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By: Jose Martinez
When New York next year launches the first-in-the-nation plan to charge motorists driving into the core of Manhattan, the hope is that new tolls will help bankroll billions in eventual transit improvements that will lure drivers out of cars and onto mass transit, bicycles and sidewalks.
But as the Central Business District Tolling Program nears its spring launch date, questions are being raised about whether the city and MTA are doing enough to convince motorists driving south of 60th Street and into the so-called congestion zone to ditch cars for other modes of transportation.
Expert observers note while there are many driver penalties and fees associated with congestion pricing, there are few actual improvements to alternatives to driving.
“We should have more carrots [benefits] to go along with the stick [punishments] of congestion pricing,” said Jon Orcutt, a former director of policy for the city Department of Transportation who helped develop Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan that was struck down by Albany lawmakers in 2008.
And Janette Sadik-Khan, who served as the city’s transportation commissioner under Bloomberg, told Curbed earlier this month that New York does “not look ready for congestion pricing” and is potentially looking at “a historic unforced error” if “new amenities” do not accompany the tolls on motorists.
The MTA is counting on congestion pricing to provide a $15 billion boost to the agency’s more than $50 billion plan for transit upgrades — including modern subway signals, station-accessibility work, new trains and system expansion — while cutting into traffic and vehicle emissions.
Critics have frequently targeted the city’s struggle to create more bus lanes designed to speed service, pointing out how the administration of Mayor Eric Adams is well short of meeting a 2021 NYC Streets Plan mandate to add 50 miles of new bus lanes by the end of this year. The city has installed 6.8 miles of new bus lanes, according to the Riders Alliance Bus Lane Tracker.
“More remains to be done and in particular on the city’s part — the city needs to do more to speed up buses,” said Danny Pearlstein, the advocacy group’s policy director. “The biggest investment anyone can make right now is in the speed of bus service.”
Similarly, the city is falling short of a goal to install 50 miles of protected bike lanes this year, with just 10.7 miles installed so far in 2023, according to the Transportation Alternatives Protected Bike Lane Tracker.
“None of the benefits [of congestion pricing] will be seen if we don’t use this time to plan,” Renae Reynolds, executive director of Tri-State Transportation Campaign, told THE CITY. “The mayor and the [DOT] need to take this program seriously and coordinate with the MTA on a comprehensive plan for congestion pricing coming to our streets.”
In response to the critics, the Transportation Department noted that almost every Manhattan avenue has been redesigned in recent years, citing how pedestrian space has expanded on the Eighth and Ninth Avenue corridors, while the number of vehicle lanes has been cut in half.
“The Adams administration continues to advance transformative projects to support many modes of travel, improve our public realm, and better manage our streets,” said Vin Barone, a DOT spokesperson.
New York’s long-delayed campaign to toll drivers in a traffic-heavy section of Manhattan — which state lawmakers approved in 2019 — follows the lead of London, England, which implemented congestion pricing in 2003, and Stockholm, Sweden, which followed suit in 2006.