As congestion pricing in New York City moves closer to reality, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is finalizing a plan to give the city’s neediest drivers a discount and to distribute traffic more evenly by reducing tolls. at night.
The MTA on Friday released a report showing that the authority intends to limit the number of times drivers of taxis and for-hire vehicles are paid, giving discounts to some low-income drivers, add discounts for those who drive in the area overnight and periodically. check with small businesses in the tolling zone to see if tolls will be an obstacle.
The tolling program is the first of its kind in the country and is intended to reduce traffic by charging drivers who enter the busiest parts of Manhattan. It cleared a major hurdle this month after the Federal Highway Administration tentatively approved the MTA’s report, known as an environmental assessment, that identified ways to reduce the harm congestion pricing can cause to the disadvantaged. that community.
The public has until June 12 to review the report – which is tens of thousands of pages – before the federal government gives the document its final approval, paving the way for the MTA to have rates of toll.
If that happens, the MTA says the program, which would affect drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street, could begin in the spring of 2024.
“Congestion pricing means less traffic, cleaner air, safer streets, better travel,” Janno Lieber, the authority’s chairman, said at a news conference.
Advocates, community leaders and urban planning experts are celebrating the progress and say congestion pricing is long overdue.
“For decades, New York City has struggled to crush traffic congestion, which pollutes the air we breathe, clogs our streets, damages our communities and weakens our economy,” said Tom Wright, the president of the Regional Plan Association, a research and advocacy organization. group. “We are one step closer to finally solving this issue and implementing a policy that will benefit drivers, transit riders and communities.”
Taxi drivers, Lyft and Uber have criticized the tolling program, noting that the MTA’s own research shows that fare increases prompted by tolls may reduce demand for cabs and for-hire vehicles. ride up to 17 percent, frustrating drivers who are already struggling to get by. through. To reduce their burden, the new report says that drivers will not be charged more than once per day.
Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which calls for better working conditions for taxis and app-based drivers, vowed to fight the proposal, arguing that the yellow ones cab should be free.
“Once a day is thousands of dollars a year for struggling drivers,” Ms. Desai. “It’s just money taken off the back of a labor force that works 60 hours a week to survive.”
The MTA has yet to set a fee scale, but an initial version of the report released in August indicated that some proposals under review would charge $23 for a rush-hour trip to the tolling zone and $17 during off-peak hours for E-ZPass Holders.
Under the final proposal, drivers who earn an annual salary of $50,000 or less or are enrolled in certain government assistance programs would receive a 25 percent discount on rates after making 10 trips per month through in the tolling zone, in the first five years that the program is in effect.
The discount does not apply to overnight tolls, which are already lower. A 2022 study by the Community Service Society of New York, an anti-poverty group, found that only about 5,000 New Yorkers working in poverty regularly pay fees under congestion pricing.
Officials will also ensure that the overnight toll rate, which will be effective between at least midnight and 4 a.m., is at least 50 percent lower than the high toll rate. The goal is to take advantage of low-income drivers who can travel during that time and to encourage commercial vehicles to drive during off-peak hours, distributing traffic more evenly throughout the day.
Money raised through congestion pricing will be used for infrastructure upgrades, such as building new elevators in the subway system and modernizing the dated signals needed to keep trains moving. The program is expected to generate $1 billion annually to improve the transit network, according to the MTA
When the MTA released the first draft of its environmental assessment last year, critics were dismayed by evidence that some of New York City’s poorer neighborhoods could have more polluted air from all the displaced traffic. The final version formally commits millions of dollars in investment for those communities, including $20 million for a program to fight asthma and $10 million to install air filtration units in schools near highways. .
The report said the authority plans to set up meetings with small businesses in the congestion pricing zone before and after the launch of the program to assess whether the tolls are negatively affecting commerce.
The program faced the strongest opposition from suburbanites who worried it would place an unfair burden on people who commute to Manhattan for work.
Others, including Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey, have threatened legal action if the plan continues to move forward.
