Congestion pricing is a no-brainer for the environment and urbanism alike, and we can’t even make it happen in the country’s biggest city. It’s such an uphill battle to get any buy-in from the voting public. Even in such a politically homogenous city like New York.
The law in question is a New York State law, not a NYC one. The state is much less politically homogeneous than the city is, and Hochul's (tepid) argument for suspending the law is in part based on this political dynamic.
(The entire situation is a pathetically self-inflicted one: the MTA is a state entity instead of a city one, meaning that the city's single most important mode of transportation is perpetually shackled to the state's political slapfights.)
There is a similar issue playing out in Boston too, where the MBTA, the public transit authority that operates the busses and trains predominately in the Boston metro, is a state entity.
Isn’t the MTA a state-level agency so it can access state-level tax resources? While in recent years the city has become rich, in the 1960s-1990s the city was in dire financial straights. The city’s transit system was unified under the MTA in 1968, and in 1975 the city nearly had to declare bankruptcy.
That’s not the reason I’ve heard. You’re right that it was originally handed over because of the city’s bankruptcy (which did actually happen, not just nearly), but the underlying reason wasn’t tax revenues: it was because the state wanted a bargaining chip for future negotiations, and unifying NYCT with the rest of the nascent MTA was an ideal one.
(To my knowledge, the MTA is not significantly availed of the general state budget. They get some money from it, but not disproportionate to the amount their service base puts in via transit taxes.)
That said, I feel it should be left to the people in the district (Manhattan) that have to live with it day in and day out. It should be a direct vote and not some politician’s call.
As someone who lives in New York and doesn't own a car (and hasn't for almost two decades), this was such a poorly thought out plan that I hope it never comes back.
It was little more than a backdoor tax on all city residents, disguised as urbanism. Good riddance.
(FWIW, I even support more funding for the MTA, within reason, but this wasn't the way to do it.)
As someone living here, I'll share my sentiment - millions of dollars and years of time spent to come up with a plan, however unpopular. Hochul did not signal she would do this during all that time. And right near the finish line, boom, she pulls the rug out.
It's just embarassing the level of dysfunction in planning any major projects in this city. It kills all hope that our public transit can be brought into the modern era, honestly.
Yeah, she was talking accurately about the benefits until very recently. The complete reversal using transparently-untrue claims should cost her the governorship since it also means nobody can trust her on anything.
Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think it will: NY's Democratic governors have historically received a "default" vote from the city's voters (especially when the governor themselves is from the city), and this will challenge that default.
Hochul also hasn't helped herself by spending a bunch of state money (i.e. city money, since the city contributes disproportionately to the state budget) on her own local, i.e. Buffalo, pork-barrel topics[1].
I think it shouldn't though. I feel at this point it's rational for liberal NYC voters to vote Republican, regardless of the candidate. The dynamic here is that state-level Democrats consider NYC totally safe, and because of this they consistently prioritize the swing suburbs over the city. The way to break this dynamic is to make the city less reliable for Democrat politicians.
I don't think city voters will swing for a Republican in the gubernatorial race, unless the Republicans field a Bloomberg Independent-type (which they can't, because their own base has rejected that kind of politician).
What's more likely, IMO is that overall city turnout will be severely depressed in 2026, and Hochul may find herself counting on an uncomfortably slim, demographically homogeneous, and purple suburban voter base. That's what she's used to as a Buffalo politico, and I don't think she's fully come to terms with the reality that that doesn't "play" at the statewide level.
I live in NYC, vote reliably for the Democrats, and will certainly consider voting for the Republican if Hochul succeeds in killing congestion pricing.
Ah yes, good strategy, vote for the people who would never even entertain such a policy idea if not just move in the exact opposite direction. There's a reason we have primaries.
The problem is that NY's governors are chosen in an off-cycle closed primary in which almost nobody votes. By the time November comes around the choice is between whatever apparatchik survived the Democratic primary and the mouth-breathing psycho that emerged from the Republican one.
One of the more ridiculous things about the chaos Hochul has wrought over the last 72 hours is that it isn't remotely clear that she can even order the suspension of congestion pricing like this: it's the law of the land in New York, one she already signed, passed by our legislative branch, funded by taxes, and administrated solely by an independent public corporation (the MTA) that she has only minority authority over. It's the equivalent of a president signing a bill and then attempting to post-facto veto it.
It's been very frustrating to see so little news (both local and national) pick up on this basic reality: Hochul is acting far beyond her constitutional powers as the governor, and the legislative branch has so far responded only tepidly (by refusing to pass her last-minute tax alternative).
This is the core issue. Unchecked executive overreach, by politicians of both parties at the federal and state level, will end terribly for the republic.
But no one cares if it serves their political interests.
I argue that it has already ended poorly for the republic since the republic effectively no longer actually exists and what does exist is a fraudulent and inherently illegitimate government based on its own words and actions.
The Constitution that created the federal republic is essentially an agreement, a form of contract. It has been violated to every degree and in every imaginable way possible that the only thing holding any of this together is that people still have not realize that they still trust in a lie.
I get indications that there is possibly a kind of realization starting to work its way through the country, where people are starting to realize just that … that they’ve been had, defrauded, conned, lied to, deceived, stolen from, plundered, and abused.
We shall see how deep the cracks go once an economic event stresses the foundation. I’m agnostic on which way it will go or if the crack will cause the foundation to crack catastrophically. I could make arguments either way.
Possibly a natural consequence of gridlocked legislature or judiciary. If only the executive branch can get anything done, allowing overreach is the only way for government to continue functioning.
That doesn't mean it's good, but suggests directions for solutions.
The legislature moving slowly is a feature; do you really want laws that can be permanent to be handled with wanton abandon? Especially if the electorate voting the legislature in is presumably divided on issues for debate?
The executive can move quickly and has some special case exceptions to exercise them more broadly, namely justifiable emergencies, but their powers are supposed to be ephemeral at most owing to their speed.
As for the judiciary, it's not their job to legislate in the first place so I'm not sure why you brought them up.
The legislature is supposed to move carefully, but it must still be able to actually legislate. US Congress, for example, is steadily passing fewer and fewer laws every year. If the current trend continues, fifty years from now Congress will enact zero new laws. That isn't being careful, that's paralyzed.
>[the legislature] must still be able to actually legislate
No, it doesn't have to.
Remember, the legislature is voted by the electorate, the voting public at large; the people of the city, county, state or country as applicable. If the legislature ends up so divided that passing laws with a supermajority to overrule executive vetos is impractical if not impossible, that suggests the people are divided and cannot come to a consensus on issues to be debated.
Why should the legislature pass laws when the people can't come to an agreement? That's not democratic. If the people can't agree, neither should their representatives agree and it's the duty of the executive to veto such legislative overreach.
In the real world there are other effects besides local votes. In the US limiting the amount of representatives in the legislature was resulted in 1 legislator for more and more people in civilization. If I represent hundreds of thousands of people how do I get a consensus from those people? The people when polled nationally agree on abortion or gun control poll for action by a decent percentage but congress has not acted.
Also the legislature does more then pass new laws they vote on military appointments, sign treaties, determine judges, create budgets and more.
While true that seems like an unlikely situation because human culture and knowledge are not static. At the very least, repealing old archaic laws that don’t serve us or are harmful would be a good idea and it’s self-evident those still exist on the books.
Culture and knowledge don't require laws though, right?
I'd argue that a law based on culture or current knowledge is a bad law precisely because both knowledge and culture are always evolving. Laws that don't come with an expiration date should be timeless, at which point they couldn't be based on today's culture or knowledge.
Not sure what world you’re living in. Even rape and murder, for example, is defined and prosecuted different today than it has been in the past. Surely that suggests that even things you might think to define as “timeless” aren’t quite so timeless. That’s ignoring the fact that there’s all sorts of regulations that are regulated by law. There’s also all sorts of laws that govern how government itself operates and it would be naive to imagine that what works for a country of a few million at the founding would work for a country of tens and then hundreds of millions. And then there’s things like EPA and healthcare which are governed by laws and very much should be updated as we learn new things and find new ways of doing things or technology makes a different way of doing things make more sense.
Whether it's gridlock really is a matter of opinion though. Our three branch system is designed with a very specific goal in mind - balance of power through checks and balances.
If the government can only get something done by ramming it through only one branch, maybe there's a reason. It's possible that the action wouldn't hold up to judicial review or that the legislature of elected representatives don't support it.
We can't keep assuming that gridlock is a symptom rather than a feature. Not necessarily directly related to this specific topic, but sometimes governments just have to slowly to do their jobs well.
This has kind of always been the case hasnt it? The governor of the state has special powers over NYC. At least they have stepped in and bullied the city before, usually because the city is broke or has some crisis it needs the state to sort out with a pile of money.
Personally, as a remote worker, it bugs me that she’s doing this to force people to go to work. So basically she wants the pollution and massive waste of resources if someone can sell a bunch of 15 dollar sandwiches and 10 dollar coffees at street level every day. In other words she wants to fleece employees either way.
I feel for the business paying rent based on foot traffic in cities, however they know that if the foot traffic goes away, they can get out of their leases, since at least in malls etc the price per sq foot is based on foot traffic.
But what I have zero interest in is this argument that I have to go to work so that I can be fleeced by businesses every time I walk down the street, so that they can stay in business. That is not my problem. Its pretty insulting given how much better for the environment and people’s personal lives it is to work remotely to treat us like a bunch of chickens going through a toll gate.
Progressive companies that know the future have already let their leases go and gone full remote. More will follow. There will be no back to office.
> This has kind of always been the case hasnt it? The governor of the state has special powers over NYC. At least they have stepped in and bullied the city before, usually because the city is broke or has some crisis it needs the state to sort out with a pile of money.
To the best of my knowledge, the governor of New York absolutely does not have "special powers" over NYC. NYC's boroughs are normal municipalities for the purposes of state law.
You might be thinking of the MTA, which was formed as an independent state corporation after the city's bankruptcy. This is a source of persistent local funding headaches, but is not a "special power": the MTA's board is intentionally not fully appointed by the governor, to prevent exactly this kind of unilateral maneuvering[1].
I don't really think this has anything to do with remote work or RTO, etc., either. Congestion pricing was a pre-COVID policy that's been on the table for well over a decade; it's sound policy purely in terms of making the MTA financially sustainable and reducing congestion and air and sound pollution within Manhattan.
I read the article. She specifically stated that back to work policies of 3 days in the office, with congestion pricing might go back to full remote. There may be different versions of her comments, but thats what I read plainly in the beginning of the article.
I don't understand what your comment has to do with any of the previous ones in this thread: no, she doesn't have the authority, yes, it was on the table pre-COVID, and sure, she mentioned 100% remote work returning (!?) as one of the reasons.
1)The MTA is a state agency under the governor and not the mayor
2) The state has had special powers over the budget of the city since the state bailed out the city financially during the 70s
The MTA is not a state agency at all; it’s a public corporation owned fully by the state. The governor has the ability to appoint some members of the MTA board, but can only appoint a minority of members.
I’m not aware of any special powers still in effect; it would be good to have a link for that.
A distinction without a difference. Corporations and authorities owned but the state are state agencies, the confusion on this point is a feature by their investor, Robert Moses, to give himself maximum power and minimum oversight.
As to state control over the city- it's in Title IX of the NYS Constitution
It’s a distinction with a significant difference: the MTA’s board has a unique fiduciary duty to the Authority that a state agency’s leadership does not have. As noted above, it is also not a “purely” state-level authority, unlike the type Moses was fond of creating (which is among the reasons he opposed merging NYCT into it).
Title IX of the NYS Constitution describes the general terms of home rule, including the rules that govern all counties, towns, and cities within the state. I can’t find an explicit reference anywhere to NYC or its countries anywhere within that title, so I don’t know which section you think implies “special powers.”
Okay. That isn't a "special powers for NYC" clause, that's a generic "home rule is not absolute" clause. Nobody has said or implied otherwise; the operative question was whether NYC is any different from other municipalities in terms of limits on the scope of its home rule.
(If anything, NYC is afforded an unusual degree of home rule relative to other municipalities in NY, as evidenced by the fact that it's really 5 counties in a trenchcoat.)
The State government in New York has been run like a mafia family, (including premeditation and predestination of position appointment, legislation, policy shifts etc as the norm) for some time now.
Please note: this can barely be considered a partisan comment.
Political parties are organizations fighting over political power. If they have local monopoly over power (which is the case in NY) they can do whatever they want without consequences. Multiparty systems should be a solution to this but often times fail because power concentrates in 2-3 parties in the short term.
Or you end up with a bunch of minority parties and one that has managed to cobble together a larger coalition. Multi party systems aren’t the panacea FPTP critics make it out to be (and I dislike FPTP as well). The truth of the matter is that people aren’t as varied in their opinions as you think in practice in a representative democracy. The reason is that while any single issue may have a plurality of opinions, democracies generally install a decision maker for all policies so you end up voting for the party that represents you on the issues you care about or has the leadership you’d like to see, which significantly narrows down the sets of opinions.
It’s not even as simple as that. 2009 Public Authorities Reform Act states that the MTA board is an independent body and should be making all decisions with the MTA's fiscal responsibility its primary concern. It’s going to be really, really difficult to justify an 11th hour reversal that will leave the MTA in a financial pit. It’ll almost certainly lead to legal action.
> It’s not even as simple as that. 2009 Public Authorities Reform Act states that the MTA board is an independent body and should be making all decisions with the MTA's fiscal responsibility its primary concern. It’s going to be really, really difficult to justify an 11th hour reversal that will leave the MTA in a financial pit. It’ll almost certainly lead to legal action.
They are legal fiduciaries, and they have been asked to vote to bankrupt the company for which they are fiduciaries.
It's very difficult to find a way to square that circle legally, which is why Hochul has started to claim that the board doesn't need to vote on this at all (which is an equally laughable claim).
Popular or not, all this has taught me is that NYC, and with that most of America has no vision for any future. If after 10 years and millions in setup just to get congestion pricing in place, it falls thru because of the whims of a governor there’s just no hope for any more difficult capital projects.
Realistically, we’re never going to see any ambitious projects in my life time and it’s sad to see
The problem is not NYC though. I think if NYC was left to its own devises its government could be much more visionary.
The problem is that so much of the control of NYC lies with state-level Democrats who are structurally incentived to prioritize the suburbs over the city because the suburbs are more likely to vote Republican in various races. This is exactly what happened here. Hochul -- working with the federal House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries -- paused congestion pricing to make it easier to win House seats in the suburbs. If they lose support in the city they don't care because the city districts are so safe.
Just like in 2016, republicans will never choose diet-coke over coke. The appealing to republican voter strategy has never worked when they can just vote for a republican. Not that it matters for the political consultant class, they can get higher fees the more mailers they can send out when they're losing talking about how the republicans are ruining America.
Don't take democratic politicians at their word, they only care about keeping their money flowing into their coffers.
These aren't core Republicans; they're the rare breed of never-Trumpers. People want to believe they don't exist, and they're mostly right: they pretty much only exist in suburbs surrounding Dem strongholds and in Utah. It may not be a viable national strategy (though they're probably to thank for Biden winning in 2020), but they definitely could flip local & state races, especially if the core Republicans went MAGA during the primary.
Which is why its time for NYC statehood. The interests aren't aligned. The city fills alls the coffers just to get fucked over again and again by shortsighted, spineless politicians.
Why should our greatest city be held back by the backwaters upstate?
The congestion tax is underwater in statewide polls. Its not like she's looking out for some special interest here, her constituents unfortunately just dont want the congestion tax.
The fact that the congestion tax is even being polled on upstate is a prime example of a failure in policymaking and proper devolution: suburbanites in Buffalo and Albany are not affected by the tax in any meaningful way, and should not have a disproportionate say in a policy that benefits millions of city residents.
(Of course, ironies abound besides this: funding NYC's mass transit is one of the most reliable ways to keep the city's tax revenues up, which prop up all of the financial misadventures and pork that upstate is fond of. Kneecapping the city's revenue streams hurts the suburban lifestyle and its financial assumptions in the long run.)
"suburbanites in Buffalo and Albany are not affected by the tax in any meaningful way, and should not have a disproportionate say in a policy that benefits millions of city residents."
But it says in the article itself and pretty much everything about this that "they want to try it in other places next". Are they not supposed to read or react to that part? Can you really blame them for trying to stop this at the point they have the most leverage?
> Can you really blame them for trying to stop this at the point they have the most leverage?
Absolutely I can, yes. They can vote against it when it applies where they live, when it doesn’t it shouldn’t be any of their business. But hey, New York politics is extremely dumb.
To be fair that’s pretty much how every tax starts and expands. A lot of us have a pretty big gut reaction to new taxes for something that used to be free for that reason.
I live in Minnesota where we basically don’t have toll roads and I’ve been incredulous about how people aren’t more upset about the ones they have in other states/countries when I’ve travelled, as one example.
Why should they be upset? Roads cost money to build, the land they're on has value, and the users should pay for all of that. Free roads are basically communism.
Because you already pay a gas tax (granted, not for electric vehicles) - and because those tolls are almost always way more than required for the building and maintenance of the road.
This is, by definition, not a tax: if you don't want to pay a congestion toll for entering Manhattan's CBD by car, then don't enter the CBD by car.
In a car dependent city, this could be fairly argued to be a regressive or punitive toll, but NYC (and especially Manhattan) is not car dependent.
(And note: the "free" status quo exists only because the cost is hidden from you, i.e. the potential car driver into the CBD: you don't pay for the air and noise pollution, emergency service delays, deferred maintenance on mass transit, etc. that residents do. Factor those in, and free transit through one of the densest and most expensive cities in the world is a pretty gross subsidy.
> The congestion tax is underwater in statewide polls.
If you poll upstate, they think NYC is a drag on the state economy and tell you how horrible it is that "all our tax money" goes to the city. The actual situation is the opposite, though.
Polling the entire state on congestion charges is like asking Ted Cruz for Hurricane Sandy money; little reason to actually care about the right decision.
I think most of them would like to see NYC razed to the ground to be honest when I’ve had to work in the area as field support just chatting with the locals. It’s much the same as with Chicago in Illinois.
Pretty much. Most people in states with one big city would be happy to watch it burn. It's a common joke here in Georgia that "That lazy-ass Sherman didn't do a good enough job because Atlanta's still there."
Agree completely that the Democrats (and Republicans) at the state level are an absolutely disaster. Albany has been a cesspool of corruption for much longer than any of us have been alive, but NYC is unfortunately just as bad. The City Council, the Mayor's office, NYCHA, the MTA and just about every other large organization that run NYC is just as corrupt as those in Albany.
I think also you will see Democrats even in blue states back off on any unpopular policies so it can’t be used as ammunition against Biden as they see a Trump victory as that catastrophic.
Yes, the sad reality is that the US is non-investable, specially for foreigners. Any project can be cancelled at the whim of somebody somewhere in the political structure, and what has been accorded in one administration can be easily canceled in the next. It is nowhere's land when it comes to investing.
Truly why invest in anything real when everyone in power is there to make stock market go up eternally... Or federal bonds. Which will be flipped over for reasonable profit until they are not anymore, but even that is unlikely to be fully sudden.
Man I was just lurking but this take is so wrong I just have to comment. It’s in fact the exact opposite. Every other country in the world is much much worse at this. Look at China! They’re actually destroying companies left and right. You should qualify your statement with “public projects” which do not have any foreign investment. The US is very friendly to foreign private projects, almost too friendly arguably. It also has public reliable information and rules for investing which make price discovery much easier than other foreign markets. It’s probably one of the most lenient and best markets for external investment.
You should have given up on difficult capital projects after seeing the results of the second avenue subway and the oculus.
The insanely high cost of building relatively modest things precludes entirely building ambitious things. Not even the federal government has that kind of money.
‘Rep. Gottheimer hopes this is the end of the road for congestion pricing, and as far as it coming back after the upcoming elections are decided, “I don’t think so,” he said. “We got it done. ... indefinite pause, the word indefinite is key here,” he said.’
what a joke of a statement; then none of you mean to pause it, you meant to kill it. if you’re going to ruin what little progress this damn country can make at urbanism in its most urban city, at least wear your mockery and ruination on your sleeve proudly, rather than weasel out of it with a bullshit “pause.”
Not a good article. The author understands the problem, but the "alternatives" offered are much more complex and difficult to administer than the simple, practical, proven solution of a congestion charge.
I think this would have been more likely to be politically viable if the credit for entering via a tunnel or bridge was dramatically increased, after all a bridge or tunnel toll is already a form of congestion pricing. Double charging is just a money grab rather than a form of congestion pricing.
They should have also given a credit for exiting immediately and not staying in the city, i.e. transiting through the city. This would have made New Jersey considerably more likely to be in support.
Without both of those things New Jersey has it right: everyone would just travel through New Jersey to avoid that part of Manhattan when they're just trying to get through Manhattan.
If that was the goal (was it? I have not seen anyone say something like that) but if it was, then they should share the money too. Manhattan can't take all the money and shift all the expenses to New Jersey.
It's NY State, not Manhattan. Neither NYC nor any individual borough "sees" any of the money from congestion pricing; it's handled at the state level.
But for the state, certainly they can: it's state roads and state transit infrastructure, maintained and paid for by the state. NY didn't tell NJ to kneecap NJT's budget[1], or to develop car-dependent cities and suburbs.
NY State collects billions of tax dollars every year from NJ residents that work in New York. Every mass transit NJ commuter to NYC is subsidized by NJ and subsidizes the NYS budget. That structural dynamic, in effect, kneecaps NJ and by virtue NJT's budget.
Framing it as a one-sided collection is a little silly, given that NJ residents driving into NYC are (1) generally affluent suburbanites from bedroom communities, and (2) living in NJ in part to avoid city taxes.
NJ isn't exactly a cheap state either in terms of taxation, but it's also one of the most affluent in the country. It's hard to believe that NY's payroll tax can be unilaterally blamed for NJ's inability to maintain and further develop NJT.
(This is besides the larger contradiction, which is that NJ would have ~no taxes to collect on these residents at all, were it not for NYC's proximity.)
Again, every NJT commuter to NYC from NJ is subsidized by NJ to earn money in NYC and pay taxes to NYS. NJ's subsidization of NJT reduces the number of car trips into Manhattan dramatically. NJ commuters to NYC/NYS pay income tax to NYS and virtually nothing to NJ. The balance of payments deficit to NYS from NJ is in the range of $4 billion annually. I don't remember exactly what kind of operating subsidy NJT needs, but it's a heck of a lot less than $4 billion. NJ's entire state budget is around $50 billion. This is not a small, inconsequential issue, and downplaying its consequences is a little silly, to use your phrase.
Also, NJ residents commuting to NYC don't just "do it to avoid city taxes". There are more commuters from NJ than there are open housing units in the 5 boroughs. NJ's housing stock and commuting infrastructure is a massive pressure relief valve on housing costs in NYC. Heck, NJ commuters would saturate every open housing unit in the boroughs, Long Island, Westchester, Southern Connecticut, and then some.
Last thought. Manhattan is a massive job center in no small part because of its enormous access to talent inside and outside of the city - the outside the city talent uses mass transit on an enormous scale. NJ might look different without Manhattan there, but NYC would also look different if NJ wasn't there.
> Again, every NJT commuter to NYC from NJ is subsidized by NJ to earn money in NYC and pay taxes to NYS. NJ's subsidization of NJT reduces the number of car trips into Manhattan dramatically.
Agreed, and agreed. But the "why" is important: NJ subsidizes NJT because it keeps people living in the state, which has its own taxes.
I don't mean to come off as stridently anti-NJ here -- I agree that the two are mutually interdependent, and that an abstractly fair congestion pricing deal would include funding for NJT as well (and not just MTA). But that's only half the story: NJ's pols have dug themselves into an "over our dead bodies" position on any amount of congestion charging, have failed to move NJT/MTA collaborative projects forwards, have fought NYS tooth and nail over Gateway's funding[2], and torpedoed their own NJT modernization and expansion projects[1].
In the status quo, my perspective as a NYer is that the MTA is (shambolically) moving towards a better status quo, while NJ digs in on a position that's ultimately incompatible with the region's long term livability and economic growth. I can't think of a good reason why it should be this way since, even at a deficit, both sides ultimately benefit from better commuter networks.
(On a related note: I checked the 2025 NJ budget[3], and there's a $6B surplus forecasted. So I don't wholly understand why NJ is considering cutting NJT's budget by $600M[4], or why maintenance has been deferred for so long.)
1. ARC was a bad project. Gateway was always going to be necessary even if ARC was completed. I'm skeptical that the region would get a second bite at the federal funding apple for Gateway if ARC was built. It's not even clear to me that Gateway's alignment would have been possible if ARC was built.
2. NJT defers maintenance because it funds its operating subsidy through the capital budget. It has at least since Chris Christie slashed the operating subsidy during the financial crisis (NJ budget was massively strained).
3. There were stories a few years ago about NJT problems holding onto train engineers. Trainees would generally leave for jobs at MTA, LIRR, and Amtrak that paid 30%+ more. Going back to that $2+ billion that commuting NJ residents pay to NYS - which presumably subsidizes MTA operations - it sort of looks like that structural tax issue is causing NJ residents to subsidize MTA salaries to the detriment of NJT.
4. Going back to the tax issue. NYS and NYC benefit from NJ commuter access. Building ARC or Gateway make it so NJ can send more commuters to NYC to pay taxes to NYS. Why should NJ pay anything for its construction?
I'm generally supportive of congestion pricing. But I think NYC/NYS have a long history of treating NJ like a bedroom community that it has no responsibility toward. It doesn't have to after all - no votes, politicians will never care about non-constituents. But like, to impose another tax that meaningfully impacts NJ residents resides in the context of a deeply toxic, dysfunctional dynamic. NJ residents should rightfully be bothered.
> ARC was a bad project. Gateway was always going to be necessary even if ARC was completed. I'm skeptical that the region would get a second bite at the federal funding apple for Gateway if ARC was built. It's not even clear to me that Gateway's alignment would have been possible if ARC was built.
This is a fair point, but was ARC actually canceled with the expectation that Gateway was going to be announced? That may have been what happened behind the scenes, but it isn't how it looked on the public side at the time: what I remember thinking at the time was that Chrisie unilaterally pulled NJ out of a joint project with no alternative.
> There were stories a few years ago about NJT problems holding onto train engineers. Trainees would generally leave for jobs at MTA, LIRR, and Amtrak that paid 30%+ more. Going back to that $2+ billion that commuting NJ residents pay to NYS - which presumably subsidizes MTA operations - it sort of looks like that structural tax issue is causing NJ residents to subsidize MTA salaries to the detriment of NJT.
I hadn't heard those stories about NJT struggling to hold on to talent, that's helpful context. That being said, I don't think that $2B+ is going directly to the MTA -- my understanding is that the MTA's tax inflows mostly come from the MCTMT[1], which is levied against employers. So it's not as though MTA money is coming directly out of NJ residents' pockets, although you could argue that a payroll tax indirectly suppresses their wages.
> Going back to the tax issue. NYS and NYC benefit from NJ commuter access. Building ARC or Gateway make it so NJ can send more commuters to NYC to pay taxes to NYS. Why should NJ pay anything for its construction?
IMO, the simplest reason is that it still makes NJ wealthier: good transit between NJ and NYC means further incentives for NYC residents to move across the river, and retains people already living in NJ (where they pay sales tax, real estate taxes, etc.). It also enables reverse flow: strong transit between the two brings NYers into Northern NJ for tourism and shopping (I have places that I want to go in Fort Lee, Hackensack, etc. that I don't bother with because NJT is a hassle).
I think you're right about how NYC treats Northern NJ. But I also think this doesn't get better, for the reasons you've mentioned. Maybe that could be ameliorated over time by eliminating the state boundaries in the twos' transit networks, but I don't think either has any immediate political appetite for that beyond what already exists with PANYNJ.
The cynical argument is that Christie pulled out of ARC to win points with conservative voters ahead of a presidential run. That is probably where I land. However, construction started in 2009 (when NJ budget was massively strained) and NJ's public pension underfunding was a growing and looming crisis. Christie was the first governor to start making large payments to the pension in an effort to catch up. It is possible that he made a "pragmatic" decision of something easy to cut in the moment given the shrinking revenue and ballooning obligations. In other words, he could kick the can down the road on ARC but pension was a requirement.
It looks like the MCTMT tax is about $2 billion out of $9 billion of operating subsidies. It isn't clear to me whether that is levied on nonresident employees. The Metropolitan Mass Transportation Operating Assistance (MMTOA)is the biggest contributor to subsidy (which sounds like sales tax and a few others), along with the gas tax, property transfer, and a few others. All in all, I think it's fair to say that the NYS budget isn't meaningfully contributing to the MTA relative to other sources.
Personally, I wish the federal government would do more to help with the NY/NJ dynamics. Be the go between, manage the conflicting interests. We can do so much better with harmonization of transit networks, and the region already gives so much to the rest of the country. But I also think voters in both states need to be more aware of the actual issues we have been talking about here. There seems to be so little understanding of how things work and why things are the way they are. Maybe informed voters could tip the scales enough for NY/NJ politicians to play better together, or at least talk to these real issues.
I don't see anything in that link which indicates the total value of taxes paid by NYS residents to NJ or the net. That said, I think it only takes a casual observation of bridge, tunnel, and mass transit hubs during rush hours that illustrate the balance. The overwhelming majority of "human capital" flows into NYC for work, not out, which should reasonably predict the difference in tax collections on non-residents between states.
Considering the federal interstate project funds a lot of the roads in question in new jersey already I’d say bills are being paid sufficiently already. Not to mention that new jersey also benefits in countless other ways from proximity to nyc. If not for nyc what might the state look otherwise: Maine or Vermont? Nyc has afforded much already for the garden state.
This. I'm glad the current implementation has been cancelled solely because New Jersey, the neighboring state that will see a massive impact on their transit and infrastructure due to this wasn't going to see a single cent.
> They should have also given a credit for exiting immediately and not staying in the city, i.e. transiting through the city. This would have made New Jersey considerably more likely to be in support.
Which NJ residents do you think are through-transiting via the Manhattan's streets? The core demographic being targeted here is driving onto the streets to park and go to work, not to drive into Brooklyn, Queens, or LI.
(To my understanding, the plan with the congestion charge is to waive the charge when drivers stay on highways and freeways, i.e. don't enter the grid. So a NJ resident who takes the GWB and drives down HHP and then Brooklyn via 478 would never pay the congestion fare.)
> The core demographic being targeted here is driving onto the streets to park and go to work, not to drive into Brooklyn, Queens, or LI.
Charging them is fine, but that is not the basis of the lawsuit from NJ. NJ is complaining about people using NJ to go around Manhattan.
> To my understanding, the plan with the congestion charge is to waive the charge when drivers stay on highways and freeways
Can you show me that policy or map? Because when I checked that was NOT the case. The only time charges are waived are the two coastline roads that go around Manhattan. All other transit traffic is charged at full rates. When you enter from NJ you do not go on those coastline roads, you go through Manhattan.
This pricing should have been coupled with some new transit roads that do not have any exits in the city.
From your comment I wonder if part of the reason she stopped the project is people not actually understanding what the real charges are.
> Charging them is fine, but that is not the basis of the lawsuit from NJ. NJ is complaining about people using NJ to go around Manhattan.
I can't think of a single sane route via which you'd go around Manhattan, via NJ, to get to something in another borough. If you're in the Bronx, you'll go to Queens or Brooklyn via non-Manhattan bridges, and vice versa.
> The only time charges are waived are the two coastline roads that go around Manhattan. All other transit traffic is charged at full rates.
Yes, that's the point. The coastline routes are the highways; there are no highways through central Manhattan's city grid, and there never will be. You can see the highways, which are all exempted, on the MTA's map[1].
I gave you an NJ to Brooklyn route that does not involve the city grid: you can take the George Washington Bridge (above the congestion zone) onto the Henry Hudson Parkway, which will then take you directly to the Hugh L. Carey tunnel, which is I-478, which will take you directly into Brooklyn. This is also in practice already the fastest route into Brooklyn from NJ, since it doesn't involve the city grid at all.
Similarly for North Brooklyn and Queens: if you want to avoid congestion pricing, take the GWB and stay on I-95, and you'll be comfortably outside of the congestion zone the entire time.
Your route is decent - as a route. But it costs almost $30 in tolls!
For example Holland Tunnel to Manhattan bridge and Brooklyn Bridge without paying congestion pricing is a route that should exist. I think those are like half the price of your route (not 100% sure of the price).
> there are no highways through central Manhattan's city grid, and there never will be
There should be a direct connection, with no exits to city roads, between the Lincoln Tunnel and FDR Dr. Same with the Holland tunnel - that should be directly connected to the two coastal freeways, without going in city streets.
From looking at a map those are the biggest gaps in regards to congestion pricing.
If you want wondering how to do it, add an elevated express roadway above Canal street. Because it has no connection to city roads in Manhattan - it would go directly in the air to the Manhattan bridge, it would not be unfeasibly complex to build.
See, they added the "annoyance" first, and didn't also connect it with any improvements, and I think that was their biggest mistake.
I've noticed this very frequently with transit advocates - they only want to harm car driving, but give zero thought to making travel better for people. They forget the goal: Make travel better. The goal is not getting rid of cars.
All of the routes are tolled. These are some of the most heavily trafficked bridges and tunnels in the world, and their upkeep is consequently expensive (both in maintenance and off-hours labor costs).
This is a basic maxim for NYC: if you want to drive on some of the most expensive real estate in the world, it’s going to cost you. Congestion pricing was intended to further equalize that cost, by incentivizing drivers away from the city grid and onto the highways intended to facilitate their transit around the city center.
It would be nice for drivers (not for residents) if there were through-highways in Manhattan’s CBD. But as I said, this is a non-starter: not only would it be a multi-billion dollar project that nobody wants to pay for, but it would also actively devalue or preempt hundreds of billions of dollars of prime Manhattan real estate. Robert Moses, famous for getting whatever he wanted w/r/t highways, tried a similar plan over 70 years ago, and failed miserably.
(I don’t know if you’ve ever been to or lived in NYC, but you can’t just build a mega highway over Canal Street — it runs through four of the densest neighborhoods in the borough, plus two of the highest income ones. That’s before construction or easement logistics, even — we’re talking about half a million people who would riot if the city tried to put an elevated highway by their windows.)
And as a final thing: congestion pricing was slated to raise $15 billion for the MTA, which in turn was allocated for improvements to the actual backbone for the city: the subway, LIRR, and Metro-North. There were key schedule, maintenance, and capital improvements planned that would have made life better for millions of city residents (myself included) that are now in limbo. So it isn’t accurate to say that this wasn’t connected to improvements; the improvements may just not have been legible to you.
> This is a basic maxim for NYC: if you want to drive on some of the most expensive real estate in the world, it’s going to cost you.
Is this also true: If you want to live in some of the most expensive real estate in the world, it's going to cost you?
> It would be nice for drivers (not for residents) if there were through-highways in Manhattan’s CBD
What's with the distinction? Things that are nice for drivers are also nice for residents. But in any case, if you say a road above Canal St is impossible I'll believe you. It's unfortunate because I think it would be nice for everyone.
> or easement logistics
I would reduce Canal st from 6 lanes to 5, and put piers in the middle lane - like the elevated train in Borough Park. New Utrecht maybe? I forget the exact street it goes over.
> we’re talking about half a million people who would riot
It would dramatically reduce traffic on Canal St making it mainly for residents. Would that not be worth it? But I do get your point though, it would be unpleasant to have a road instead of sky above you.
I have to ask - is Canal St frontage mainly residents or is it businesses?
> the improvements may just not have been legible to you.
You are correct. To me Manhattan is a kind of "flyover" area, except it's "drive through", it's in my way when I want to get elsewhere. I don't think I am alone in this, and the congestion pricing could have been remade to make additional people happy.
It's would be easy: Just take all bridge and tunnel tolls and apply them 100% to congestion pricing, instead of the tiny amount they proposed. After all, those tolls already act as a congestion pricing, you don't need to do it twice.
I think that one single change would have made this way more palatable to the rest of the state voters. I'm curious what your thoughts are on making that change, as a resident.
> Is this also true: If you want to live in some of the most expensive real estate in the world, it's going to cost you?
Of course. But also: it’s why big, expensive cities build mass transit, and why everybody takes it.
Most residents in NYC, especially Manhattanites, are not regular drivers. The majority don’t even own cars. This is the demographic we’re talking about; they don’t want infrastructure that they don’t use taking up already-precious space, with more air pollution to boot.
I also don’t think it would reduce traffic; induced demand is at play here. We’ve seen that with other highways in the city: if you build a certain amount of highway capacity, demand grows to fill it. That’s why congestion pricing is so appealing: it changes the incentive structure away from highway sprawl and grid congestion to efficient roads for those who need to drive and cleaner, quieter streets for everyone else.
Canal Street’s frontage is a mixture of business and residential, varying by the neighborhoods it crosses through. I’d say it leans more commercial on the western part and more residential on the eastern part, subjectively.
> It's would be easy: Just take all bridge and tunnel tolls and apply them 100% to congestion pricing, instead of the tiny amount they proposed. After all, those tolls already act as a congestion pricing, you don't need to do it twice.
The important bit here is not just charging drivers a bunch of money, but actually reducing congestion. Higher tolls go a long way, but it’s equally important to incentivize drivers off of city streets and onto highways, where possible.
Or in other words: if the goal was just to collect money, charging higher tolls would be fine. But there’s an additional virtue at play, which is making the city itself more livable.
Pretty sure it's actually pent-up demand, not induced demand. It's clear NY needs more ways for people to get through Manhattan without going into Manhattan and troubling the residents.
Even mass transit isn't good - for example to get from Bay Ridge to New Jersey airport, you need to go through Manhattan. The current design of NY runs everything through Manhattan, with a pretty self explanatory result.
> to incentivize drivers off of city streets and onto highways
So don't people already do that because highways are faster? I have an issue with the goal of getting traffic away from one place by just making life worse for people. Just not a nice thing to do. If you want to change incentive make things better and people will automatically change.
Basically my point is: Instead of adding a Congestion Charge to try to keep people away from Manhattan, work on roads - and transit! - that lets people avoid it.
>If you want wondering how to do it, add an elevated express roadway above Canal street. Because it has no connection to city roads in Manhattan - it would go directly in the air to the Manhattan bridge, it would not be unfeasibly complex to build.
That was actually a plan back in the late 1950s/early 1960s, along with similar elevated roads above 42nd and 125th streets.
Thankfully, NYers stopped that insanity, as it would have destroyed many vibrant neighborhoods in NYC, as it did[0] in the Bronx.
We will not destroy our city at the altar of making things more convenient for cars. Insist on driving your car everywhere? Do it somewhere else -- we don't want you here.
By the same argument paying a toll both on one of the tunnels and the New Jersey turnpike is also double charging. Those charges are for fundamentally different things - just like the tunnel toll and congestion charge are for different things.
The congestion charge is to make people go away and not go to Manhattan. So any kind of charge that's placed in the way of traffic to there counts.
Also the toll on the tunnel is just a cash grab, and the congestion charge has that as a secondary goal, so they are not actually for different things.
I mean if you define everything as a "cash grab" then, yeah, every payment you make is for the same thing. I just went to the movies and paid $17.50 for the ticket. I didn't realize that cash grab had the same purpose as the Holland Tunnel toll!
Wait are you also against paying for tickets for NJ Transit trains to NYC? In theory an NJ Transit ticket is "paying to be allowed to go somewhere". It's exactly analogous - it costs money to keep the trains going, just like it costs money to keep the tunnels going (and to pay for their original construction with bonds, though maybe that's not relevant today).
You're not paying for permission to go somewhere; you're paying for all the stuff that needs to happen to make your journey possible in the first place.
Most of the cost for NJ Transit is to pay the driver.
> just like it costs money to keep the tunnels going
No it doesn't. The toll is just rent seeking, it's not used to keep the tunnel going. The tunnel costs are just a tiny fraction of the tolls. See: https://www.nj.com/news/2017/12/gwb_jfk_and_ewr_bring_home_t... (and make sure to distinguish capital costs from operation costs, the article mostly will mention it).
What no one really seems to talk about that I can find is just how the money flows through NYC and then to TransCore, the company that is running the service.
Most of these are some sort of profit sharing arrangement, usually with most of the fee going to the provider vs the local government. This is almost always some sort of shady friend of a friend deal that makes the only real winner the service provider, in this case TransCore, so it would be interesting to trace the money through the deal to see just what the real motivation and reality is of this. Now particularly that it's turning into a circus, who pays the company running it now that it's installed and NOT being used and no profit to be had?
It was already stated that NYC wanted tracking of cars even without the congestion fees, and thus tracking the people in or around them, so likely the real reason they're there. Since the local law enforcement cannot effectively police the city, this is meant to do something, hopefully anything to help, but with most of the crime originating from undocumented migrants at this point, the only persons to be punished will be real citizens.
Funny thing, in the UK they are trying this as their ULEZ plan, and people took to this by chopping down the cameras installed on the side of the road to the point they've disabled effectively more than 10% of them. The city of course is trying to find the "vigilantes" doing this, but mean time they are deploying vans equipped with cameras and readers in their place to deter vandalism. The "blade runners" as they're called have now taken to following them around and blocking them with cars, objects, or otherwise still disabling them with spray paint and other means however to negate their efficacy.
Sadly the NYC cameras are mounted in such a way to make this more difficult to do, but I'm certain where there's a will, there's a way.
Can you clarify what you mean? This sounds extremely untrue. The tax was passed as part of the whole package, and then the tax was repealed by congress while Trump was in office.
London has had this sort of congestion pricing for years. £15/day, about USD $19. Exemption for zero-emission vehicles, but that will end from 2026.
As a London resident I'd say it only has benefits: frees up road space for those vehicles that really need it. Makes walking and cycling safer and more pleasant. Shifts some journeys to public transport. Generates revenue that gets reinvested in transport projects.
Does reduced congestion not also make it much healthier to walk/live/work close to busy roads? We know that combustion and tire pollution causes a number of health issues.
Certainly, London's air has gotten noticeably cleaner in recent years. Although I suspect most of this gain is from incentivising zero-emission vehicles through the congestion charge exemption and also the ULEZ ultra-low emission zone (an additional charge on older dirty vehicles), not just from reducing traffic volumes.
Not directly, because most London taxis and Ubers are electric and thus exempt from the congestion charge. This exemption will end by 2026, but even then we're talking about £15 spread between many fares over the day.
> London has had this sort of congestion pricing for years. £15/day, about USD $19. Exemption for zero-emission vehicles, but that will end from 2026.
City of London has had it. It's an absolutely trivial area when compared to what is proposed in Manhattan, where literally half of the island -- and almost every major entry/exit point to the island -- is included in the "congestion area". London's congestion area is something akin to lower Manhattan south of Wall St., by proportion of land and overall impact.
It's completely disingenuous that supporters of this plan keep confusing the tiny London congestion area with the entirety of London. You can see the actual proportion on the maps on these pages:
> "It's an absolutely trivial area when compared to what is proposed in Manhattan"
This is incorrect. The London congestion charge zone covers 21 sq km. The proposed Manhatten congestion zone includes only the area below 60th street, which is approximately 20 sq km. They are almost exactly the same size.
The £12.50 ULEZ (ultra-low emission zone) charge works using similar technology and covers all of Greater London (excluding the M25), an area about 30x larger than the entire island of Manhattan.
Edit: you completely changed your comment after I replied, so I'll respond to your new one here:
> This is incorrect. The London congestion charge zone covers 21 sq km. The proposed Manhatten congestion zone includes only the area below 60th street, which is approximately 20 sq km. They are almost exactly the same size.
That's a completely silly comparison. Manhattan is 23 square miles. London is 610 square miles.
In other words, the proposed Manhattan congestion area is 33% of Manhattan's total land area, if we accept your assertion of 20 square km (7.72 square miles). The city of London congestion area is only 1.4% of London's land area.
But of course, you can see that on the maps I shared. It's plainly visible. It's difficult to define the equivalent proportion for London, because it would be so absurd -- something like everything within A406 and A205.
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Old commment:
OK? It's not the technology I have a dispute with, it's the implementation. The way they were planning to do it here involved numerous exceptions necessitated by the sheer scope of the thing (e.g. the FDR and the west side highway) and arcane rules (e.g. one deck/ramp of the queensboro would have it, but not the other) that were necessary to wedge this kind of a system into Manhattan's street system. Because of these, there was almost certainly going to be a mess at the edges of the zone.
But also, it should be fairly obvious that a tax on "ULEZ" probably already excludes most vehicles on the road, thus significantly reducing implementation challenges. It's less of an active fare-gathering scheme, and more of an incentive to get people out of older vehicles. We have a similar system in place at time of registration.
Sorry, I realised I'd replied twice to the same comment, so I merged my replies together.
Your original assertion was that London's congestion charge area is trivial (small) compared to NYC's. My main point was that it's not: they're actually about the same size.
London's is also not trivial to implement: London's street network is pretty complex, and I'd be very surprised if there aren't many more entry/exit points to the London congestion zone compared to Manhattan's, which has the significant benefit of being on an island!
I'm not sure how "proportion of size compared to the rest of the city" is relevant. In both cases they're the most central, busiest parts of their respective cities, with the most commuters and the worst congestion. You're right that London's central zone is geographically tiny compared to the Greater London area. The NYC congestion zone is also tiny compared to the New York metropolitan area, which is enormous.
Do people living outside the city of London also agree it only has benefits? And does it work so well for London because more people actually live in the city, compared to New York City which is comparsrively full of commutors and tourists?
More than 1 million commuters and tourists travel in to London every day, but the vast majority (> 80%) travel by train/plane/tube/etc.
People driving to Central London from elsewhere in the UK often park in outer London, where there are large carparks near major rail stations with fast trains into the center. This saves both time and money!
This congestion pricing seems to partly be a handout to the wealthy: for a cost that's negligible to them, they get more use of the public streets, due to fewer poors in the way.
You're implying that the main/only "use" of public streets is to fill them up with car traffic.
Fewer cars on the streets means they can be better leveraged by buses, cyclists, and pedestrians, which is how it should be in a place like Manhattan.
You say it like they'll be cruising down empty double-wide lanes while waving to the grateful peasants. In reality, the time commuters cut off their driving time will probably be measured in single digit minutes, while the benefits to the city and the millions of us who live here will be huge.
I'm not against congestion pricing per se, but aren't these sorts of policies regressive? White-collar workers (with higher-paying jobs) are more likely to have employers that will pay these costs for their employees, so I would expect the costs to be borne directly mostly by middle- and lower-income workers.
(Assuming lower-income workers could even afford the bridge/tunnel tolls plus parking costs in the first place...)
I think the idea is that most lower-income and many middle-income workers are already taking transit, so the impact is primarily on higher-income commuters. I'd only consider it regressive if a lot of middle-income commuters were forced to pay a fee because transit options from their home are either non-existent or take too long. That's a rare situation in NY but is probably pretty common in other US metros. There's also usually various exemptions to these kinds of laws, such as in this case...
"Low-income drivers who earn less than $50,000 a year can apply to pay half the price on the daytime toll, but only after the first 10 trips in a month."
Probably more than you would guess. They tend to work where they can and buildings need a lot of work. Some of it (plumbing) is more skilled than others.
Don't forget that Hochul also neutered the right to repair bill before signing it into law [0]. She also vetoed the non-compete bill [1] and asked for it to be watered down
It's a shame that the GOP candidate she competed against was so unelectable, it just makes it easier for the other party to sink to the same shitty level. Good to see that news outlets aren't trying to shield her, hopefully this term is the end of her political career
As much as I like the idea this was nothing but a money grab by MTA. So what happens to the cars of rich Manhattanites? They can run their cars up and down park ave freely once the congestion pricing is in effect? Why do I have to pay so they can fund their subway system?
I would say it’s best to let the voters affected vote for what they want, but they must also live with the consequences, and they don’t have much choice. Then if it’s awful they can reconsider, that’s why democracy works, rather than than all these technocrats telling us what is best for us; give us your arguments technocrats, we will decide what we do with our lives.
No problem. Since we can back out of deals at the last second, just divert the $850M going to a billionaire's entertainment complex he was too poor to build on his own.
As a car lover, I don't understand the attachment to cars in big cities. Driving in them, with or without admission prices, is an utterly miserable experience. Why would you want to take an hour to go five miles while surrounded by screaming noise and horns and the constant threat of hitting a pedestrian or another car? It sucks out of control. I don't see the point in allowing personal vehicles to operate in that motorist's hellscape at all.
You want to live in a human termite mound, you don't get to drive an apartment with wheels around. You wanna drive your car to work, live and work where it makes sense.
- it takes me 1.5 hours to commute to work by subway, ~ 1 hour by car in a good day. When it's freezing outside and I have to walk 2 kilometers to the subway, I would prefer the car. When there are 38 degrees Celsius, I would prefer the car (also from the subway to the office is over .5 kilometers). Getting sweaty in the office is bad. Luckily I work from home most of the time or I take a motorcycle, much faster than a car and better most of the time (except when it's freezing)
- driving the kids to school sometimes requires a car when the school is 2 km away and there is no direct public transportation in that direction (or you have to change 3 different bus lines)
Work from home is not always and option and most of the time is not the employee's choice. All the greenwashing companies that require their employees in the office for work that does not require physical presence bear more guilt on pollution than their employees.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 63.6 ms ] thread(The entire situation is a pathetically self-inflicted one: the MTA is a state entity instead of a city one, meaning that the city's single most important mode of transportation is perpetually shackled to the state's political slapfights.)
(To my knowledge, the MTA is not significantly availed of the general state budget. They get some money from it, but not disproportionate to the amount their service base puts in via transit taxes.)
It was little more than a backdoor tax on all city residents, disguised as urbanism. Good riddance.
(FWIW, I even support more funding for the MTA, within reason, but this wasn't the way to do it.)
It's just embarassing the level of dysfunction in planning any major projects in this city. It kills all hope that our public transit can be brought into the modern era, honestly.
Hochul also hasn't helped herself by spending a bunch of state money (i.e. city money, since the city contributes disproportionately to the state budget) on her own local, i.e. Buffalo, pork-barrel topics[1].
[1]: https://hellgatenyc.com/the-buffalo-bills-just-need-another-...
What's more likely, IMO is that overall city turnout will be severely depressed in 2026, and Hochul may find herself counting on an uncomfortably slim, demographically homogeneous, and purple suburban voter base. That's what she's used to as a Buffalo politico, and I don't think she's fully come to terms with the reality that that doesn't "play" at the statewide level.
It's been very frustrating to see so little news (both local and national) pick up on this basic reality: Hochul is acting far beyond her constitutional powers as the governor, and the legislative branch has so far responded only tepidly (by refusing to pass her last-minute tax alternative).
But no one cares if it serves their political interests.
The Constitution that created the federal republic is essentially an agreement, a form of contract. It has been violated to every degree and in every imaginable way possible that the only thing holding any of this together is that people still have not realize that they still trust in a lie.
I get indications that there is possibly a kind of realization starting to work its way through the country, where people are starting to realize just that … that they’ve been had, defrauded, conned, lied to, deceived, stolen from, plundered, and abused.
We shall see how deep the cracks go once an economic event stresses the foundation. I’m agnostic on which way it will go or if the crack will cause the foundation to crack catastrophically. I could make arguments either way.
That doesn't mean it's good, but suggests directions for solutions.
The executive can move quickly and has some special case exceptions to exercise them more broadly, namely justifiable emergencies, but their powers are supposed to be ephemeral at most owing to their speed.
As for the judiciary, it's not their job to legislate in the first place so I'm not sure why you brought them up.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-CONGRESS/PRODUCTIVITY/e...
P.S. law is only permanent when the legislature is unable to enact new law to change or repeal it
No, it doesn't have to.
Remember, the legislature is voted by the electorate, the voting public at large; the people of the city, county, state or country as applicable. If the legislature ends up so divided that passing laws with a supermajority to overrule executive vetos is impractical if not impossible, that suggests the people are divided and cannot come to a consensus on issues to be debated.
Why should the legislature pass laws when the people can't come to an agreement? That's not democratic. If the people can't agree, neither should their representatives agree and it's the duty of the executive to veto such legislative overreach.
Not passing laws is totally acceptable if there aren't any proposed laws that help further the will of the people.
I'd argue that a law based on culture or current knowledge is a bad law precisely because both knowledge and culture are always evolving. Laws that don't come with an expiration date should be timeless, at which point they couldn't be based on today's culture or knowledge.
If the government can only get something done by ramming it through only one branch, maybe there's a reason. It's possible that the action wouldn't hold up to judicial review or that the legislature of elected representatives don't support it.
We can't keep assuming that gridlock is a symptom rather than a feature. Not necessarily directly related to this specific topic, but sometimes governments just have to slowly to do their jobs well.
Personally, as a remote worker, it bugs me that she’s doing this to force people to go to work. So basically she wants the pollution and massive waste of resources if someone can sell a bunch of 15 dollar sandwiches and 10 dollar coffees at street level every day. In other words she wants to fleece employees either way.
I feel for the business paying rent based on foot traffic in cities, however they know that if the foot traffic goes away, they can get out of their leases, since at least in malls etc the price per sq foot is based on foot traffic.
But what I have zero interest in is this argument that I have to go to work so that I can be fleeced by businesses every time I walk down the street, so that they can stay in business. That is not my problem. Its pretty insulting given how much better for the environment and people’s personal lives it is to work remotely to treat us like a bunch of chickens going through a toll gate.
Progressive companies that know the future have already let their leases go and gone full remote. More will follow. There will be no back to office.
To the best of my knowledge, the governor of New York absolutely does not have "special powers" over NYC. NYC's boroughs are normal municipalities for the purposes of state law.
You might be thinking of the MTA, which was formed as an independent state corporation after the city's bankruptcy. This is a source of persistent local funding headaches, but is not a "special power": the MTA's board is intentionally not fully appointed by the governor, to prevent exactly this kind of unilateral maneuvering[1].
I don't really think this has anything to do with remote work or RTO, etc., either. Congestion pricing was a pre-COVID policy that's been on the table for well over a decade; it's sound policy purely in terms of making the MTA financially sustainable and reducing congestion and air and sound pollution within Manhattan.
[1]: https://new.mta.info/transparency/leadership/board-members
I’m not aware of any special powers still in effect; it would be good to have a link for that.
Title IX of the NYS Constitution describes the general terms of home rule, including the rules that govern all counties, towns, and cities within the state. I can’t find an explicit reference anywhere to NYC or its countries anywhere within that title, so I don’t know which section you think implies “special powers.”
(If anything, NYC is afforded an unusual degree of home rule relative to other municipalities in NY, as evidenced by the fact that it's really 5 counties in a trenchcoat.)
Please note: this can barely be considered a partisan comment.
That’s because there are no penalties for violating the Oath of Office they take - the courts will simply override her decision at some point.
If by chance they don’t she will simply reverse her decision - after the election.
This is pure politics by a politician who cares only about herself and her party.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
Board members historically have been creatures of their appointees, exercising no independent judgment.
The suburbs hate this congestion pricing plan.
So, yes, technically the governor can’t do this. Practically, she can.
* not really, one of the votes is split into four pieces, but effectively
But I agree, they’ll probably still do it.
They are legal fiduciaries, and they have been asked to vote to bankrupt the company for which they are fiduciaries.
It's very difficult to find a way to square that circle legally, which is why Hochul has started to claim that the board doesn't need to vote on this at all (which is an equally laughable claim).
Realistically, we’re never going to see any ambitious projects in my life time and it’s sad to see
The problem is that so much of the control of NYC lies with state-level Democrats who are structurally incentived to prioritize the suburbs over the city because the suburbs are more likely to vote Republican in various races. This is exactly what happened here. Hochul -- working with the federal House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries -- paused congestion pricing to make it easier to win House seats in the suburbs. If they lose support in the city they don't care because the city districts are so safe.
Don't take democratic politicians at their word, they only care about keeping their money flowing into their coffers.
Why should our greatest city be held back by the backwaters upstate?
(Of course, ironies abound besides this: funding NYC's mass transit is one of the most reliable ways to keep the city's tax revenues up, which prop up all of the financial misadventures and pork that upstate is fond of. Kneecapping the city's revenue streams hurts the suburban lifestyle and its financial assumptions in the long run.)
But it says in the article itself and pretty much everything about this that "they want to try it in other places next". Are they not supposed to read or react to that part? Can you really blame them for trying to stop this at the point they have the most leverage?
Absolutely I can, yes. They can vote against it when it applies where they live, when it doesn’t it shouldn’t be any of their business. But hey, New York politics is extremely dumb.
I live in Minnesota where we basically don’t have toll roads and I’ve been incredulous about how people aren’t more upset about the ones they have in other states/countries when I’ve travelled, as one example.
In a car dependent city, this could be fairly argued to be a regressive or punitive toll, but NYC (and especially Manhattan) is not car dependent.
(And note: the "free" status quo exists only because the cost is hidden from you, i.e. the potential car driver into the CBD: you don't pay for the air and noise pollution, emergency service delays, deferred maintenance on mass transit, etc. that residents do. Factor those in, and free transit through one of the densest and most expensive cities in the world is a pretty gross subsidy.
More realistically, suburbanites outside of Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. would have more to fear. But those people aren’t being polled.
If you poll upstate, they think NYC is a drag on the state economy and tell you how horrible it is that "all our tax money" goes to the city. The actual situation is the opposite, though.
Polling the entire state on congestion charges is like asking Ted Cruz for Hurricane Sandy money; little reason to actually care about the right decision.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/70-current-and-former-n...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/20/nyregion/adams-fbi-corrup...
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2017/08/the-worst-ne...
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/new-york-history-polit...
https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/albany-corruption-trials
https://www.commerce.gov/news/blog/2024/04/us-remains-worlds...
And no one invests in individual public projects anywhere.
The insanely high cost of building relatively modest things precludes entirely building ambitious things. Not even the federal government has that kind of money.
what a joke of a statement; then none of you mean to pause it, you meant to kill it. if you’re going to ruin what little progress this damn country can make at urbanism in its most urban city, at least wear your mockery and ruination on your sleeve proudly, rather than weasel out of it with a bullshit “pause.”
garbage politicians.
They should have also given a credit for exiting immediately and not staying in the city, i.e. transiting through the city. This would have made New Jersey considerably more likely to be in support.
Without both of those things New Jersey has it right: everyone would just travel through New Jersey to avoid that part of Manhattan when they're just trying to get through Manhattan.
But for the state, certainly they can: it's state roads and state transit infrastructure, maintained and paid for by the state. NY didn't tell NJ to kneecap NJT's budget[1], or to develop car-dependent cities and suburbs.
[1]: https://www.nj.com/news/2024/04/nj-transit-study-targets-600...
NJ isn't exactly a cheap state either in terms of taxation, but it's also one of the most affluent in the country. It's hard to believe that NY's payroll tax can be unilaterally blamed for NJ's inability to maintain and further develop NJT.
(This is besides the larger contradiction, which is that NJ would have ~no taxes to collect on these residents at all, were it not for NYC's proximity.)
Also, NJ residents commuting to NYC don't just "do it to avoid city taxes". There are more commuters from NJ than there are open housing units in the 5 boroughs. NJ's housing stock and commuting infrastructure is a massive pressure relief valve on housing costs in NYC. Heck, NJ commuters would saturate every open housing unit in the boroughs, Long Island, Westchester, Southern Connecticut, and then some.
Last thought. Manhattan is a massive job center in no small part because of its enormous access to talent inside and outside of the city - the outside the city talent uses mass transit on an enormous scale. NJ might look different without Manhattan there, but NYC would also look different if NJ wasn't there.
Agreed, and agreed. But the "why" is important: NJ subsidizes NJT because it keeps people living in the state, which has its own taxes.
I don't mean to come off as stridently anti-NJ here -- I agree that the two are mutually interdependent, and that an abstractly fair congestion pricing deal would include funding for NJT as well (and not just MTA). But that's only half the story: NJ's pols have dug themselves into an "over our dead bodies" position on any amount of congestion charging, have failed to move NJT/MTA collaborative projects forwards, have fought NYS tooth and nail over Gateway's funding[2], and torpedoed their own NJT modernization and expansion projects[1].
In the status quo, my perspective as a NYer is that the MTA is (shambolically) moving towards a better status quo, while NJ digs in on a position that's ultimately incompatible with the region's long term livability and economic growth. I can't think of a good reason why it should be this way since, even at a deficit, both sides ultimately benefit from better commuter networks.
(On a related note: I checked the 2025 NJ budget[3], and there's a $6B surplus forecasted. So I don't wholly understand why NJ is considering cutting NJT's budget by $600M[4], or why maintenance has been deferred for so long.)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_to_the_Region%27s_Core
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Program_(Northeast_Cor...
[3]: https://www.njlm.org/1280/2025-NJ-State-Budget
[4]: https://www.nj.com/news/2024/04/nj-transit-study-targets-600...
1. ARC was a bad project. Gateway was always going to be necessary even if ARC was completed. I'm skeptical that the region would get a second bite at the federal funding apple for Gateway if ARC was built. It's not even clear to me that Gateway's alignment would have been possible if ARC was built.
2. NJT defers maintenance because it funds its operating subsidy through the capital budget. It has at least since Chris Christie slashed the operating subsidy during the financial crisis (NJ budget was massively strained).
3. There were stories a few years ago about NJT problems holding onto train engineers. Trainees would generally leave for jobs at MTA, LIRR, and Amtrak that paid 30%+ more. Going back to that $2+ billion that commuting NJ residents pay to NYS - which presumably subsidizes MTA operations - it sort of looks like that structural tax issue is causing NJ residents to subsidize MTA salaries to the detriment of NJT.
4. Going back to the tax issue. NYS and NYC benefit from NJ commuter access. Building ARC or Gateway make it so NJ can send more commuters to NYC to pay taxes to NYS. Why should NJ pay anything for its construction?
I'm generally supportive of congestion pricing. But I think NYC/NYS have a long history of treating NJ like a bedroom community that it has no responsibility toward. It doesn't have to after all - no votes, politicians will never care about non-constituents. But like, to impose another tax that meaningfully impacts NJ residents resides in the context of a deeply toxic, dysfunctional dynamic. NJ residents should rightfully be bothered.
This is a fair point, but was ARC actually canceled with the expectation that Gateway was going to be announced? That may have been what happened behind the scenes, but it isn't how it looked on the public side at the time: what I remember thinking at the time was that Chrisie unilaterally pulled NJ out of a joint project with no alternative.
> There were stories a few years ago about NJT problems holding onto train engineers. Trainees would generally leave for jobs at MTA, LIRR, and Amtrak that paid 30%+ more. Going back to that $2+ billion that commuting NJ residents pay to NYS - which presumably subsidizes MTA operations - it sort of looks like that structural tax issue is causing NJ residents to subsidize MTA salaries to the detriment of NJT.
I hadn't heard those stories about NJT struggling to hold on to talent, that's helpful context. That being said, I don't think that $2B+ is going directly to the MTA -- my understanding is that the MTA's tax inflows mostly come from the MCTMT[1], which is levied against employers. So it's not as though MTA money is coming directly out of NJ residents' pockets, although you could argue that a payroll tax indirectly suppresses their wages.
> Going back to the tax issue. NYS and NYC benefit from NJ commuter access. Building ARC or Gateway make it so NJ can send more commuters to NYC to pay taxes to NYS. Why should NJ pay anything for its construction?
IMO, the simplest reason is that it still makes NJ wealthier: good transit between NJ and NYC means further incentives for NYC residents to move across the river, and retains people already living in NJ (where they pay sales tax, real estate taxes, etc.). It also enables reverse flow: strong transit between the two brings NYers into Northern NJ for tourism and shopping (I have places that I want to go in Fort Lee, Hackensack, etc. that I don't bother with because NJT is a hassle).
I think you're right about how NYC treats Northern NJ. But I also think this doesn't get better, for the reasons you've mentioned. Maybe that could be ameliorated over time by eliminating the state boundaries in the twos' transit networks, but I don't think either has any immediate political appetite for that beyond what already exists with PANYNJ.
[1]: https://www.tax.ny.gov/bus/mctmt/emp.htm
https://new.mta.info/document/101141
It looks like the MCTMT tax is about $2 billion out of $9 billion of operating subsidies. It isn't clear to me whether that is levied on nonresident employees. The Metropolitan Mass Transportation Operating Assistance (MMTOA)is the biggest contributor to subsidy (which sounds like sales tax and a few others), along with the gas tax, property transfer, and a few others. All in all, I think it's fair to say that the NYS budget isn't meaningfully contributing to the MTA relative to other sources.
Personally, I wish the federal government would do more to help with the NY/NJ dynamics. Be the go between, manage the conflicting interests. We can do so much better with harmonization of transit networks, and the region already gives so much to the rest of the country. But I also think voters in both states need to be more aware of the actual issues we have been talking about here. There seems to be so little understanding of how things work and why things are the way they are. Maybe informed voters could tip the scales enough for NY/NJ politicians to play better together, or at least talk to these real issues.
And NJ collects billions of tax dollars every year from NY residents that work in New Jersey[0]
[0] https://www.sapling.com/8676392/taxes-city-work-new-jersey
Which NJ residents do you think are through-transiting via the Manhattan's streets? The core demographic being targeted here is driving onto the streets to park and go to work, not to drive into Brooklyn, Queens, or LI.
(To my understanding, the plan with the congestion charge is to waive the charge when drivers stay on highways and freeways, i.e. don't enter the grid. So a NJ resident who takes the GWB and drives down HHP and then Brooklyn via 478 would never pay the congestion fare.)
Charging them is fine, but that is not the basis of the lawsuit from NJ. NJ is complaining about people using NJ to go around Manhattan.
> To my understanding, the plan with the congestion charge is to waive the charge when drivers stay on highways and freeways
Can you show me that policy or map? Because when I checked that was NOT the case. The only time charges are waived are the two coastline roads that go around Manhattan. All other transit traffic is charged at full rates. When you enter from NJ you do not go on those coastline roads, you go through Manhattan.
This pricing should have been coupled with some new transit roads that do not have any exits in the city.
From your comment I wonder if part of the reason she stopped the project is people not actually understanding what the real charges are.
I can't think of a single sane route via which you'd go around Manhattan, via NJ, to get to something in another borough. If you're in the Bronx, you'll go to Queens or Brooklyn via non-Manhattan bridges, and vice versa.
> The only time charges are waived are the two coastline roads that go around Manhattan. All other transit traffic is charged at full rates.
Yes, that's the point. The coastline routes are the highways; there are no highways through central Manhattan's city grid, and there never will be. You can see the highways, which are all exempted, on the MTA's map[1].
I gave you an NJ to Brooklyn route that does not involve the city grid: you can take the George Washington Bridge (above the congestion zone) onto the Henry Hudson Parkway, which will then take you directly to the Hugh L. Carey tunnel, which is I-478, which will take you directly into Brooklyn. This is also in practice already the fastest route into Brooklyn from NJ, since it doesn't involve the city grid at all.
Similarly for North Brooklyn and Queens: if you want to avoid congestion pricing, take the GWB and stay on I-95, and you'll be comfortably outside of the congestion zone the entire time.
[1]: https://congestionreliefzone.mta.info/
Your route is decent - as a route. But it costs almost $30 in tolls!
For example Holland Tunnel to Manhattan bridge and Brooklyn Bridge without paying congestion pricing is a route that should exist. I think those are like half the price of your route (not 100% sure of the price).
> there are no highways through central Manhattan's city grid, and there never will be
There should be a direct connection, with no exits to city roads, between the Lincoln Tunnel and FDR Dr. Same with the Holland tunnel - that should be directly connected to the two coastal freeways, without going in city streets.
From looking at a map those are the biggest gaps in regards to congestion pricing.
If you want wondering how to do it, add an elevated express roadway above Canal street. Because it has no connection to city roads in Manhattan - it would go directly in the air to the Manhattan bridge, it would not be unfeasibly complex to build.
See, they added the "annoyance" first, and didn't also connect it with any improvements, and I think that was their biggest mistake.
I've noticed this very frequently with transit advocates - they only want to harm car driving, but give zero thought to making travel better for people. They forget the goal: Make travel better. The goal is not getting rid of cars.
This is a basic maxim for NYC: if you want to drive on some of the most expensive real estate in the world, it’s going to cost you. Congestion pricing was intended to further equalize that cost, by incentivizing drivers away from the city grid and onto the highways intended to facilitate their transit around the city center.
It would be nice for drivers (not for residents) if there were through-highways in Manhattan’s CBD. But as I said, this is a non-starter: not only would it be a multi-billion dollar project that nobody wants to pay for, but it would also actively devalue or preempt hundreds of billions of dollars of prime Manhattan real estate. Robert Moses, famous for getting whatever he wanted w/r/t highways, tried a similar plan over 70 years ago, and failed miserably.
(I don’t know if you’ve ever been to or lived in NYC, but you can’t just build a mega highway over Canal Street — it runs through four of the densest neighborhoods in the borough, plus two of the highest income ones. That’s before construction or easement logistics, even — we’re talking about half a million people who would riot if the city tried to put an elevated highway by their windows.)
And as a final thing: congestion pricing was slated to raise $15 billion for the MTA, which in turn was allocated for improvements to the actual backbone for the city: the subway, LIRR, and Metro-North. There were key schedule, maintenance, and capital improvements planned that would have made life better for millions of city residents (myself included) that are now in limbo. So it isn’t accurate to say that this wasn’t connected to improvements; the improvements may just not have been legible to you.
Is this also true: If you want to live in some of the most expensive real estate in the world, it's going to cost you?
> It would be nice for drivers (not for residents) if there were through-highways in Manhattan’s CBD
What's with the distinction? Things that are nice for drivers are also nice for residents. But in any case, if you say a road above Canal St is impossible I'll believe you. It's unfortunate because I think it would be nice for everyone.
> or easement logistics
I would reduce Canal st from 6 lanes to 5, and put piers in the middle lane - like the elevated train in Borough Park. New Utrecht maybe? I forget the exact street it goes over.
> we’re talking about half a million people who would riot
It would dramatically reduce traffic on Canal St making it mainly for residents. Would that not be worth it? But I do get your point though, it would be unpleasant to have a road instead of sky above you.
I have to ask - is Canal St frontage mainly residents or is it businesses?
> the improvements may just not have been legible to you.
You are correct. To me Manhattan is a kind of "flyover" area, except it's "drive through", it's in my way when I want to get elsewhere. I don't think I am alone in this, and the congestion pricing could have been remade to make additional people happy.
It's would be easy: Just take all bridge and tunnel tolls and apply them 100% to congestion pricing, instead of the tiny amount they proposed. After all, those tolls already act as a congestion pricing, you don't need to do it twice.
I think that one single change would have made this way more palatable to the rest of the state voters. I'm curious what your thoughts are on making that change, as a resident.
Of course. But also: it’s why big, expensive cities build mass transit, and why everybody takes it.
Most residents in NYC, especially Manhattanites, are not regular drivers. The majority don’t even own cars. This is the demographic we’re talking about; they don’t want infrastructure that they don’t use taking up already-precious space, with more air pollution to boot.
I also don’t think it would reduce traffic; induced demand is at play here. We’ve seen that with other highways in the city: if you build a certain amount of highway capacity, demand grows to fill it. That’s why congestion pricing is so appealing: it changes the incentive structure away from highway sprawl and grid congestion to efficient roads for those who need to drive and cleaner, quieter streets for everyone else.
Canal Street’s frontage is a mixture of business and residential, varying by the neighborhoods it crosses through. I’d say it leans more commercial on the western part and more residential on the eastern part, subjectively.
> It's would be easy: Just take all bridge and tunnel tolls and apply them 100% to congestion pricing, instead of the tiny amount they proposed. After all, those tolls already act as a congestion pricing, you don't need to do it twice.
The important bit here is not just charging drivers a bunch of money, but actually reducing congestion. Higher tolls go a long way, but it’s equally important to incentivize drivers off of city streets and onto highways, where possible.
Or in other words: if the goal was just to collect money, charging higher tolls would be fine. But there’s an additional virtue at play, which is making the city itself more livable.
> induced demand is at play here
Pretty sure it's actually pent-up demand, not induced demand. It's clear NY needs more ways for people to get through Manhattan without going into Manhattan and troubling the residents.
Even mass transit isn't good - for example to get from Bay Ridge to New Jersey airport, you need to go through Manhattan. The current design of NY runs everything through Manhattan, with a pretty self explanatory result.
> to incentivize drivers off of city streets and onto highways
So don't people already do that because highways are faster? I have an issue with the goal of getting traffic away from one place by just making life worse for people. Just not a nice thing to do. If you want to change incentive make things better and people will automatically change.
Basically my point is: Instead of adding a Congestion Charge to try to keep people away from Manhattan, work on roads - and transit! - that lets people avoid it.
That was actually a plan back in the late 1950s/early 1960s, along with similar elevated roads above 42nd and 125th streets.
Thankfully, NYers stopped that insanity, as it would have destroyed many vibrant neighborhoods in NYC, as it did[0] in the Bronx.
We will not destroy our city at the altar of making things more convenient for cars. Insist on driving your car everywhere? Do it somewhere else -- we don't want you here.
[0] https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/2019/11/10/the-cros...
The congestion charge is to make people go away and not go to Manhattan. So any kind of charge that's placed in the way of traffic to there counts.
Also the toll on the tunnel is just a cash grab, and the congestion charge has that as a secondary goal, so they are not actually for different things.
i.e. New York is saying: "Go away we don't want you here, but if you are going to come anyway pay up".
You aren't paying for a service (like a movie) you are paying to be allowed to go somewhere.
You're not paying for permission to go somewhere; you're paying for all the stuff that needs to happen to make your journey possible in the first place.
> just like it costs money to keep the tunnels going
No it doesn't. The toll is just rent seeking, it's not used to keep the tunnel going. The tunnel costs are just a tiny fraction of the tolls. See: https://www.nj.com/news/2017/12/gwb_jfk_and_ewr_bring_home_t... (and make sure to distinguish capital costs from operation costs, the article mostly will mention it).
It's even worse in some ways because this is basically a jobs program for NY/NJ, they could automate a lot of stuff that isn't because the unions won't let: https://unionlabel.org/2022/08/02/twu-fighting-back-against-...
The unions also control the unbelievably expensive construction costs from the first article I linked.
This is why I called it a cash grab, because that's what it is.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but are you actually claiming that a majority of NJ Transit costs are paying bus and train drivers?
Most of these are some sort of profit sharing arrangement, usually with most of the fee going to the provider vs the local government. This is almost always some sort of shady friend of a friend deal that makes the only real winner the service provider, in this case TransCore, so it would be interesting to trace the money through the deal to see just what the real motivation and reality is of this. Now particularly that it's turning into a circus, who pays the company running it now that it's installed and NOT being used and no profit to be had?
It was already stated that NYC wanted tracking of cars even without the congestion fees, and thus tracking the people in or around them, so likely the real reason they're there. Since the local law enforcement cannot effectively police the city, this is meant to do something, hopefully anything to help, but with most of the crime originating from undocumented migrants at this point, the only persons to be punished will be real citizens.
Funny thing, in the UK they are trying this as their ULEZ plan, and people took to this by chopping down the cameras installed on the side of the road to the point they've disabled effectively more than 10% of them. The city of course is trying to find the "vigilantes" doing this, but mean time they are deploying vans equipped with cameras and readers in their place to deter vandalism. The "blade runners" as they're called have now taken to following them around and blocking them with cars, objects, or otherwise still disabling them with spray paint and other means however to negate their efficacy.
Sadly the NYC cameras are mounted in such a way to make this more difficult to do, but I'm certain where there's a will, there's a way.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cadil...
It was then canceled entirely in 2019 under Trump's watch.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/finance-chiefs-relieved-after-r...
NYC Congestion Pricing Delayed Indefinitely by Governor Kathy Hochul - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40587485 - June 2024 (16 comments)
MTA board votes to approve new $15 toll to drive into Manhattan - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39841703 - March 2024 (831 comments)
The new toll to drive into Manhattan won't change much by itself - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37475743 - Sept 2023 (87 comments)
New York City will charge drivers going downtown - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36270597 - June 2023 (671 comments)
As a London resident I'd say it only has benefits: frees up road space for those vehicles that really need it. Makes walking and cycling safer and more pleasant. Shifts some journeys to public transport. Generates revenue that gets reinvested in transport projects.
In other news: water is wet.
In all seriousness, doesn't this also impact cab prices? How much is a typical fare for 15min ride in central London?
Not directly, because most London taxis and Ubers are electric and thus exempt from the congestion charge. This exemption will end by 2026, but even then we're talking about £15 spread between many fares over the day.
City of London has had it. It's an absolutely trivial area when compared to what is proposed in Manhattan, where literally half of the island -- and almost every major entry/exit point to the island -- is included in the "congestion area". London's congestion area is something akin to lower Manhattan south of Wall St., by proportion of land and overall impact.
It's completely disingenuous that supporters of this plan keep confusing the tiny London congestion area with the entirety of London. You can see the actual proportion on the maps on these pages:
London's zone: https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge/congestio...
NYC's zone: https://www.fox5ny.com/news/nyc-congestion-pricing-map-exemp...
This is incorrect. The London congestion charge zone covers 21 sq km. The proposed Manhatten congestion zone includes only the area below 60th street, which is approximately 20 sq km. They are almost exactly the same size.
The £12.50 ULEZ (ultra-low emission zone) charge works using similar technology and covers all of Greater London (excluding the M25), an area about 30x larger than the entire island of Manhattan.
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/ule...
> This is incorrect. The London congestion charge zone covers 21 sq km. The proposed Manhatten congestion zone includes only the area below 60th street, which is approximately 20 sq km. They are almost exactly the same size.
That's a completely silly comparison. Manhattan is 23 square miles. London is 610 square miles.
In other words, the proposed Manhattan congestion area is 33% of Manhattan's total land area, if we accept your assertion of 20 square km (7.72 square miles). The city of London congestion area is only 1.4% of London's land area.
But of course, you can see that on the maps I shared. It's plainly visible. It's difficult to define the equivalent proportion for London, because it would be so absurd -- something like everything within A406 and A205.
---
Old commment:
OK? It's not the technology I have a dispute with, it's the implementation. The way they were planning to do it here involved numerous exceptions necessitated by the sheer scope of the thing (e.g. the FDR and the west side highway) and arcane rules (e.g. one deck/ramp of the queensboro would have it, but not the other) that were necessary to wedge this kind of a system into Manhattan's street system. Because of these, there was almost certainly going to be a mess at the edges of the zone.
But also, it should be fairly obvious that a tax on "ULEZ" probably already excludes most vehicles on the road, thus significantly reducing implementation challenges. It's less of an active fare-gathering scheme, and more of an incentive to get people out of older vehicles. We have a similar system in place at time of registration.
Your original assertion was that London's congestion charge area is trivial (small) compared to NYC's. My main point was that it's not: they're actually about the same size.
London's is also not trivial to implement: London's street network is pretty complex, and I'd be very surprised if there aren't many more entry/exit points to the London congestion zone compared to Manhattan's, which has the significant benefit of being on an island!
I'm not sure how "proportion of size compared to the rest of the city" is relevant. In both cases they're the most central, busiest parts of their respective cities, with the most commuters and the worst congestion. You're right that London's central zone is geographically tiny compared to the Greater London area. The NYC congestion zone is also tiny compared to the New York metropolitan area, which is enormous.
Do people living outside the city of London also agree it only has benefits? And does it work so well for London because more people actually live in the city, compared to New York City which is comparsrively full of commutors and tourists?
People driving to Central London from elsewhere in the UK often park in outer London, where there are large carparks near major rail stations with fast trains into the center. This saves both time and money!
OK, so also preclude private vehicles of the wealthy, to remove more congestion.
If you're talking about the revenue, then increase taxes on the wealthy (without selling them preferred use of public streets).
(Assuming lower-income workers could even afford the bridge/tunnel tolls plus parking costs in the first place...)
"Low-income drivers who earn less than $50,000 a year can apply to pay half the price on the daytime toll, but only after the first 10 trips in a month."
It's a shame that the GOP candidate she competed against was so unelectable, it just makes it easier for the other party to sink to the same shitty level. Good to see that news outlets aren't trying to shield her, hopefully this term is the end of her political career
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/29/23530733/right-to-repair...
[1] https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/new-york-...
You want to live in a human termite mound, you don't get to drive an apartment with wheels around. You wanna drive your car to work, live and work where it makes sense.
- grocery shopping every week requires a car
- it takes me 1.5 hours to commute to work by subway, ~ 1 hour by car in a good day. When it's freezing outside and I have to walk 2 kilometers to the subway, I would prefer the car. When there are 38 degrees Celsius, I would prefer the car (also from the subway to the office is over .5 kilometers). Getting sweaty in the office is bad. Luckily I work from home most of the time or I take a motorcycle, much faster than a car and better most of the time (except when it's freezing)
- driving the kids to school sometimes requires a car when the school is 2 km away and there is no direct public transportation in that direction (or you have to change 3 different bus lines)
Work from home is not always and option and most of the time is not the employee's choice. All the greenwashing companies that require their employees in the office for work that does not require physical presence bear more guilt on pollution than their employees.