motor cars from most of Manhattan during working hours. They also need to go back to the future with trolleys, now called “light rail”.
skor, you’re right. I’m going to get Dick Van Dyke on the phone right now.
I’m thinking that what we need are ‘bullet trolleys’…. and if that doesn’t work the cataplut will do just fine.
Just imagine it now. “Can you get me to 23rd and 6th?” THWONG!!!
The best thing NYC can do for Lawn Guyland, Joisey, and the surrounding communities is enact this tax. At a tone of an extra $2k per worker (on top of what they already charge) and longer/crappier commutes, it won’t take long for many companies to consider greener pastures.
@ Steve Lang,
There ain’t gonna be any “greener pastures”. The cost of fuel is going to make it impossible to locate business out in the sticks, except for business that actually need to be in the sticks — farming, logging, mining, etc.
Like it or not, our future is going to look a lot more like pre-WWII America. The postwar party of cheap fuel and zero global competition is over.
skor,
If the fuel situation gets that bad, how will you get the food from the farm to the big cities? Maybe things will work the other way round, and people will all have to move out of the biggest cities and into many medium size cities.
My crystal ball must be a lot foggier than yours.
postjosh: my family has to cross these streets. we have to breathe the air. if it’s not worth it to you to pay the congestion fees and tolls, take mass transit. if it’s not worth it to you to take mass transit, then stay home.
I’m glad to be living in the rural south for these reasons. Yes there are some drawbacks but we have a comfortable life and a reasonable income. I did the big, big city thing for six years. Neat for a while but too many things I want to do that can’t be done in a city.
Maybe NYC would be a good candidate for fleets of scooters and bicycles a/a Paris… Electric scooters of course. Lived in Italy where thousands of 2 cycle scooters are everywhere in downtown areas and they stink.