When New York introduces entry fees for Manhattan: innovation is getting closer

The road to toll collection in Manhattan's CBD has been a long one. Back in 1933, proposals to introduce fees for crossing the East River bridges in New York failed to materialize. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to push the introduction of pay during his first term in office, but opposition from outside the city and suburbs ultimately thwarted the plan. What has changed now, said the publication City and State New York.

In 2019, the state legislature finally passed a pricing law, making New York the first city in the country to have the pricing system in place. But since some of the roads that will be toll have received federal funding, the Federal Highway Administration may require an environmental review before introducing the toll.

However, the Donald Trump administration never told the New York City Department of Transportation (MTA) whether it needed a full environmental impact report or whether an abbreviated assessment would be sufficient, and the program was stuck in limbo.

Finally, the in March, the administration of US President Joe Biden informed the MTA to submit an environmental assessmentless time-consuming than compiling an environmental impact report - a welcome development for congestion toll advocates.

“Once the environmental assessment is completed, the US Department of Transportation will need to decide whether a full environmental impact report is required,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Climate Change Center at Columbia Law School. "But I would say that the recent decision to require only an assessment is a good sign that a full environmental impact report may not be required."

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However, politically difficult decisions will have to be made before setting fares for Manhattan south of 60th Street. The 2019 law stipulated that the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority would determine fees and benefits, credits or discounts for any group of drivers, including taxis and vehicles for calling passengers.

A six-member Traffic Mobility Analysis Council will be tasked with advising on the toll structure. But two years have passed since the adoption of the law, and this council has not yet been appointed.

Previous proposals recommended charging between $ 12 and $ 14 for passenger cars and $ 25 for trucks, but the cost is likely to fluctuate depending on the time of day and other factors, such as whether or not motorists who are already paying tolls need to pay when entering a city. - through, for example, Henry Hudson Parkway or Triborough Bridge - and whether it is worth taking a fee for each leg of the trip.

Toll prices were originally slated to go into effect this year, and tolls were originally thought to provide $ 15 billion for the MTA's 2020-2024 overhaul plan. But toll proponents fear that providing too many exemptions could reduce the program's effectiveness.

“One of the things we're worried about is that a ton of exemptions will dampen the impact,” said Renee Reynolds, executive director of the three-state area Transportation Campaign.

David Jones, an MTA board member, said he expects the concerns of small business owners and other groups to be raised in public hearings and that officials are likely to try to reduce the impact of road tolls on their businesses.

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Jones hopes the issue of discounts or benefits for low-income drivers will also be raised, but cited research by his organization. According to it, a relatively small number of low-paid workers had to pay tolls on a regular basis. The high cost of parking in downtown Manhattan was an important factor, he said.

“Progressive policy is about investing in public transport, and that's what it does,” said Tom Wright, president and CEO of the Regional Planning Association. "What causes regression is having a bad public transport system and saying that everyone has to rely on their car to get wherever they go, because owning a car costs an average of $ 10 a year."

Some are pushing to wait for the city to recover from the pandemic to introduce tolls, but the MTA financial crisis, which will run into $ 2024 billion in deficit by 8, has led to awareness of the need for urgent policy action, while at the same time, the general public began to view the solution to the problem of climate change as a pressing problem. In addition, the reduction in the number of vehicles on the street is consistent with recent efforts to make New York more cyclist and pedestrian-friendly.

Thus, the policy regarding this issue seems to have changed both in recent years and since the beginning of the pandemic.