Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Passport
  • Support WSKG
Donate
  • Donate
  • logo
  • logo
  • Donate
  • Home
  • News
  • TV
  • Your Radio
  • Schedules
  • Events
  • 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/news/new-york-city-adopts-nations-first-congestion-pricing-plan/)

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

Watch Live WSKG TV
Watch Live PBS Kids
Learn at Home
Covid-19 information

New York City Adopts Nation’s First Congestion Pricing Plan

By NPR News | May 30, 2019
More
  • More on America
  • Subscribe to America
http://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

  • Republicans Question New York’s COVID-19 Policy At Group Homes

    NEW YORK NOW - Republicans in the New York State Senate claimed Friday that policies enacted by the state during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic may have put residents at group homes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities at risk of contracting the coronavirus. The group of Republicans likened the policy, which is still in effect, to one that was briefly enacted at nursing homes, where some believe the change may have led to more deaths.

  • Governor Claims He’s ‘Playful,’ But ‘Never Inappropriately Touched Anybody’

    NEW YORK NOW - Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in his most extensive comments since being accused of sexual harassment by two former aides over the past week, released a length statement Sunday evening apologizing for some of his past behavior in the workplace. Cuomo, in the statement, acknowledged that some of his comments to staffers may have been “misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation,” and said he never inappropriately touched anyone.

  • White House, Members Of Congress Call For Probe Into Sexual Harassment Claims Against Cuomo

    NEW YORK NOW - Calls for an independent investigation into claims of sexual harassment leveled against Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the last week grew Sunday, with the White House and members of Congress from New York on board with an independent review of the allegations. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during an interview on CNN Sunday morning that President Biden has been briefed on the claims and supports an immediate investigation.

  • Cuomo Gives New York Attorney General Subpoena Powers After 2nd Woman Comes Forward

    ALBANY, NY (WSKG) - A second woman has come forward and accused New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment. Cuomo denies the allegations, but has agreed to make a referral to the state’s Attorney General Leticia James to conduct an investigation.

  • Even With Tax Relief, Advocates Say Tax Hikes On The Wealthy Needed

    ALBANY, NY (WSKG) - Democrats in the state legislature support new, higher taxes on New York’s richest residents as part of the new state budget. They say a newly released study that shows that the state’s 120 billionaires increased their wealth by $88 billion dollars during the pandemic bolsters that claim.

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, Vestal, NY 13850

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 Gregory Keeler
WSKG
601 Gates Road
Vestal, New York 13850
607-729-0100
gkeeler@wskg.org

Stay Connected

Like Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on YouTubeFollow Us on InstagramSubscribe via RSS

© Copyright 2021, WSKG

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

Back to top ↑

Change Location
To find awesome listings near you!