By some measures, New York City’s traffic is more congested than it’s ever been. Enter: Congestion pricing. Since last Sunday, during most hours, cars crossing into the lower half of Manhattan are charged nine dollars. There’s a higher toll for trucks.
Fourteen hundred cameras keep tabs on the roughly 150,000 commuters entering the zone by car.
“If we can just impact on a proportion of those people, we can make a difference and make it a much better place for everybody,” said Janno Lieber, who heads the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs New York’s sprawling subway, bus and commuter rail systems. “We’re wasting a ton of money, literally billions of dollars, according to our business leaders, having people stuck in traffic.”
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The haul from congestion pricing will go largely to the MTA, to improve mass transit. According to Lieber, it will raise between $500 and $800 million a year.
The pricing idea began in 1952, and gained traction in the early 2000s. But there’ve been a lot of bumps in the road. There were lawsuits and protests, for and against.
New Jersey drivers were none too happy; they already pay more than $15 in bridge and tunnel tolls to get into the city.
Singapore began congestion pricing in 1975, and Stockholm in 2006. But New York based its plan on London’s, which rolled out in 2003.
Opponents in New York say this is just a cash grab – another tax that will hurt mainly working people.
John McDonagh has driven a cab for more than 40 years. He’s also a playwright and radio host, and is not a fan of the plan. “It will not reduce congestion here,” McDonagh said. “The street designs of New York now, we have a bus lane on one side, we got a bike lane on the other, concrete barriers. So, 10 cars gives you congestion.”
But with the money going to improve public transport, that will help everybody, right?
McDonagh replied, “Oh, it does? We had a woman that was burned on the subway. We had people being pushed onto the tracks. There’s robberies. And if you take the subway in New York, jumping the turnstile now is an Olympic sport.”
It’s called turnstile jumping – or more politely, “fare evasion” – and the MTA projects it will lose $800 million a year because of it, around the same figure congestion pricing may bring in.
And then there is fare evasion on buses. According to the MTA, 47 percent of riders aren’t paying.
“The MTA has now installed cameras so that they can catch people,” said Kathy Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, which mobilizes business leaders to help the city thrive. “They are providing police, even the National Guard is in our system to make sure the people pay their fare.”
Wylde is a longtime advocate for congestion pricing, and has advice for other American cities: “You have to explain the benefits clearly,” she said. “You have to have transit options in most cases. Otherwise, it’s just another tax, because if somebody has no choice, they’re gonna resist.
“The lesson from London [is], they put in 200 new bus routes before they turned on congestion pricing,” Wylde said. “And that was how they got the public to accept it. They had a choice.”
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It’s hard to tell how it’s working in New York City after a week, but according to Wylde, “We’re very excited that, in just a few days of congestion pricing, we’re seeing a significant reduction in traffic already.”
Yet, the battle may not be over in New York. Among its opponents: once and future president Donald Trump. Wylde isn’t worried, though. “President Trump has property in New York,” she said. “He, I’m sure, has been stuck in traffic more than a few times here. And I think having New York be a more productive city, I think he’ll appreciate it.”
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Story produced by Jay Kernis. Editor: Carol Ross.
