New York City Congestion Pricing Plan can give poor drivers a discount
As New York City’s congestion charge moves closer to reality, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has finalized a plan to discount the city’s most needy drivers and distribute traffic more evenly by lowering overnight tolls.
The MTA announced this on Friday demonstrating the Authority’s intention to limit the number of times taxi and rental car drivers will be tolerated, give certain low-income drivers a discountincrease discounts for those entering the area at night and regularly check small businesses in the toll zone to see if tolls are becoming a drag.
The toll program would be the first of its kind in the country and aims to reduce traffic by charging drivers to enter the busiest areas of Manhattan. It cleared a major hurdle this month after the Federal Highway Administration tentatively approved the MTA report, known as an environmental assessment, which identifies ways to mitigate any harm congestion charges could cause to underprivileged communities.
The public has until June 12 to weigh in on the report — which runs into tens of thousands of pages — before the federal government finally approves the document, paving the way for the MTA to come up with toll rates, including any rebates, exemptions and other surcharges.
Once that happens, the MTA says the toll program, which would affect drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street, could begin as early as spring 2024.
“Congestion charges mean less traffic, cleaner air, safer streets, better transit,” Janno Lieber, the authority’s chairman, said at a news conference on Thursday.
Lawyers, community leaders and urban planning experts celebrated the progress Friday, saying congestion charging is long overdue.
“For decades, New York City has struggled with traffic congestion, which pollutes the air we breathe, clogs our roads, harms our communities and weakens our economy,” said Tom Wright, president of the Regional Plan Association, a research and advocacy group. said a statement. “We are one step closer to finally addressing this issue and implementing policies that benefit drivers, transit passengers and communities alike.”
Taxi, Lyft and Uber drivers have criticized the toll program, noting that the MTA’s own research has found that fare increases due to the tolls could reduce demand for taxis and ride-hailing by as much as 17 percent, frustrating drivers who say they are already struggling to make ends meet. To ease their burden, the new report says those drivers would not be tolerated more than once a day.
Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which advocates for better working conditions for taxi and app-based drivers, vowed to fight the proposal, arguing that yellow cabs should be completely exempt.
“Once a day is still thousands of dollars a year for struggling drivers,” Ms. Desai said. “This is just money laundering on the backs of a working class who work 60 hours a week to survive.”
The MTA has not yet set a fee scale, but an initial version of the report released in August showed that some proposals under review would charge a fee $23 for a ride to the toll zone during rush hours and $17 during off-peak hours for E-ZPass holders.
Under the final proposal, drivers earning annual salaries of $50,000 or less or who are enrolled in certain government utility programs would receive a 25 percent discount on tolls after making 10 trips per month through the toll zone, for the first five years that the program is in effect.
The discount would not apply to nightly tolls, which would already be heavily discounted. A 2022 study by the Community Service Society of New Yorkan anti-poverty group, found that only about 5,000 working New Yorkers living in poverty regularly paid tolls under congestion charges.
Officials would also ensure that the nightly toll rate, which would be in effect between at least midnight and 4 a.m., is at least 50 percent lower than the peak rate. The aim is to benefit low-income drivers who can travel at the time and to encourage commercial vehicles to run during off-peak hours, spreading traffic more evenly throughout the day.
The money raised through congestion charging would be used for infrastructure upgrades, such as building new elevators in the subway system and modernizing outdated signals that are supposed to run trains. The program is expected generate $1 billion annually to improve the transit network, the MTA said
When the MTA released the first draft environmental assessment last year, critics were appalled by evidence that some of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods could end up with dirtier air from all the rerouted traffic. The final version formally mandates millions of dollars in investment for those communities, including $20 million for an asthma control program and $10 million to install air filtration units in schools near freeways.
The report also says the authority plans to hold periodic meetings with small businesses in the congestion charging zone before and after the rollout of the program to assess whether the tolls will negatively impact commerce.
The toll program faces the most vociferous opposition from suburban residents who fear it could place an unfair burden on people traveling to Manhattan for work.
Some, including New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, have threatened legal action if the plan goes ahead.