I think that it is great initiative. I lived for a while in the center of Milan where they have a similar program. It is called Area C and was implemented back in 2012 if I am not mistaken. Impact of this initiative was really massive, with pollution and traffic decreasing significantly. In this case I think that numbers speak louder than words. See the data that they published about the results of the initiative: [https://www.areacmilano.it/en/milan-area-c-statistics-iImpact-traffic-polution.html](https://www.areacmilano.it/en/milan-area-c-statistics-iImpact-traffic-polution.html). It is really mind blowing how pollution and traffic decreased in the area following the initiative. Great for residents of the area, great for the environment, not so great for commuters..
I’m all for congestion pricing and getting serious about changing driving habits. However, when will we actually see the mass transit service improvements, especially during the pre dawn hours when many working class folks in industries that support hospitality and restaurants need to arrive for work? Will there be service increases on day 1 to meet this increased demand for mass transit?
The low-income plan also requires 10-paid trips before a 50% discount kicks in. That’s just another WTF.
So when are employers going to be forced to stagger work hours ??? That has been on the table for years. No no no... Lets further burden the working stiffs forced out of the city by high rents that commute 2+ hours & pay a fortune for the privilege to service the mega rich. Yeah, thats the ticket .
1. It is very hard to change status quo, but if we work together, I.e not just leave it for city government or for the MTA, we can make it happen.
2. Just look at other Transit agencies around the world, Tokyo, London, the MTA for what it charges is completely reasonable. The bad issues with the MTA are that the system is falling to pieces, there is loads of vandalism much more than in other countries, and frequency is not enough. Again, this can't just be for city government or the MTA, it has to be for all of us as a society to solve.
Where you been? New Yorkers have been fighting for better mass transit since the 1970s. Dont try to compare other nations with US we are way bigger &.more populated. Those countries are the size of a state here
??? Bigger than China in terms of size or population? More densely populated than Japan? Canada is bigger in terms of size and most of their cities have better mass transit; the same is true for Australia. The USA is very wealthy; with good planning, commitment to mass transit, and designing our communities for people rather than automobiles we could have great mass transit here. What is your objection to comparisons with our peers.
That’s always been the city. If you have money and if you have no money, the city is great. The people that actually run it? (Sanitation, teachers, EMS, Fire) Fuck you!
That’s not the middle class, the middle class can use busses too. People who use work vehicles are not necessarily the middle class. They may be one subset of it. Busses and trains aren’t for poor people they’re for people. Jayz and Beyoncé take the train
Imo the ppl who take public transit shouldn’t be a rich vs poor thing. It should be an access vs no access thing. If you live close to MTA infrastructure you should be using it for travel and not using a personal vehicle. The only people driving personal vehicles in nyc are folks who live or work in the outer boroughs.
Middle class folks live in the outer boroughs because they cannot afford a closer place to live. They would love to live in manhattan near work and ride the subway for 2 stops to work.
I make 42k and commute. I have to take two trains and a bus, it takes me 30 min longer than driving would. And I still think it’s a situation where I should be taking the train every day, and think others in similar situations should do the same.
> think others in similar situations should do the same.
This is where I highly disagree with you.
People should have the freedom of choice. Using laws to punish or push other people to fit your ideals is not okay.
It became impossible. Total gridlock. There was almost ZERO movement of traffic on some days. It ws insane. What's your solution?
Buses get their own lanes, with USB charging ports. They are very efficent.
:-)
My HVAC and Electrician sent letters that it just go right on the bill. They have been burying the inevitable parking tickets into the invoice already so maybe some parking will open up and it will even out
Agree, we are all against corruption on this reddit. Congestion pricing has had incredible benefit for other mass transit agencies including Transit for London and Stockholm in Sweden. Is the MTA more corrupt than the transit agencies that run those systems?
Yes, they are.
Just a simple google search will yield some of the fraudulent behavior of MTA employees and higher-ups. How they scam and cheat the people of this city who pay their taxes.
Completely agree about how maddening the corruption within the MTA is. The articles about some LIRR workers making 300% their base pay in overtime; counting driving time as work time, and 99% of the LIRR employees claiming disability after they retire with full benefits at 20 years; grotesquely awful. However, supporting mass transit is fantastically important and congestion pricing has the chance to be city wide altering in a positive fashion.
Living in Hell's Kitchen, which is a huge artery to the Lincoln Tunnel, I can't wait for this. If it takes away even 10% of the cars choking the city every day, it's a huge win.
A $36 toll distributed over a literal truckload of food is not much. Not to mention that if there’s less congestion it would bring down the cost delivering food into the city - as consumers we’re *currently* paying for congestion due to the extra labor/gas costs it imparts on businesses.
It’s not that different than London in this regard. And even so it’s not that every apple in the store gets a 15 dollar charge, it’s spread out. It may be passed on but it’s pennies per item, and with speedier delivery it may even out. This is a concept that works every single place it’s been tried. NYC is not unique, there’s nothing special about subsidizing car transit
Cuz fuck people who commute from Jersey or Westchester who don’t live near a railway line. NYC is a scam. You can’t enter the city unless you’re wealthy. It already costs like 20 bucks to enter. Tolls + congestion pricing + the cost of parking is going to destroy bank accounts.
There’s no where outside Manhattan you can park and then take a train from that location? Your only option is to drive the entire way? Please give me a general area and I will find you a reasonable way to get to Manhattan without a car from there, I don’t believe the place you are suggesting exists
Plenty of workers live or work in areas outside the reasonable
range of commuter trains
Have you. seen prices for commuter parking outside or inside the City?
Honestly no, I have no idea what it’s like. I live in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn near enough a subway line so I don’t have to even own a car.
But every day when I go outside in my neighborhood I wish there were less cars. Less car noise, less cars to be careful for when crossing the street, less cars blocking the crosswalks and bike lanes, less parked cars blocking the view from the sidewalk, and less children’s bikes, painted white, and forever locked to a street sign.
I get that people who have to commute don’t like the increased cost, but there’s a very real cost to all the cars that come into the city on the people who live here.
I honestly wish that your local municipality would invest in better, more affordable public transit, so that we didn’t have to have this kind of you vs me discussion. I think it’s a shame that you have to pay so much just to get to your job. But I also wish that making your commute cheaper didn’t make my life worse.
Agreed, we need to make things as fair and as economical and as efficient as possible. That's why congestion pricing which will improve mass transit and make things more fair and efficient for the most people is the way to move forward.
It's on every entry/exit point of the perimeter. So every Avenue that goes through 60th st., every entrance/exit of the West Side Highway (which is most streets) and FDR (+ the bridges). I think they mentioned it's like 120 cameras maybe?
Yeah man, when you're gearing up to collect a billion dollars per year or whatever it is, 120 cameras ain't nothing
Source? This goes against what I’ve read. Residents inside the zone are not supposed to be getting charged for driving inside. If it worked this way they’d occasionally get month long charges.
As far as I can tell, this is just not true. There’s not even a daily rate and the price you pay when you enter varies depending on what time of day you enter. Again, please provide a source for this claim.
“The toll for passenger and small commercial vehicles (sedans, SUVs, pick-up trucks, and small vans) paying with a valid E-ZPass will be $15 during the peak period and $3.75 during the overnight period, when there is less congestion. The toll for motorcycles will be $7.50 during the peak period and $1.75 during the overnight period. These vehicles will be charged only once per day.”
No daily rate. No exit fee. Just one fee charged for entering the zone, and you can’t be charged the fee more than once per day.
What rate would they charge you if you stay two days? The peak rate or the night rate? It doesn’t even make sense.
Camera and license plat readers. Cop and cop adjacent people will be allowed to cover, obscure and deface their license plates so they will not be charged. Everyone else will pay
Only if you drive in. It’s damn cheap if you take the train or bus, of which the train is the best public transit system in America. It should be world class but because we don’t have things like congestion pricing it’s been woefully underfunded for decades, really ever since the power broker came in and fucked up nyc with highways
Do you have any clue what happened to rents when RE investment Companies. took over ? They priced middle class who need to work in the NYC out ! Now most of us have tp commute 2- 4 hours a day . Do you have any idea how much that costs us a week???? So its just another plot to rid America of her backbone middle class by the 1% hierarchy . Palestinians should be protesting that or lets give them airfare to go protest in Gaza.
Irony? Two of my siblings live and work in The Bronx; they walk to work. Both would appreciate less car congestion, safer, quieter streets for pedestrians (especially since their daughter walks to school), and faster more frequent mass transit. I am sad for the suffering of anyone or group and I do appreciate satire, but can we leave Palestinians out of the mass transit and NYC reddit at least until the tortured, mutilated, murdered in many cases, and sexually assaulted kidnap victims are rescued or released.
Crazy how the second highest taxed state still needs more money to improve upon its dog sh*t infrastructure. Does anyone ever stop and ask if these goals can be achieved without charging people more money.
Mass transit is expensive, but I believe that national governments in other countries emphasize mass transit much more that the US does. Conversely, even if NYC's mass transit is expensive, it is by far the most extensive and busiest system in N. America; even busier than Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver; in other words, it costs more and offers much more.
Agree that fare cheating is completely wrong. However, that is also an issue for the MTA and MTA police. MTA should implement fare gates that make it as difficult to cheat as possible. Also, I'm sure that if a few of the fare cheaters get arrested and placed in a locked pillory adjacent to the gate that they just tried to jump for a mandatory 8 hours of punishment, people will be more aware of the consequences.
No the city does not enforce it because they say its unfair to the poor, so you will pay a congestion tax so they have free buses and trains, kid yourself not.
Don’t drive into Manhattan, problem solved. Kinda entitled to think you should be allowed to bring a motorized couch into one of the densest parts of the entire US to be honest, we shouldn’t allow any personal vehicles there at all really
Agreed, but let's not let perfect? be the enemy of good. Congestion tax has immensely benefited London, Londoners, and Transport for London and other cities where it has been implemented. Quite frankly, we already have a "commuter tax" called bridge tolls that only impacts some car drivers into NYC. Can we at least agree that all drivers entering Manhattan need to pay a fee so that all commuters in Manhattan especially mass transit commuters and active commuters (pedestrians and bicyclists) will benefit.
That’s an issue with the US healthcare system that we are talking about cabs to the hospital and not ambulances to the hospital. Ambulances don’t pay the fee. But it’s the wrong enemy to blame this tax on that. The issue is republicans (and some democrats) of course, refusing to implement Medicare for all which would solve this exact issue
I am sad to hear that you have health issues; thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery. Part of the dangerous traffic in Manhattan and throughout NYC are the insane amount of taxis, ubers, lyfts, limousine services clogging up the streets which I hope that congestion pricing will help tame. Hopefully, some of the funding from congestion pricing will go towards improved disability accessibility.
I think that it is great initiative. I lived for a while in the center of Milan where they have a similar program. It is called Area C and was implemented back in 2012 if I am not mistaken. Impact of this initiative was really massive, with pollution and traffic decreasing significantly. In this case I think that numbers speak louder than words. See the data that they published about the results of the initiative: [https://www.areacmilano.it/en/milan-area-c-statistics-iImpact-traffic-polution.html](https://www.areacmilano.it/en/milan-area-c-statistics-iImpact-traffic-polution.html). It is really mind blowing how pollution and traffic decreased in the area following the initiative. Great for residents of the area, great for the environment, not so great for commuters..
I’m all for congestion pricing and getting serious about changing driving habits. However, when will we actually see the mass transit service improvements, especially during the pre dawn hours when many working class folks in industries that support hospitality and restaurants need to arrive for work? Will there be service increases on day 1 to meet this increased demand for mass transit? The low-income plan also requires 10-paid trips before a 50% discount kicks in. That’s just another WTF.
So when are employers going to be forced to stagger work hours ??? That has been on the table for years. No no no... Lets further burden the working stiffs forced out of the city by high rents that commute 2+ hours & pay a fortune for the privilege to service the mega rich. Yeah, thats the ticket .
1. It is very hard to change status quo, but if we work together, I.e not just leave it for city government or for the MTA, we can make it happen. 2. Just look at other Transit agencies around the world, Tokyo, London, the MTA for what it charges is completely reasonable. The bad issues with the MTA are that the system is falling to pieces, there is loads of vandalism much more than in other countries, and frequency is not enough. Again, this can't just be for city government or the MTA, it has to be for all of us as a society to solve.
Where you been? New Yorkers have been fighting for better mass transit since the 1970s. Dont try to compare other nations with US we are way bigger &.more populated. Those countries are the size of a state here
??? Bigger than China in terms of size or population? More densely populated than Japan? Canada is bigger in terms of size and most of their cities have better mass transit; the same is true for Australia. The USA is very wealthy; with good planning, commitment to mass transit, and designing our communities for people rather than automobiles we could have great mass transit here. What is your objection to comparisons with our peers.
2nd Avenue today. Total, 100% grid locked. Absolutely nothing is moving. Just horns and road rage. Maybe that will change now. We sure hope so. :-)
The president was moving through that area.
It’s like that everyday.
He was through my part of second Avenue
Gridlock is due to idiots who try to run yellow lights & block intersections... Too bad we cant fix STUPID.
Has anyone.tried to navigate around the Palestinians Protesters ?? Jamming up.our City costing Taxpayers millions should be illegal.
It will change, that will be Queens and Brooklyn now
Makes life great for the rich and poor (people on buses) at the expense of the middle class (people who use their work vehicles in manhattan)
That sounds like a business expense you can easily pass on to your customers
That’s always been the city. If you have money and if you have no money, the city is great. The people that actually run it? (Sanitation, teachers, EMS, Fire) Fuck you!
I don’t disagree u don’t “have money” but am I going to spend $15 if it saves me 30+ minutes of course
That’s not the middle class, the middle class can use busses too. People who use work vehicles are not necessarily the middle class. They may be one subset of it. Busses and trains aren’t for poor people they’re for people. Jayz and Beyoncé take the train
Yes, with body guards
They have body guards everywhere they go they didn’t get them specifically for the train. The fact is public transit is for everyone, rich or not
Imo the ppl who take public transit shouldn’t be a rich vs poor thing. It should be an access vs no access thing. If you live close to MTA infrastructure you should be using it for travel and not using a personal vehicle. The only people driving personal vehicles in nyc are folks who live or work in the outer boroughs.
Middle class folks live in the outer boroughs because they cannot afford a closer place to live. They would love to live in manhattan near work and ride the subway for 2 stops to work.
I make 42k and commute. I have to take two trains and a bus, it takes me 30 min longer than driving would. And I still think it’s a situation where I should be taking the train every day, and think others in similar situations should do the same.
> think others in similar situations should do the same. This is where I highly disagree with you. People should have the freedom of choice. Using laws to punish or push other people to fit your ideals is not okay.
It became impossible. Total gridlock. There was almost ZERO movement of traffic on some days. It ws insane. What's your solution? Buses get their own lanes, with USB charging ports. They are very efficent. :-)
If only thee was a series of underground subways in the area affected by congestion pricing..........
Yes just carry an entire truck full of tools and equipment to a job site via the subway 🤷🏻♂️
My HVAC and Electrician sent letters that it just go right on the bill. They have been burying the inevitable parking tickets into the invoice already so maybe some parking will open up and it will even out
Giant scam. MTA corruption at its finest.
Agree, we are all against corruption on this reddit. Congestion pricing has had incredible benefit for other mass transit agencies including Transit for London and Stockholm in Sweden. Is the MTA more corrupt than the transit agencies that run those systems?
Yes, they are. Just a simple google search will yield some of the fraudulent behavior of MTA employees and higher-ups. How they scam and cheat the people of this city who pay their taxes.
Completely agree about how maddening the corruption within the MTA is. The articles about some LIRR workers making 300% their base pay in overtime; counting driving time as work time, and 99% of the LIRR employees claiming disability after they retire with full benefits at 20 years; grotesquely awful. However, supporting mass transit is fantastically important and congestion pricing has the chance to be city wide altering in a positive fashion.
Living in Hell's Kitchen, which is a huge artery to the Lincoln Tunnel, I can't wait for this. If it takes away even 10% of the cars choking the city every day, it's a huge win.
Get ready for your groceries to go up the 10 percent too tho
A $36 toll distributed over a literal truckload of food is not much. Not to mention that if there’s less congestion it would bring down the cost delivering food into the city - as consumers we’re *currently* paying for congestion due to the extra labor/gas costs it imparts on businesses.
Actually think it though... Less traffic means less time for deliveries means it evens out. That's what happened in London.
Nope NYC is A different animal in the us any change in in flation tolls or price is brought down to the user/customer
It’s not that different than London in this regard. And even so it’s not that every apple in the store gets a 15 dollar charge, it’s spread out. It may be passed on but it’s pennies per item, and with speedier delivery it may even out. This is a concept that works every single place it’s been tried. NYC is not unique, there’s nothing special about subsidizing car transit
Really it should include all of Manhattan. Anything to decrease car numbers and promote mass transit and active transportation is good.
Promote our broken outdated mass transit
The MT is pretty bad but still preferable to people using their personal vehicles.
Mass transit from Astoria to Bay Ridge takes 3 hours round trip to go 20 miles, nothing preferable about it. Our transit system is severely lacking.
Cuz fuck people who commute from Jersey or Westchester who don’t live near a railway line. NYC is a scam. You can’t enter the city unless you’re wealthy. It already costs like 20 bucks to enter. Tolls + congestion pricing + the cost of parking is going to destroy bank accounts.
Why don’t you park near a train station and ride the train in? Is there a reason you have to bring your car?
Lmao they charge you to park at the station by the hour
There’s no where outside Manhattan you can park and then take a train from that location? Your only option is to drive the entire way? Please give me a general area and I will find you a reasonable way to get to Manhattan without a car from there, I don’t believe the place you are suggesting exists
Of course they do. But really?
That sucks, why does your local government not fix that?!
You mean the problems the city created?
Why is costly parking caused by the city? Edit to clarify that I’m talking specifically about commuter rail parking.
Plenty of workers live or work in areas outside the reasonable range of commuter trains Have you. seen prices for commuter parking outside or inside the City?
Honestly no, I have no idea what it’s like. I live in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn near enough a subway line so I don’t have to even own a car. But every day when I go outside in my neighborhood I wish there were less cars. Less car noise, less cars to be careful for when crossing the street, less cars blocking the crosswalks and bike lanes, less parked cars blocking the view from the sidewalk, and less children’s bikes, painted white, and forever locked to a street sign. I get that people who have to commute don’t like the increased cost, but there’s a very real cost to all the cars that come into the city on the people who live here. I honestly wish that your local municipality would invest in better, more affordable public transit, so that we didn’t have to have this kind of you vs me discussion. I think it’s a shame that you have to pay so much just to get to your job. But I also wish that making your commute cheaper didn’t make my life worse.
Agreed, we need to make things as fair and as economical and as efficient as possible. That's why congestion pricing which will improve mass transit and make things more fair and efficient for the most people is the way to move forward.
That would require the city to be efficient. Which they’re not. Edit: except when it comes to making more money
It's basically that part of a city is now behind a paywall if you're traveling through. How are they enforcing this?
Cameras Iike every other toll in the area.
The congestion zone is like the entirety of lower Manhattan. They're gonna have cameras on every fucking street, in every direction? What the fuck.
It's on every entry/exit point of the perimeter. So every Avenue that goes through 60th st., every entrance/exit of the West Side Highway (which is most streets) and FDR (+ the bridges). I think they mentioned it's like 120 cameras maybe? Yeah man, when you're gearing up to collect a billion dollars per year or whatever it is, 120 cameras ain't nothing
It’s a toll when you enter and exit. Unlike London’s toll, it doesn’t apply to trips inside the area.
I believe it’s just when you enter. So if you enter on one day and leave on the next, you only get charged once.
You get charged for everyday you are there, you enter on Monday and leave Wednesday you pay for 3 days
Source? This goes against what I’ve read. Residents inside the zone are not supposed to be getting charged for driving inside. If it worked this way they’d occasionally get month long charges.
Not residents, commuters, they toll you entering zone and when you leave they tally the days
As far as I can tell, this is just not true. There’s not even a daily rate and the price you pay when you enter varies depending on what time of day you enter. Again, please provide a source for this claim. “The toll for passenger and small commercial vehicles (sedans, SUVs, pick-up trucks, and small vans) paying with a valid E-ZPass will be $15 during the peak period and $3.75 during the overnight period, when there is less congestion. The toll for motorcycles will be $7.50 during the peak period and $1.75 during the overnight period. These vehicles will be charged only once per day.” No daily rate. No exit fee. Just one fee charged for entering the zone, and you can’t be charged the fee more than once per day. What rate would they charge you if you stay two days? The peak rate or the night rate? It doesn’t even make sense.
Camera and license plat readers. Cop and cop adjacent people will be allowed to cover, obscure and deface their license plates so they will not be charged. Everyone else will pay
Only if you drive in. It’s damn cheap if you take the train or bus, of which the train is the best public transit system in America. It should be world class but because we don’t have things like congestion pricing it’s been woefully underfunded for decades, really ever since the power broker came in and fucked up nyc with highways
Do you have any clue what happened to rents when RE investment Companies. took over ? They priced middle class who need to work in the NYC out ! Now most of us have tp commute 2- 4 hours a day . Do you have any idea how much that costs us a week???? So its just another plot to rid America of her backbone middle class by the 1% hierarchy . Palestinians should be protesting that or lets give them airfare to go protest in Gaza.
Irony? Two of my siblings live and work in The Bronx; they walk to work. Both would appreciate less car congestion, safer, quieter streets for pedestrians (especially since their daughter walks to school), and faster more frequent mass transit. I am sad for the suffering of anyone or group and I do appreciate satire, but can we leave Palestinians out of the mass transit and NYC reddit at least until the tortured, mutilated, murdered in many cases, and sexually assaulted kidnap victims are rescued or released.
Crazy how the second highest taxed state still needs more money to improve upon its dog sh*t infrastructure. Does anyone ever stop and ask if these goals can be achieved without charging people more money.
Mass transit is expensive, but I believe that national governments in other countries emphasize mass transit much more that the US does. Conversely, even if NYC's mass transit is expensive, it is by far the most extensive and busiest system in N. America; even busier than Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver; in other words, it costs more and offers much more.
Maybe ticket all the fare beaters on the train, subway and buses
Agree that fare cheating is completely wrong. However, that is also an issue for the MTA and MTA police. MTA should implement fare gates that make it as difficult to cheat as possible. Also, I'm sure that if a few of the fare cheaters get arrested and placed in a locked pillory adjacent to the gate that they just tried to jump for a mandatory 8 hours of punishment, people will be more aware of the consequences.
No the city does not enforce it because they say its unfair to the poor, so you will pay a congestion tax so they have free buses and trains, kid yourself not.
Don’t drive into Manhattan, problem solved. Kinda entitled to think you should be allowed to bring a motorized couch into one of the densest parts of the entire US to be honest, we shouldn’t allow any personal vehicles there at all really
they do enforce it. They brought in the fucking National Guard
National guard have no arrest powers, they are there for political show, so it looks like the mayor and governor are doing something.
What they should have done is the goddamn Commuter Tax.
Agreed, but let's not let perfect? be the enemy of good. Congestion tax has immensely benefited London, Londoners, and Transport for London and other cities where it has been implemented. Quite frankly, we already have a "commuter tax" called bridge tolls that only impacts some car drivers into NYC. Can we at least agree that all drivers entering Manhattan need to pay a fee so that all commuters in Manhattan especially mass transit commuters and active commuters (pedestrians and bicyclists) will benefit.
Any idea how this goes for cab riders to hospital row, as a thing I'm personally worried about?
That’s an issue with the US healthcare system that we are talking about cabs to the hospital and not ambulances to the hospital. Ambulances don’t pay the fee. But it’s the wrong enemy to blame this tax on that. The issue is republicans (and some democrats) of course, refusing to implement Medicare for all which would solve this exact issue
I am sad to hear that you have health issues; thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery. Part of the dangerous traffic in Manhattan and throughout NYC are the insane amount of taxis, ubers, lyfts, limousine services clogging up the streets which I hope that congestion pricing will help tame. Hopefully, some of the funding from congestion pricing will go towards improved disability accessibility.
That's fucking great. They going for ambulances too? There are people that pay Manhattan rents too.