NYC Congestion Pricing Goes Into Effect

New York City’s congestion pricing program is now in effect (you can trace the saga of the controversial program on Planetizen’s archives), and Dave Colon of Streetsblog NYC has all the facts you need to know as a, NYC driver or resident.

As Colon explains, “At the most basic level, the toll to drive into the area of Manhattan below 60th Street has a peak period from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The remaining hours are considered the ‘overnight’ period.”

The cost to enter the congestion pricing zone varies for passenger cars, small trucks and charter buses, tractor trailers, intercity buses and school buses, tour buses, motorcycles, yellow or green cabs, and ride-hailing service vehicles. Costs for passenger vehicles are $2.25 off-peak and $9 at peak hours. Tolls are roughly 50 percent higher for drivers without at E-Z Pass.

Colon reminds readers that the $9 toll was lowered from a proposed $15 rate, and that “The vast majority of people who get into the central business district use transit — and those who drive are, on average, wealthier than their transit-using neighbors.”

Congestion pricing is expected to raise $500 million per year, funds that will go toward public transit in the region. As Colon notes, “In the world of big money borrowing, congestion pricing is a totally separate and new revenue stream from the MTA's normal fare- and toll-backed revenues that the agency has used to pay off its bonds. Congestion pricing is that rarest of things in politics: a reliable revenue stream.”