New York could start charging drivers $15 to enter Manhattan as soon as mid-June, a lawyer for the state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority told a judge at a hearing on New Jersey’s lawsuit to block the plan.
The MTA may decide on the final tolling structure by the end of March, attorney Mark Chertok told Judge Leo Gordon during a status conference Tuesday in Newark. That would lead to several further steps in the approval process. The toll, to be imposed on motorists driving into Manhattan’s central business district, would be the first of its kind in the US.
I appreciate this… but I do also wish it was wealth or car model scaled.
There’s a discount for low income residents from what I recall (although I believe it’s small). I agree that SUVs and pickup trucks should be hit harder, but perhaps that can be added down the line.
EDIT: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/nyregion/tolls-congestion-pricing-nyc.html
And:
On the car model point, perhaps SUVs and pickup trucks could be pushed into the “small truck” category, raising the fee to $24. These “cars” exist due to dodging the efficiency standards that apply to normal cars, so they should be treated as the light trucks that they actually are.
Disagree. I see where you’re coming from, but make it flat fee, and give lower income cheaper metro passes. Make it stupid easy and cheap for them to transit into the city.
I wish it were a straight ban and while I appreciate the desire to make it progressive, the fact is in the most well-connected city in the US, the goal isn’t to generate revenue from this, it is to reduce the amount of cars, and that includes poor people in non-suvs.
There are some income thresholds that cap fees, and the charge is lower for passenger vehicles than commercial vehicles. It’s not perfect, and I’d like to see higher fees for pickup trucks and SUVs, but there are some fee tiers.