Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Passport
  • Support WSKG
Donate
  • Donate
  • logo
  • logo
  • Donate
  • Home
  • News
  • TV
  • Your Radio
  • Schedules
  • Arts
  • Education
  • History
  • Science
  • Donate
  • More
    • About
    • Contact Us
    • Passport
    • Support WSKG

WSKG - Local news and arts, broadcasting NPR radio and PBS TV.

WSKG thanks our sponsors...
  • Donate your vehicle to support WSKG

WSKG (https://wskg.org/new-york-city-adopts-nations-first-congestion-pricing-plan/)

  • Donate
  • Home
  • News
  • TV
  • Your Radio
  • Schedules
  • Arts
  • Education
  • History
  • Science
Listen Live WSKG
Listen Live WSKG Classical

Watch Live WSKG TV
Watch Live PBS Kids
Coronavirus Updates
Coronavirus Updates

New York City Adopts Nation’s First Congestion Pricing Plan

By NPR News | May 30, 2019
More
  • More on America
  • Subscribe to America
https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/cdn.pri.org/sites/default/files/audio/cdn/2019/05/living-earth/segment-audio/loe_190517_b1_congestion_pricing.mp3

Beginning in 2021, getting around Manhattan should become a little easier: New York City has passed a new congestion pricing scheme that will charge fees to people who bring vehicles to Midtown and Lower Manhattan during peak business hours and then use that money to fund public transit.

pedestrian-road-traffic-street-town-city-546336-pxhere.com_.jpgNew York City’s famously congested streets may get a welcome break from vehicle traffic starting in 2021.

New York will be the first city in the US to implement such a plan. London, Stockholm and Singapore have already done so.

Related: Sweden has an ambitious effort to cut out its carbon use

Transport economist and environmental activist Charles Komanoff, who directs the Carbon Tax Center, has advocated for congestion pricing in New York City for years.

“[T]he automobile has been permitted to dominate not just travel and transportation, but streets and public space and the very life of great cities.”

Charles Komanoff, director, Carbon Tax Center

“[T]he automobile has been permitted to dominate not just travel and transportation, but streets and public space and the very life of great cities,” Komanoff says. “The advent of congestion pricing for New York City is going to represent the first time anywhere in America that is going to tax or charge or put a considerable price on an ‘environmental harm.’ Here, the environmental harm … is not tailpipe emissions. It’s not carbon emissions. It is the physical presence of the car itself that contributes to traffic congestion, that slows down other drivers as well as buses, pedestrians and bicyclists, etc..”

Related: Why Luxembourg’s free transit may not fix its traffic problem

Taxing or charging an environmental harm has been a tough sell in the United States, especially with carbon emissions, Komanoff notes. He hopes New York City’s congestion pricing will “blaze a path … that will spill over sometime down the road for carbon pricing.”

About $1 billion in revenue will come from cars and trucks that will be charged when they cross into Manhattan’s central business district, which begins around 60th Street. The other half a billion or so will come from charging yellow taxis, Ubers and Lyfts for trips within the same district — although their payment range extends a bit further north to 96th Street.

The revenue will be enough to bond $20 to $25 billion in mass transit investment, most of which Komanoff hopes will be allocated to modernizing the signal system in the subways so more trains per hour can run on existing subway lines and make subway travel more reliable.

Drivers who cross into Manhattan via the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, which run from New Jersey under the Hudson River into the southern and central parts of Manhattan, will likely not be charged an additional fee under the new congestion pricing plan because they already pay a hefty toll, Komanoff says. But drivers who enter northern Manhattan from the George Washington Bridge, continue south, and cross 60th Street will be charged the same as any other driver who crosses 60th Street. Drivers who cross into Manhattan from Long Island, Queens and Brooklyn on any of the four East River bridges that are currently free will also pay a fee.

The fee will likely be between $11 and $14, according to the New York Times. And while Komanoff acknowledges that is a hefty fee, he believes most people will benefit from it. The idea, he says, is to set the congestion charge at a level that will reduce the number of vehicle trips into the city by about 15%. If it works, this will shorten drivers’ commuting times and improve transit alternatives, which will become more frequent, more comfortable and faster.

“I’m not going to say that everybody is going to come out ahead of the game, but some drivers will,” Komanoff says. “And the vast majority of trips into the central business district that are done by train and bus are going to be more humane, more efficient, more reliable, and more people are going to want to do them.”

Komanoff also predicts more people will bike and walk within Manhattan, “which means they’ll be healthier, the air will be cleaner, people will live longer, fewer visits to the ER for asthma and heart attacks, fewer people being killed and injured by cars, less carbon being spewed into the air. … The net benefits, even after you deduct the new tolls that people are going to be paying, come out to about $3.5 to $4 billion a year.”

Komanoff believes that people with disabilities should get some sort of exemption from the congestion charge. The legislation requires that a six-person panel figure out a way to discount their tolls. He disagrees, however, with the idea of giving drivers of electric vehicles the same break.

“We need to hold the line and have EVs pay the same congestion charge,” he insists. “Because the main harm, or ‘social externality cost,’ of driving in the crowded, teeming heart of New York City isn’t what comes out or doesn’t come out of the tailpipe. It’s the physical presence of that vehicle that slows everybody else down.”

After nearly a century during which cities, most of which were never designed with automobiles in mind, were “taken over” by cars, congestion pricing “really does begin to level the playing field,” Komanoff says.

It signals a new era where cars don’t come first.

“It not only charges drivers for the congestion that they impose on everybody else and on each other, but it signals, I think, a new era where cars don’t come first,” he maintains. “They are part of a transportation ecosystem. They are not the only part of it. They have to be consigned to [a role] that doesn’t dominate. That’s going to open the door to different ways of living in New York and other great cities that we can only dream about now.”

This article is based on an interview that aired on PRI’s Living on Earth with Steve Curwood.

From Living on Earth ©2017 World Media Foundation

Recent Posts

  • NY19 Democrats debate ahead of primary election

     Democratic candidates for the new 19th Congressional District exchanged their views on a variety of issues in a debate hosted by WSKG Thursday. Jamie Cheney and Josh Riley discussed inflation, healthcare, agriculture, the war in Ukraine and a number of other issues on the minds of voters in the 19th congressional district.

  • After Buffalo massacre, New York governor pledges $10 million to fight domestic terrorism

    WXXI - In the fight to curb domestic terrorism on the local level, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced new guidance Tuesday to support the development of domestic terrorism prevention plans following the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo. Hochul pledged $10 million to assist counties across New York in the development of threat assessment management teams. This is a step in the right direction but more must be done, Javed Ali, associate professor at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, told NPR.

  • Sesame Place announces diversity, inclusion training after viral video sparks backlash

    WHYY - Sesame Place plans to take initiatives to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace following multiple racial discrimination allegations and a lawsuit. According to a release sent to WHYY News, Sesame Place intends to conduct a racial equity assessment to review policies, processes, and practices that “impact guests, employees, suppliers, and the community to identify opportunities for improvement.” Engagement with key stakeholders will be included in the assessment.

  • NY-19 primary: Josh Riley touts policy experience, Southern Tier roots

    Josh Riley is one of two Democrats seeking the nomination to run in New York’s new 19th Congressional District, comprising Broome, Tompkins, Chenango, Cortland, Tioga, Delaware, Columbia and Sullivan counties and parts of Ulster County. His opponent in the primary is Jamie Cheney The winner of the primary will run against Republican Marc Molinaro in the general election.

  • Hochul, legislative leaders want to reassemble deadlocked redistricting commission

      Leaders of the Democratic-controlled state legislature and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul are proposing that a court reconvene the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission. They want the commission to be charged with redrawing districts for the state Assembly 2024, after they were invalidated earlier this year.

WSKG thanks our sponsors...

About WSKG

WSKG connects you to local and global news and the arts online, on the radio, and on TV. NPR and PBS affiliate.

CONTACT US
email: WSKGcomment@wskg.org

phone: 607.729.0100

address: 601 Gates Road Suite 4, Vestal, NY 13850-2288

DONATE

Pay an underwriting invoice


  • WSKG
  • Arts
  • Education
  • Science
  • News
  • Your Radio
  • Schedule
  • TV
  • About
  • WSKG Staff
  • Contact Us
  • Jobs
  • Public Reports & Policies
  • Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)
  • Protect My Public Media
FCC PUBLIC FILES
WSKG-FM
WSQX-FM
WSQG-FM
WSQE
WSQA
WSQC-FM
WSQN
WSKG-TV
WSKA
Disabled and need assistance with the online FCC public file?
Contact Gary Talkiewicz
WSKG
601 Gates Road
Vestal, New York 13850
607-729-0100
gtalkiewicz@wskg.org

Full Frequency Information Listed Here

WSKG

89.3fm   Binghamton
91.1fm   Corning, Elmira
88.7fm   Hornell
90.9fm   Ithaca
89.9fm   Odessa
91.7fm    Oneonta
90.5fm   Watkins Glen

WSKG Classical

91.5    Binghamton
105.9  Cooperstown
90.7    Corning
88.1    Greene, Norwich
92.1     Ithaca

WSKG HD TV

Binghamton
46.1 Broadcast TV
7 Time Warner Cable
1221 Time Warner Digital Cable

Elmira
30.1 Broadcast TV
8 Time Warner Cable
1221 Time Warner Digital Cable

Oneonta, Cooperstown
8 Time Warner Cable
1221 Time Warner Digital Cable

Hornell
1221 Time Warner Digital Cable

© Copyright 2022, WSKG

Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Back to top ↑