New York City Oppressing Manhattanites With Cleaner Air, Less Traffic
HOW WILL THEY LIVE????
Six months after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul landed on environmentalists’ shit lists for putting it on “indefinite” pause, New York City’s plan for congestion pricing went into effect Sunday, adding a $9 per car extra fee for commuters driving into lower Manhattan during peak hours. The higher fee is intended to reduce traffic in one of the most congested urban areas in the US, with the money going to upgrade public transit in areas served by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). The tolls are anticipated to raise some $15 billion for better subways, buses, and commuter rail, and to reduce traffic by 17 percent.
It’s the first time congestion pricing has been tried in a US city, although similar programs have been around for years in other world cities like London, Stockholm, and Singapore, resulting in less traffic, lower air pollution (and carbon dioxide emissions), more use of transit and bicycling, and better public health. But then, those places are not America, and they don’t have no freedom. Big surprise: Donald Trump thinks it’s bad and wants it to be outlawed. Before the plan went into effect Sunday, it survived a legal challenge from New Jersey in federal court.
The toll will be added automatically to drivers’ EZ-Pass toll charges by sensors and traffic cams mounted above streets in the “congestion relief zone”; cars without an EZ-Pass will have a bill sent to the registered owner. The fee was originally set at $15, but after Hochul paused the rollout last July, it was reduced to $9 initially. If the program continues, that will go up to $12 in 2028, then $15 in 2031. Fees are lower for off-peak hours; instead of billing nine bucks for drivers of taxis and rideshare cars, passengers will instead have an extra 75-cent surcharge for trips into the zone.
NPR also notes there’ll be some exemptions and discounts, too:
Authorized emergency vehicles and vehicles carrying people with disabilities are not charged, while some residents inside the zone may be able to apply for a state tax credit. On top of that, low-income drivers can register for a 50% discount after their first 10 trips per month.
As we noted last summer when Hochul put the temporary kibosh on the program, congestion pricing has had impressive results where it’s been used previously: After London implemented a congestion pricing plan, carbon emissions dropped by 20 percent, and bus ridership shot up 37 percent. In Stockholm, air pollution dropped by between five and 10 percent, which was enough to have a dramatic effect on childhood asthma; after a few years of cleaner air, the rate of asthma attacks plunged by nearly 50 percent. That’s especially important for New York, since kids in the Bronx have among the highest rates of asthma in our great dirty nation.
The New York Times reports (gift link) that congestion pricing seems to have started without any significant problems on Sunday as well as on its first workday Monday, and that while data will need to be collected over time to measure the real effects on congestion and traffic flow, many drivers said they had faster commutes. (Data showed that traffic moved more slowly the first two days, compared to the same dates last year, but there was also a snowstorm to slow things down.)
Not surprisingly, rightwing media outlets like the New York Post are hyping up inconveniences, like the odd situation faced by people who park in a garage outside the zone, but who can only leave home by exiting onto a one-way street that goes into the zone a block later, o the injustice. The Murdoch paper also hyped up a stabbing in a Bronx subway station at 4 a.m. Sunday, insisting that congestion pricing is “forcing more commuters into [a] dangerous system.” Expect to see a lot more of such coverage.
And then there are politicians like Republican City Councilmember Vickie Paladino, who represents Queens. Paladino took to Twitter Sunday with a funny joke about how “a high-powered green laser pointer like the ones you find on eBay for under $30 can destroy a camera sensor,” adding that if anyone buys one, they should “be sure to NOT point them at any cameras, because they could be permanently damaged!”
Haha, the Right is definitely getting better at comedy, isn’t it? Gothamist reports that Paladino went on to share
a video of a vigilante group damaging license plate readers in London, where a network of cameras charges drivers in the city's "ultra-low emissions zone," or ULEZ, for vehicles that do not meet emissions standards.
“Congestion pricing and ULEZ was the breaking point for these Englishmen,” Paladino wrote. “And it would be foolish to believe the same won't happen here in due time. A sawzall, spray paint, or butane torch is all it takes.”
Just in case anyone was wondering how they too could vandalize public property, which is kind of a crime. But isn’t leadership what our elected leaders are all about? Another Queens councilmember, Joann Ariola, lamented that congestion pricing was “causing a great divide between the haves and the have-nots,” and immediately added that as one of the Haves, she is “not comfortable taking the subway, so I will be driving in and paying the price.” Gosh, if only there were some way to fund better transit for everyone! Or if we could find a way to make sure America has fewer have-nots, but we think crazy commie ideas like that sometimes.
And then there’s also just plain confusion, as we saw on Bluesky Saturday from a non-confused person who wrote,
Sometimes I’m scared I’m scared of how dumb ppl are… I was talking to someone yesterday who thought the TRAIN would cost $9 more due to congestion pricing [two crying emojis]
We especially enjoyed the complaints that were remarkably close to getting the point, like a screenshot of a New York Post headline that predicted people would “get around” congestion pricing by parking well outside the congestion reduction zone and taking the train into lower Manhattan, creating a “new park-and-ride.” Yes, that would be the idea.
We also enjoyed the note in the Times about how a gas station had lots of empty pumps Monday. It is a possible bummer for the fellow who works at the counter there, who said it would normally be very busy on a Monday morning, but yeah, transitioning away from fossil fuels, in the long term, is definitely going to mean losses of gas station jobs. We are all for helping people find other work!
Of particular note is this poor man who is being oppressed:
How will that man survive if he has to pay $9 to drive his car a mile to see his children, in Manhattan? It is a mystery, but we hope he’ll make it.
[NYT (gift link) / NPR / Gothamist / Politico / Gothamist / New York]
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There is a group of people, and I have worked with many, many of them in my lifetime, that despite living in cities where decent and not-too-inconvenient public transport is an option, they are too delicate to take it. For fuck's sake, it's like they have these ideas that everyone taking the subway is a knife-wielding psycho. I mean, no, that's not even remotely the case, but I thought you all were rugged individualists with the killer instincts to slay your business rivals, but potentially being in proximity to a person that's a little bizarre is a bridge too far.
I, for one, love public transport. It can be entertaining people watching and even when it's not, there is time to catch up on reading. It's so much less stressful than driving with roads filled with those rugged individualists.
People want all of the benefits of living in society, but none of the responsibilities or costs. Everyone is a fucking child.