Congestion Pricing

They really need to exclude commercial vehicles as a minimum from congestion charge. Cost of doing business in Manhattan is already very high. And there are people who needs to carry their tools with them. Somehow I think hearing are just sham if politicians have decided on congestion pricing already.

I may be in the minority here, but I support congestion pricing. There should be no exceptions, and the price should be high. Stockholm and London are both far better for having congestion pricing, and London's ULEZ helps keep the air clean there. It's much easier to walk in Central London, and they have been able to close large portions of the city to cars like Bank Junction and the Embankment such that busses are actually rather fast in parts of London.

Paris has also shut large swaths of the city to cars without ill effect and has banned older vehicles.

Yes, tradesmen need to carry tools and whatever, but they also can get around easier with less traffic.

And rich people just pay because whatever...

NYCDOT has known the actual solution to congestion for years (aside from "stop causing it on purpose").
https://ohdnyc.com/home

George, I get the efforts to reduce private cars as people can take subway, but restricting commercial deliveries increases already high cost and puts undue pressure on small businesses and construction industry. One place they can charge congestion pricing in my opinion is Ubers and Lyfts who are a major users of the roads. Yellow cabs have already paid via medallion.

I predict congestion pricing will end up being no more than having the same tolls roughly commensurate with the existing tolled bridges and tunnels on all entries into and out of Manhattan. Most of the people complaining about the cost merely reinforce its utility. Depending on the day/time, it costs between $10 and $20 to take the LIRR from Ronkonkama to Penn Station. Driving should never be a cheaper option, much less a free option. But the congestion pricing ought to be part of a 100% elimination of all free parking in Manhattan. I think the price of entry should be all be the same from every point of entry, 24/7/365.

Knowing NY politics, I expect a lot of special interests will get carve-outs, as taxi companies and low-income residents already have. That's bad. Your vehicle brings the same externalities to the Manhattan environment regardless how good your excuse is for entering. Pigouvian taxation 101.

The inevitable labyrinth of rules (and MTA staff to administer them, naturally) weakens the core idea while adding annoyance and overhead to even its beneficiaries. But it's still worth doing. Evidence from peer cities is overwhelmingly positive.

If I were a politician, I'd not only make the taxes flat (changing only by vehicle size, time of day, and, you know, congestion), I'd make the revenue fully refundable. Any New Yorker who brings less traffic into the CBD -- directly or indirectly -- would get more money in their pocket than before. That's how you build a broad base of support, as economists have long suggested for other painful-but-necessary Pigouvian taxes like carbon and freshwater.

Better ways for the MTA to fix their balance sheet include waste audits, streamlining their bidding process so they're not beholden to the tiny coterie of incumbent contractors, and imposing Japan-style value-capture taxes on land that benefits from their capital investments.

@nyc_sport - you are missing a minor fact re: LI driving
LI is the only suburb of NYC that can get into Manhattan without passing through a single toll.
Going to see family in NJ, Westchester or CT .. there's no way for me to drive round trip w/o racking up $10-20 in tolls. LI, zero. Agreed on "But the congestion pricing ought to be part of a 100% elimination of all free parking in Manhattan."

I am generally supportive of Congestion Pricing but worry that the easy part - tolling driving into Manhattan, will be implemented.. without the hard part - actually directing funds to transit projects which are cost managed properly. Very easy we just end up with more expensive car rides into Manhattan while transit continues to degrade in quality and frequency, with no new lines/services.

Traveling globally and coming back to NYC it was always weird realizing we have no concept of loading zones or taxi stands, and have so much free on-street parking. It's a gross misuse of our streets.
The patchwork of painted lines for bike lanes doesn't make it much better as it mixes with enough dangerous traffic to not be worth the risk to many.

Maybe Congestion Pricing will be the first in a series of hard unpopular decisions to actually make our streets usable.. followed by proper loading zones, free 24/7 curbside parking reduction, dedicated express bus lanes, widened sidewalks and hardened bike lanes. The combination can make the streets more usable for the majority of people, but its gonna take a long while to get there.. with lots of local pushback.

As someone who lives in Manhattan in a shoebox, and takes *plenty* of public transit at risk to my health (because, honestly, mask compliance on the subway is down to about 30%), I'd say that parking is not the place to start!

Uber and Lyft, sure. But if you cut down on available on-street parking (which is already scarce, honestly, because during the Pandemic everyone who had not previously had a car seemed to get one) then you're just making certain that cars -- which allow their owners a safe escape from the city on weekends -- are yet another middle-class good that is suddenly available ONLY to rich people.

Anyone who wants to talk about climate, of course feel free. Please include the number of airplane flights you've taken in the past year as part of your answer.

Love it, property owners with multiple homes explaining their middle-class struggles on escaping the city. My housekeeper:

- rents her home in NYC
- commutes to work on the subway
- goes to the beach in NYC

Just like me. As long as we’re wrapping ourselves in middle-class flags, that must make me more attuned to the struggles of the middle-class than the rest of youse.

The success of London's congestion pricing is more debatable than some would have everyone believe.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/11/how-london-got-rid-of-private-cars-and-grew-more-congested-than-ever

I own a car which lives in a garage in the proposed zone. I only use the car to leave the city on the weekends and return. I walk or take the subway or bus around NYC, and the car's impact on NYC traffic is pretty light (I leave late, come back late). But, I support congestion pricing. I also support 24/7 charges for street parking, and an aggressive reduction in the various permits given for special classes of drivers. *That* will cut down on car ownership & usage.

What I don't support is putting the income generated into the general MTA or city slush fund, rather than targeted programs.

Driving in the London congestion zone is a suburban type status symbol.

Fair point nada, but 1) I am still looking at very few sf/pp, even in toto, probably less than both you and, yes, even your housekeeper and 2) I wouldn't be surprised if my family's struggle to get health care/medical insurance is greater than either of those two situations, possibly by a lot.

Having lived in UWS for a while before BK, my observation on the "class" of people street parking for free included - professionals with less regular schedules, reverse commuters, business owners who controlled their own schedule, and those rich enough to own RE, have kids and own a car all on 1 salary so the spouse could do the alternate-side-parking dance.

So for me at least, it just seemed like another "tax" on idiots like me with a "9-5" job.. like having to ride the subways during rush hour peak, pay for garage parking, and take a day off to handle certain appointments/services that only operate during the 8-6 I am in my office..

"Going to see family in NJ, Westchester or CT .. there's no way for me to drive round trip w/o racking up $10-20 in tolls. LI, zero. " NJ, yes, but don't understand the inability to avoid tolls to Westchester or CT. There are a half-dozen free bridges to the Bronx on the east side and no need for a bridge on the west side or the avenues. Those from or traveling through Staten Island and NJ are the only people that can't get to Manhattan for free. But this is all beside the point. Whether coming from Westchester, CT, NJ, the boroughs, or the Upper West Side, using a car should be materially more expensive than LIRR, MetroNorth, NJT or the subway.

I also did not suggest to cut down on street parking, but it should not be free. If it wasn't free, it would be far more available and usable. This reiterates to congestion point. Free parking is part of the wrong incentive for driving into or around Manhattan. And, people should be discouraged from using cars to go from points within Manhattan. I would have thought that was self-evident. I have owned a car in Manhattan for 30+ years and I have probably used it less than a dozen times in 30 years for something other than leaving Manhattan. Even then, I can only recall doing so on a weekend to pick up furniture, appliances, etc. (B&H Photo had/has that very convenient pickup loading dock). But my upstairs neighbor, a doctor, drives to work and all over the place every day. There also is a Bentley SUV regularly taking up one of only 8 parking spaces on our entire block (thanks Citibike).

Taxi stands, yes. Commercial vehicles, loading zones, dedicated busways...yes yes. But (and this may be a one-man windmill tilt at this point) I'd put dumpsters ahead of all of the above. No other world city makes pedestrians dodge chest-high piles of trash and rats. We have the technology to fix this, and it's not particularly hard.

>> cars -- which allow their owners a safe escape from the city on weekends -- are yet another middle-class good that is suddenly available ONLY to rich people

I find it much more pleasant (and just as fast) to take commuter rail ~30min into NJ/Westchester and rent from there.

@Richard - 1000% yes on the dumpsters
its one of those things when you leave the city for a while & come back, especially in summer.. its just insane we pile bags of trash on the sidewalk several times per week for hours and hours at a time

Agreed, I don't think owning a car in Manhattan below 59th street has been "middle class" anytime in the last 30 years

Dumpsters would be great and garbage trucks wouldn’t have to make so many stops but it may mean that many sanitation workers aren’t needed and loss of parking space. Different departments as well DOT vs Sanitation. Perhaps that is why we haven’t seen any discussion of this.

Loading/unloading zones (charged commercial and free 5 minute residential), what a novel idea!!

But please keep the commercial entry free so that small businesses / restaurants can survive and cost of living doesn’t go up even further in Manhattan.

Random point to add to the argument:
The previous administration's joining the Congestion Pricing bandwagon oddly coincided with its push to sell off NYCHA parking lots to private developers (RAD program). Seemed a bit of a coincidence to make driving unaffordable at the same time they anticipated a fight over parking.

So, no one thinks there should be a discussion about Off Hours Delivery which is a provably better solution?

30, Off hours delivery (will mostly mean night ) is expensive. Big businesses like Whole Foods can manage but small businesses have limited employees and not all delivery people work at off hours schedule. In addition, night deliveries are really noisy as residents of 13th street behind Whole Foods will tell you.

You've seen an analysis that shows the costs are more than Congestion Pricing?

- What stands out in that report is incentives needed to the receivers (real $) vs benefit to road users (they wouldn't pay unless taxed further and such benefits are not really quantifiable)?
- Night noise cost? Didn't see it in my quick skimming of summary.
- Test is not done on construction industry.

https://ohdnyc.com/noise-management

"...night deliveries are really noisy..."

Well, no more so than daytime deliveries. It just happens that people are home at night, and there's fewer other city sounds.

My current annoyance (well, one of them), is the drivers (looking at you, commercial carters, and flatbed drivers) who won't shift gears, so you get lots of high RPM engine noise, coupled with speeding across rough streets, so all the loose parts rattle and clank. (stand at 59th & 3rd at 5:15am as they go tearing back to queens, for the full effect).

Aaron, Indeed. The day time ambient noise is much higher and you hear the delivery less. In addition, the tolerance for noise is higher when you are awake.

>> In addition, the tolerance for noise is higher when you are awake.

Really? My tolerance for noise is highest while I'm asleep. Once I am awoken, less so.

Nada, As an example, people wouldn't care if there is a garbage truck at mid-day as the ambient noise is fairly high. But there are many who will get woken up with garbage truck at night when the ambient noise is much lower than the day. Perhaps you sleep too soundly.

It was a joke — you don’t hear the noise when you sleep. You only hear it once it wakes you up.

And now that I’ve explained it, it’s no longer a joke…

Ha. I missed the "awoken".

Off-hours delivery is a fine idea...for some loads. Notably, it doesn't claim to *solve* the problem of unassisted deliveries. The study merely reports that business owners would love to take advantage of unassisted deliveries if the liability issues (read: overnight land use + shrinkage) were somehow solved for them. See conclusions on pg 245: https://ohdnyc.com/sites/default/files/business-admin-files/Home/ohd-final-report.pdf

Thankfully, sorting out which businesses are best suited for the OHD model doesn't need top-down regulatory steering. So long as the Congestion Tolls are set in rough accordance with the actual human costs imposed (or saved) via time shifting, large receivers (e.g. Whole Foods) and freight carriers will adjust their operations to match.

OHD certainly isn't a replacement for the Toll, seeing as trucks + light goods collectively account for just 13% of CBD traffic. Cool visualization on pg 17: https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/mobility-report-singlepage-2019.pdf

I suspect 2022 numbers skew even more heavily toward FHVs (bureaucrat term for Ubers) and nontraditional carriers (eg Amazon guys on cargo bikes) than traditional truck traffic.

But it's not simply the by the numbers of trucks. The sheer size of trucks contributes more to congestion and the even bigger problem to congestion in Midtown (which is supposedly what the actual issue is) as anyone who has spent time actually driving in Midtown knows on most crosstown streets it's double parked trucks/delivery vans/etc gumming up the works. Especially when vehicles need to "slalom" down streets through them double parked on both sides of block.

I will also add that the amount of "Congestion On Purpose" has skyrocketed so much since the 2010 study I think it mostly invalidates the dated results.

Great debate

And now they want to get rid of the BQE entirely. Goods will just magically appear at businesses or somehow make 100+ mile trips by cargo bike. This continues to go badly.

The Mayor is crying at how Midtown is already dying, treating who knows what to get workers to return. There couldn't possibly be a worse time to put further impediments up, yet NYC government continues to be captured by TransAlt.

Anyone else try going over the Williamsburg Bridge lately and been funneled onto Clinton St? Where up until recently was flight by vacant lots so the road could have been any size it needed to be? Yet is purposely a choke point and tremendous congestion even when the bridge is totally clear and practically vacant? Congestion on purpose, pollution on purpose, cyclist and pedestrians put in danger on purpose. But this is what we are seeing more of.