Manhattan congestion

Yes, prices might increase: People will move to Manhattan to avoid commuting in and paying the fees. Prices of all units (co-op, condo, rental) will increase by an amount that represents the value of the amount of congestion pricing that drivers would consume over their tenancy. But the number of units with increases (i.e., those sold to those who will change their driving/living situation) will be tiny.

Certain prices might decrease: With fewer car owners willing to pay congestion fees (and thus they will take public transportation), units that include some aspect of parking (e.g., deeded, cheap parking option, etc.) will decrease in value because fewer people want those features.

Certain prices might increase: Units outside of the congestion zone will increase in value, since one can enter/exit Manhattan for less cost than units in the zone. But the number of units with increases is limited to the population of buyers with cars who regularly leave NYC. This will be offset by the increase in rates for garages outside the zone.

No: People who own a car and live in Manhattan are relatively price-insensitive to the effect of congestion pricing in general -- they're well off, and car ownership in NYC is somewhat of a luxury item.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

People who live in Staten Island and other neighborhoods that are poorly served by public transport will be harder hit than those living in midtown in my opinion.

Some businesses will close because less people will come to Manhattan. The concept that non-commuters who drive in currently will switch to public transportation is a TransAlt pipe dream. And depending on how for hire vehicles end up being treated a lot of people who take them into the zone will just go elsewhere. They've already shown that if they aren't driving themselves they still aren't going to take public transportation. And these days the cultural need to come to Manhattan from Brooklyn, Queens, etc is greatly diminished.

Also, there is a good chance common charges will increase because providers of goods and services will raise there prices in the zone.

I don't think they are ramping up chagrined on for-hire vehicles nearly enough and the roads will remain filled curb to curb with Ubers, just as they are today.

I am not supporting congestion charge, but could some good come from it as well? Walked by 2nd ave today, it was a parking lot. Maybe if providers can get around more quickly, it would counterbalance the new charge?

In London, the congestion zone and ULEZ did little to reduce home prices; if anything prices continued to rise. Stockholm has always been a tight real estate market. Paris's socialist-led crackdown on cars seems to have done little to cool a hot market there. All of these cities have far better suburban public transit than NY.

In NY, the expectations of the learned economists is that prices inside the zone will rise 3% due to less congestion.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/congestion-pricing-could-give-lift-to-some-home-values-11556719681

Personally I question how effective the tolls will be bc it will create a huge incentive to mess with license plates - use fake paper tags, expired out of state tags bought off eBay, plastic covers, chipping off bits of paint, covering with tape, etc. Already 7% of license plates on bridges and tunnels are unreadable. Expect that to go way up when the tolls hit. Europe doesn't have this problem bc their license plates are better designed, are mandatory front and rear, and aren't advertisements for local tourism.

Interesting, do the toll readers read the front or back plate? I would guess back but I recently went through a series of tolls in Maryland, NJ, NY including NYC with Florida plates (no front plate) and was expecting toll bills in the mail bur when I checked online with my FL plate #, nothing came up (and my FL plate is totally readable, I think)

I'm sure the readers try to get either plate they can.

The problem, as anyone who has been on top of wtf has been going on in the boros like BK since COVID, and recently covered in the press is essentially rampant plate fraud.

There's out of state paper plate temp tag mills (NJ&GA) / people with purposely defaced tags (corners / scraping paint, taping leaves, scrambling letters) and other forms of fraud.

It's not really being enforced because the cops are some of the people doing it on their private cars.
It also tends to be happening in neighborhoods with a history of conflict with police, so it becomes yet another "broken window" type thing not being enforced. This is of course a problem since now you have "ghost cars" that can be used for committing crimes / running up parking&redlight&speeding tickets / evading tolls / etc.

Unless they do a serious crackdown, it will be yet another joke re: congestion pricing.

https://www.streetsblogprojects.org/ghost-tags-index

Note the chart of defaced/temp/unreadable plates being sub-1% pre-COVID and now 7+% ..
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/02/13/data-unreadable-plates-soared-last-year-foiling-speed-and-red-light-cameras
Good visualization of what happens to compliance with laws that are not enforced.

I'm surprised (but becoming less so), at the number of cars I see zipping through the GWB tolls and generally around town without readable license plates -- no plates on the front, dark plastic covers on the back, lots of paint removed, etc. These are easy stops for cops to make (along the lines of burned out bulbs) and a publicized enforcement action might help cut down on the problem, but NYC cops seem reluctant to make such stops. (In upstate NY, they love the stop for burned out lights).

Separately, we're already seeing lobbying for lots of categories of exemptions for congestion tolls (police, fire, social workers, nurses, teachers, etc.) I expect you'll soon be able to get your exemption certificate from the same person who gives you the ESA certification.

@aaron
> I expect you'll soon be able to get your exemption certificate from the same person who gives you the ESA certification.

Exactly
Like many things in NY only the chumps in the middle will comply
Between flagrant noncompliance and high end malicious compliance / legal evasion it’s just the chumps who end up following the late

"I am not supporting congestion charge, but could some good come from it as well? Walked by 2nd ave today, it was a parking lot. Maybe if providers can get around more quickly, it would counterbalance the new charge?"

The Congestion On Purpose mandates of the last 30 years are working. 3rd Avenue is next. There may be no better example of Congestion On Purpose than 8th Avenue North of 42nd Street. Look at the live cam footage any hour of the day and see wasted space
https://pig.observer/nyc/#420

Congestion Pricing can't possibly fix congestion when more Congestion is being caused daily. The NYCDOT knows a great way to lessen congestion. There's a whole website
https://ohdnyc.com/home#:~:text=The%20off%2Dhour%20delivery%20program,volumes%20and%20limited%20curb%20space.

They even have politicians repeating the ridiculous slogan "we need to cause congestion to fight congestion."

"I am not supporting congestion charge, but could some good come from it as well? Walked by 2nd ave today, it was a parking lot. Maybe if providers can get around more quickly, it would counterbalance the new charge?"

The Congestion On Purpose mandates of the last 30 years are working. 3rd Avenue is next. There may be no better example of Congestion On Purpose than 8th Avenue North of 42nd Street. Look at the live cam footage any hour of the day and see wasted space
https://pig.observer/nyc/#420

Congestion Pricing can't possibly fix congestion when more Congestion is being caused daily. The NYCDOT knows a great way to lessen congestion. There's a whole website
https://ohdnyc.com/home#:~:text=The%20off%2Dhour%20delivery%20program,volumes%20and%20limited%20curb%20space.

They even have politicians repeating the ridiculous slogan "we need to cause congestion to fight congestion."

Does't the problem of congestion self-regulate to some extent?: the more inconvenient it becomes to travel by car in NYC the more people will use public transportation. Do nothing and then improve public transportation with receipts provided by increased ridership.

Doesn't that oversimplify things? How about those who just stop going to the location? Or leave the city because life becomes too difficult?

As Yogi said:
"No one goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

And please tell us more about this public transportation system which throws off excess revenue. Based on your thesis why would anyone ever need Congestion Pricing? (Not that I think we need it now, what we need is to reverse the Congestion On Purpose).

It's true, people might just move away. For a certain kind of person NYC's high density is a plus. There's nothing particularly nice about congested roads but where you have lots of people living in tall buildings it's a given.

And yes, I know the mass tranist system is a mess. I've been hearding about how it's on the verge of total collapse since the late 70's and it's just a lot of duct tape holding it together. I guess I just don't understand why more people aren't taking it and why it can't seem to generate the kind of revenue and funding it needs. They must have gotten a slice of Biden's infrastructure package

After train daddy quit the interim president Sarah Feinberg admitted she really didn't know what the workers did all day.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nyc-transit-president-metro-system-pays-people-who-dont-work

The MTA spends an order of magnitude higher per mile of subway
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-23/in-nyc-subway-a-case-study-in-runaway-transit-construction-costs

Subway ridership is still down 25% since pre-pandemic.

The concept that the MTA is suddenly going to "turn things around" is ludicrous.

The amount of congestion we currently have is not "a given." It's being caused on purpose. I've driven in NYC for close to half a century. And all the places where Congestion On Purpose measures have been taken are tremendously more congested than they have ever been. And the population hasn't grown much (10%?). And the advocates flat out lie about it (like the claim that after the 14th St bus lane no increase in traffic on surrounding streets. But I've posted videos of the intersection of 13th St and University Pl and it's clear what's going on).

> And all the places where Congestion On Purpose measures have been taken are tremendously more congested than they have ever been.

Sounds like you're measuring the average speed of cars who still attempt their old routes, a metric that misses the point. If a street redesign brings the average speed from say 12mph to 10mph, you'd call that "more congestion" -- even if it simultaneously cut the # of affected drivers in half i.e. reducing the total person-minutes of inconvenience by 40%. And that's before considering all the positive externalities: less pollution, fewer crash injuries, wider sidewalks & plazas, speeding up buses from 5mph to 8mph, etc etc.

I do expect that the congestion charge will raise average car speeds, btw. With street redesigns, the behavioral cues (e.g. narrower lanes) that cause slowdowns are instinctive, only experienced in-the-moment; a mere increase in the *probability* of hitting slowdowns isn't enough to change people's long-term habits re destination or route let alone mode-share. However, knowing up front that your vehicular roundtrip into the zone will cost $45 is a much stronger disincentive, with proven results in peer cities.

> Also, there is a good chance common charges will increase because providers of goods and services will raise there prices in the zone.

Goods & services are a small part of a typical building's budget, but yes, they will go up. The effect on residents' personal COL will be more noticeable. I'm not sure how much the average Manhattan buyer is already dissuaded by having to shop at Gristedes instead of Patel's Cash & Carry, or pay a $300/hr plumber instead of "I know a guy" -- but to the extent those sorts of daily grievances are factors, they will continue to diverge inside the zone. Which is only fair. Ferrying all my crap onto my neighborhood's tiny streets has a much higher impact on my neighbors than if I lived on some cul-de-sac.

I heard on the news that ubers/taxis will only be charged once per day for entering the congestion zone.
From there they will be able to enter/exit without re-paying within the same day.

This seems to completely miss the point and mean we will not be deterring one of the biggest sources of congestion. Nor will however they pass it along to riders on a per-ride basis going to deter riders (what $23/day divided by all the rides 30+ riders so.. sub-$1?).

RichardBerg,
And if my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bicycle. The problem is that your "ifs" are totally non-fact based Transportation Alternatives talking points.

steve123,
Exactly. So the the single greatest contributor to Congestion is effectively exempted from this regressive tax. Sounds "fair" to me. Also the single biggest contributor to lobbyist Transportation Alternatives.

Yeah I'm a bit with 30 on some of this stuff.
Living in N BK, it seems no matter how many lanes are given up to concrete barrier protected bike lanes.. cyclists are more than happy to keep using the other narrow street 1 block over, intermixed with cars, going the wrong way, and then being very indignant that the cars want to drive there too.

It always seemed to me we should go for bike lane quality (protected, 2 way, linked to other protected, 2 way so that you can freely move N/S/E/W within protected lanes) than quantity (sketchy painted lanes / shared zones / etc on every single block). But I'm not a transit activist so what do I know.

To me just from a "do I value my own life" and "do I trust other random people to value my life" basis, I do not get it. But then again, thats why I don't bike in the city anyway.

My favorite COVID moment was seeing how many of these wrong way, non-bike-lane cyclists were going around helmet-less as well, but wearing a N95 on their bike, lol. People are bad risk managers.

Tell me about this intersection
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtdmCYUAEVm/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cj8pLuEgHgC/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

What do you mean "ifs"? When it comes to 14th St in particular, we have hard data: https://www.samschwartz.com/14th-st-busway

> Tell me about this intersection

I only watched the first 10sec (I hate how Instagram doesn't have a progress bar to indicate length) but from what I can tell, you're in a car. I.e. you're not being subjected to traffic; you ARE traffic.

> I heard on the news that ubers/taxis will only be charged once per day for entering the congestion zone.

Wow, that would be an own-goal of epic proportions. Up there with spending $10B rebuilding Penn Station only to have it remain a terminus (no regional thru-running) with zero housing.

LOL yeah, once-a-day and they are demanding to be exempt from it -

https://pix11.com/news/local-news/nyc-cab-drivers-frustrated-over-mta-congestion-pricing-plan/
https://ny1.com/nyc/manhattan/transit/2023/06/28/taxi-drivers-bracing-for-second-congestion-fee-as-industry-struggles

Congestion fee proponents assume the city is capable of competently implementing it & spending the money competently on transit. All available data would indicate otherwise.

Don't forget toll data has shown post-COVID evasion via defaced/fake/obscured plates is at 7% vs 0.5% pre-2020. And we're gonna enforce this all with simple cameras on avenues/bridges/tunnels entering the zone? Hahaha. Some blocks in N BK, half the cars have out of state plates of dubious provenance. Just wait until the E River bridges stop being free.

If you drive without valid tags/insurance in the UK, they'll crush your car. Seriously: they seize hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year, and end up crushing about half of them upon nonpayment of hefty fines.

Where are the mobbed-up government enforcers when you need them? (probably selling paper tags out of their own back office, sadly...)

The UK sounds nice.

They're expanding their congestion zone.

"What do you mean "ifs"? When it comes to 14th St in particular, we have hard data: https://www.samschwartz.com/14th-st-busway"

If you don't mind that it's fake.

And you weren't talking about 14th St either

As expected, all of the snowflake special interest groups are weighing in:

"The agency has received requests for toll-free access to Manhattan from 122 interest groups, including artists, farmers, judges, musicians, retired N.Y.P.D. detectives, people of color, residents of Brooklyn, residents of Manhattan making less than $147,500 a year, residents of the Manhattan condo building Waterside Plaza and drivers of hearses, trucks and motorcycles.

Not to be outdone, New Yorkers also submitted requests for 55 groups that should under no circumstances be granted exemptions from the toll, including bicyclists, sightseeing buses, taxis, police officers and residents of New Jersey."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/02/opinion/were-taking-new-york-citys-streets-back-and-then-were-coming-for-the-rest-of-the-country.html

To my point. Only chumps like me are going to actually end up paying the toll.

These people who rail against "free storage for cars," yet the biggest WASTE of road space is hundreds of miles of totally underutilized bike lanes and empty "open" streets.

There is resistance from the city for exemptions as the argument stands that these exemptions will only increase the base price for others.

Except that it appears the commercial enterprise which is not only the biggest contributor to increased congestion AND provides funding to the lobbyist group pushing Congestion Pricing is going to get the only and HUGE exemption. What does that tell you?

Who is the group you’re referring to? (I don’t track this very closely, and no pronouncements have come out yet.)

And, speaking of exemptions, perhaps the NYS Senate should get around to passing Assembly Bill A410. (eliminates the Manhattan Resident Parking Tax exemption). Wonder how much additional that would bring in a year? (plus getting rid of the bureaucracy that currently exists to support it).

inonada,
Mark Gorton, Lyft, Transportation Alternatives

@nada - for-hire vehicles are basically exempt (only pay once per day) which is insane

Got it, thanks to both of you clarifying.

Is the once-per-day in addition to the per-ride congestion fee, or in place of?

In addition. But $23/day is what, like $2/hour of uber driving. Typically they get 2 fares per hour.
So we are talking about $1 per rider?

And they are fighting to be exempt even from this $23/day (or essentially $1/ride) fee.

Plus the existing $2.50-2.75/ride "congestion fee" is an order of magnitude lower than the $23 we are going to charge people driving themselves.

I thought the purpose of this was to put a fee to tax the cost of entering the densest part of the city & reduce people using cars for trips that could be done by train/subway/bus.

So it doesn't really make sense to me to tax self-drivers $23/entry and uber rider ~$3/entry. Especially when more people commute into the congestion zone by uber/lyft/taxi than drive themselves in.

It basically proves that this isn't an anticongestion issue at all

It's a "you will own nothing and be happy" issue

Like when Papa Elon sells you a car but you have to rent the functionality you really want.

Aaron2,
It's kind of tough to reconcile the "only 22% of Manhattan households own cars!" rhetoric with "imagine how much money we'd save if we cancelled the exemption!" with "Free car storage!"

But I'm guessing the value of all the exemptions put together is less than $20 million per year. Certainly not nothing, but in terms of this discussion more like a rounding error.

And I'll reiterate (from spending the long weekend in Manhattan) that I don't see how anyone who is really going around in the congestion zone doesn't seem that the congestion we are seeing isn't caused on purpose by constricting road use for those who are actually utilizing it in favor of "if we make space for alternative uses" but really "cars are evil, let's get 'em" which in actuality is increasing pollution, aggression, danger, time wasting, and really more societal ills in favor of what an extreme minority of mostly upper class, young, white bike bros want to foist upon the society.

I feel the need to point out the total resistance to registration, helmet laws, traffic enforcement, etc because "it will make less people want to join our religion" is a ridiculously weak argument.

@30: Yes, all the rhetoric doesn't really add up or work out. The idea of carveouts or fee reductions for 'for hire' cars is ridiculous, and only furthers the 'rules for thee and not for me' ethos that has become pretty pervasive in much of NYC (and elsewhere, but this is a thread about NYC problems).

To play devil’s advocate, ubers and cabs create traffic and pollution, but at least they do not take up parking spaces. So in some ways, they are a lesser evil.

It sucks that they would charge downtown/midtown residents for things like going to Costco/Ikea, or to Lenox hill hospital to give birth and bring a baby home. Or people from NYC areas not well served by public transport who want to go to Met Opera or need to see a doctor at MSKCC.

How many people reside inside the congestion zone?

How much pollution do parked cars emit? This "parked cars are evil" delusion is harmful. Congestion On Purpose is the evil. It causes not only pollution, but increased aggression which leads to casualties. It also is responsible for increased response times for ambulance, police, fire, etc. In addition huge increases in wasted person-hours costing billions $ per year. Parked cars are a necessity. Especially for small businesses. Walk down 14th St and ask every business owner how they are doing compared to pre-bussway. Go to any area where parking has been restricted and ask small businesses how they are doing. Ask the owner of. Ben's Best Deli (open for 73 years) why he closed.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/ny-metro-bens-best-deli-closing-20180608-story.html

3/4 of a million.

https://twitter.com/DavidLreb/status/1699143498568552485?t=yP92QhrWrw9fcEF_gWKA0g&s=19

And why are parked cars evil and not parked bicycles? The only answer is your religion.

Breaking news!
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/woman-critically-injured-after-struck-by-bicyclist-in-manhattan-police/4651230/

@Krolik - they should decide what they are trying to solve.
If parking is the evil, then tax it & remove more on-street parking (or meter it appropriately).

If congestion & pollution is the evil (as claimed) we are trying to reduce, then ubers&cabs are far worse!

Private drivers enters zone, parks, stays 2-8 hours, exits.
Uber/cab are running their engine 100% of the time, causing congestion & traffic 100% of their time "in the zone". By compare, a private vehicle may only be a cause of congestion & traffic for ~25% of their time "in the zone" depending on their parking duration.

Perversely, we are going to tax/toll the lower-% users higher at $23 per entry while we tax uber/cab only $23/day.

So Ubers/cabs can enter & exit the zone say 10x in a day, causing congestion 100% of that time, while only paying $23.

Ubers will get to pollute/congest ~40x as much per toll dollar paid. (10x entries, 4x pollution per entry as they are generally fully "on the go").

Cities with serious congestion pricing efforts even toll differently by weight/size/emissions and incentivize people to have little EV city cars, for example.

For over 3 decades the lobbyist group Transportation Alternatives has pushed Congestion On Purpose. They have essentially captured NYCDOT and more than a handful of NYC politicians who have now parroted the nonsense "we need to cause congestion to solve congestion."

So the solution to congestion is pretty clear:
Just stop causing it on purpose and reverse Congestion On Purpose measures. The NYCDOT even has a website dedicated to what they know the real solution is (and yes I'm reposting it)
https://ohdnyc.com/home

Krolik,
How many times a year do you use any type of for hire cars? Shouldn't you be boycotting those if cars are evil? Or do you really believe that cars are only evil when they are parked? Perhaps someone can start a service where instead of parking car owners can hire someone to continuously drive their cars around while they aren't using them to eliminate the true evil of parking? That would be a significant improvement, right?

@30 - obvious sarcasm, but that was one of the arguments I saw from the self-driving car weirdos ~5-10 years back, lol.. not even kidding.

"Your car will go drive itself back home while you work"

Like creating 2x the traffic&pollution with empty cars driving themselves around is better than taking up a parking spot..

It's pretty clear designated off hours deliveries, loading zones, + probably some Tokyo style proper limited pickup/dropoff taxi stand zones is the way to go rather than our current free for all solution.

Is the $23 atop bridge/tunnel tolls?

@nada - asof end of June that was still TBD, probably yes.. which is why NJ is throwing a fit

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/28/nyregion/congestion-pricing-nyc.html
"Other allowances may be considered for vehicles that have already paid tolls that same day on bridges and tunnels."

Seems like NY-NJ are not cooperating on this, so NJ is suing because they assume (likely correctly) that this is a fee on top of existing tolling.

The usuals are arguing that you have to double-toll NJ otherwise, something something - https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/08/18/congestion-pricing-credits-help-new-jersey-drivers-over-new-yorkers#

I think this is going to all be pretty hilarious no matter what happens.

One thing I don't see accounted for:
Let's say it's successful in reducing the number of cars coming in. Where do they count the reduction in tolls revenue?

steve123,
Something I've seen a bunch of on social media lately is where these groups have been successful at elimination of places for trucks to offload various things to residential/business and now the 'gotcha' photos when they park wherever they can. What was the expectation?

I'm sure I've posted this but an amazing example of NYCDOT incompetence is Clinton St going North of Grand. The entire area was NYC owned vacant lots so anything could have been done. But they sold to developers specifically to build large rental buildings, then made it so there is no place for any vehicle to pull over to pick-up or discharge passengers at the entrance of the building. And then you know who yells bloody murder when the bike lane gets used. But it had/has to happen. And the very recent addition of no right turn onto Clinton from Grand when that was turned into the designated approach to Williamsburg Bridge years ago by NYCDOT. It's just more screwing up traffic on purpose.

Let's remember that Bloomberg's reason for Congestion Pricing was him throwing a fit when he wasn't allowed to toll the 3 free East River Bridges. So not crediting tolls towards the fee really doesn't even create the balancing effect that was the reason behind this BS.

Got it, thanks.

Random idea, for congestion zone:

- Congestion zone fee of $23/day. Must be paid any day streets are used, whether for driving or parking, even without exit/entry.

- Additional fee of $1/mi or so.

Purpose: Taxis & Ubers stop driving around with no passengers and street park instead while they wait, opening up streets for people actually going somewhere. Street parking space opened up by residents who perma-park at $0/day but won’t at $23/day.

Perhaps tweak the $23/day in some way between “entry” and “use”. Right now, it’s $23/day for entry and $0/day for use. What I proposed above is $0 for entry and $23 for use. Maybe right mix is in the middle, at $13 and $10 or something.

I acknowledge that charging for “use” is not currently technologically feasible. But do people like the idea in principle?

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/15/nyregion/mayor-s-budget-proposal-transportation-mayor-looks-tolls-for-bridges-east-river.html

And just to be clear, I wouldn't have a problem tolling those bridges NOW (I used to because setting up toll plazas would have been a disaster, but technology fixed that).

Have we talked about what an absolute mess the border at 60th Street is going to become? And the areas just North of it.

New Yorkers are the best: "Not to be outdone, New Yorkers also submitted requests for 55 groups that should under no circumstances be granted exemptions from the toll, including bicyclists, sightseeing buses, taxis, police officers and residents of New Jersey.""

I thought I told this story before (perhaps in another thread):
About a year and a half ago, Mayor McSwagger announced this big crackdown on ghost plates. A few days later I was taking a walk and directly across the street from 115 East 9th Street was a Mercedes with no plates at all and no registration. A few years ago this would have been jumped on a a potential terrorist threat (like the car in Times Square). I call 311, but now it's automated so hard to get a live person and I end up getting transferred to New York State Department of Transportation in Albany, which what's the recording. I know from experience that they wouldn't do anything anyway because they would simply ask me what the plate number or registration number was.

So now I called 911. I immediately explained that it wasn't a dire emergency but that there was a car parked on the street with no license plate and no registration. The operator immediately shot back "how do you know it's stolen?" and I got pissy. " I didn't say anything about it being stolen, I just know it's totally illegal to have a car parked on the street with no license plates and no registration." I got grumbling and a "hold on" until they finally came back and asked for the information. I gave them the location etc. And didn't bother waiting for anybody to reply because I knew it either wouldn't happen or would take a while.

I further went on my walk and when I got to Washington Square Park I found a group of six police officers on their phones with one talking to an older gentleman. When I asked "are you busy" one stepped at me" can't you see we're helping this guy?"

Yeah I can see five of them were on their phones doing jack shit. I guess the guy realized that it was a little bit too easy for me to make it complaint so we asked what was going on. I asked him if I saw a car on the street with no license and no registration. What should I do?, He told me to call 311. I then asked well what if it just transfers you to Albany and he kind of shrugged and walked away.

So we can see how the new motto of NYPD is " I'm not getting out of my car for that." But my point is that they aren't doing squat about ghost plates (perhaps because NYPD are the worst offenders) and it's just going to get worse with more incentive under congestion pricing.

PS I finally got a call back about 3 hours later on the 911 call telling me they were there and couldn't find the car. Obviously they were really busy.

PPS last year a naked homeless guy commandeered a lift in Washington Square Park and over 50 NYPD, EMS, NYFD, SWAT (emergency response tactically unit) showed up to deal with that. But good luck getting them to show up when they actually should .

On another vein, 22nd between 7/8 used to be blocked off to traffic. It is now open with strange painted areas midblock and they have moved the large planters onto these areas which means impossible to park at that spot. I'm not seeing the logic behind this.

It's going to get interesting when landlords and sellers realize Congestion Pricing is costing them mil

It's going to get interesting when landlords and sellers realize Congestion Pricing is costing them millions of dollars

https://nypost.com/2024/03/17/us-news/nyc-realtors-pull-out-new-trick-as-congestion-pricing-is-set-to-take-its-toll/

whoopi opposes it, that's all you need to know

I think she can afford it.