Yes, even here you have to pay the congestion tax

No. It is impossible to get to the front door of the referenced building without entering the congestion zone. I think the exit off the bridge that drops you onto the little northbound road that lets onto E 62nd or 63rd will not be charged, but you will still cross into the zone if you want to get to Sutton Tower.

But, as there are 122 categories of proposed exemptions, I'm sure there's one for you. I qualify for 7 of them, and I'm a decidedly mainstream snowflake. Waiting to see how much the MTA or the governor's office caves to the special interests.

One has to wonder if parking rates for garages right above 59 st will rise relative to pricing to park at nearby garages just below 59 st.

WoodsidePaul,
It's kind of hard to be a capitalist and also argue that in the end this tax will create any real money.

https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/9/18/23878826/congestion-pricing-all-pain-no-gain-for-motorists?fbclid=IwAR0Iulh7uLbecO0gHrUaxQAWnkHAtYvKw_GqrIS8gNEShDgCn5UTLk5HOdE

Well, it will be interesting to see who gets blamed if/when the program doesn't bring in the expected revenues.

Aaron2 :
I agree . This will become a boondoggle for some, a wash for others and a loss for many more. The economics rarely reach the rosy forecasts and the side effects will be worse.
Blame the lawyers

Where is the list of proposed exemptions posted?

Page 40 of this monster doc:
https://new.mta.info/document/111106#page=40

Remember that these are proposed by people commenting on the proposal, so every imaginable exception is expected to be listed. Mildly entertaining is the list right after of those who should absolutely not be exempt.

This is going to be such a cluster.

Firstly its all stick, no carrot unlike cities that did this successfully.
No incentives for smaller / lighter / cleaner vehicles
No increases to MTA service frequency (they explicitly said so this week)
No new express bus lanes to take advantage of the supposedly clearer streets
Not doing much to disincentive taxi/uber road traffic, so streets won't even be much clearer

But also the stick is broken because we have such rampant plate defacement for the purposes of ticket/toll evasion that when it goes live we're gonna have a lot of scofflaws of the usual types.

Just gonna turn into another thing we pay more for to get the same or worse experience.

What steve123 said ↑

Totally agree.

Thanks for posting. Entertaining, but obviously most of the exceptions won’t pass. From my reading of the document, this initiative is not about relieving congestion, it is about raising money for MTA capital projects, and all alternatives are viewed thru that lens. So think of it as just a new tax on all of us indirectly (thru higher prices on good and services) and directly on those that drive.

More taxes never fun, but I guess some alternative tax increases could be be worse. For example higher real estate taxes won’t touch wealthy brooklyn townhouse owners, will just hit renters and apartment dwellers. More income taxes might cause more flight from manhattan to Miami, and won’t touch those small business owners in brooklyn that underreport income, get onto every social program, and yet drive a really nice car everywhere they go.

They should really think about populations poorly served by mass transit (like most of staten island) and devise some sort of relief, like a credit towards Verrazano bridge toll for example to avoid double tolls. Its already really expensive for staten island residents to leave the island, and they do it because the alternative to a 30 minute drive is a 2 hour+ mass transit ride, just awful.

I am thinking @krolik should run for office. Seriously. I see a ferocious intellectual curiosity and open mind fused with a desire to improve welfare for the collective. I hope SE Talk is as sticky for her as it has been for many of us so I can see if/how she evolves as income, family and life in general progress.

https://gothamist.com/news/trucks-and-taxis-at-center-of-debate-as-mta-panel-mulls-cost-of-congestion-pricing

Latest & greatest stupidity on congestion pricing.

"The board is already required to take into consideration existing surcharges on for-hire vehicles and taxis that enter the congestion zone. Those charges cost $2.75 per for-hire vehicle trip and $2.50 per taxi trip."
&
"The scenarios laid out by the Traffic Mobility Review Board earlier this month would add an additional congestion pricing surcharge of up to $2 per trip for for-hire vehicles and up to $1.50 per trip for taxis."

Wow a whole $4 in congestion pricing to tax someone in an Uber paying $50 to ride into midtown in comfort rather than taking the train. This makes no sense.

Personally, I think they should wall off Manhattan completely just like in Escape from New York.

This shows it's not really about congestion:

When the group causing the most congestion get charged the least tax.

I'm waiting for placard abuse, already an issue in some areas, to become a significant problem. In my walk down 61st between Park and 3rd this morning around 9, looking at the cars parked on the south side of the street, only 2 of the 10 cars were 'regular'. The rest comprised: 3 'on official City business' placards (yeah right, on a Saturday morning - engine seemed cold to me), 3 with some sort of police-rated fakery (dress badges, PBA badges, etc., left on the dashboard, and 2 handicapped placards, one of which was an expired (Nov 2022) NYC permit for a fancy Mercedes with Florida plates.

Not to mention just about every cop has a defaced license plate on their personal vehicle

Looks like congestion tax are the only transactions taking place in this building.

And the governor has a panic when she realizes that lower-income people in the outer boroughs are also voters:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/05/nyregion/congestion-pricing-pause-hochul.html

Wonder if anyone signed a contract before this announcement and gets an unexpected windfall.