Congestion Pricing Details

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Arun Venugopal: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Arun Venugopal from the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom, filling in for Brian today. The MTA's Central Business District Tolling Program, aka congestion pricing, is moving along slowly but surely. Just yesterday the MTA released its long-awaited environmental assessment of the proposal to toll cars entering Manhattan south of 60th Street, and some of our most burning questions were actually answered. Like how much is this going to cost drivers and how are they going to be charged? Also, will congestion pricing actually decrease traffic by as much as a lot of people might hope?

The MTA wants to use the money to invest in the transit system, so how much money does the MTA actually expect to raise? More importantly, how are New Yorkers feeling about all of this? With us now to fill in on all these new details is WNYC's transportation reporter Stephen Nessen. Hi, Stephen. Thanks for joining us.

Stephen: Hey, Arun. Thanks for having me.

Arun Venugopal: We've got this-top line figure that-- It's a serious issue and a pretty significant amount of money. We're talking about $23 tolls during peak hours. Somewhat steep. Obviously, a very serious solution it's trying to advance regarding traffic, and I guess climate change more broadly and of course transit. Now, I don't think any of the bridge tolls are that much. Can you break down some of the pricing schemes, in addition to this $23, that are now under consideration?

Stephen: Sure. Well, first of all, let me just explain that there are actually seven different scenarios that the MTA is currently considering. Each scenario has somewhat different toll rates. Some of them are as low as $5 for driving overnight through Manhattan, and like you said, the big scary number $23 is the highest. Let me just break down for one second why that's the highest. It would be $23 during peak hours. Peak hours being 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM, which [chuckles] is pretty much all day, but the reason it would be so high is that under that scheme all vehicles would be charged the same rate. That's big trucks, small trucks, vans.

Taxis would be exempt under that, and for-hire vehicles would only be charged three times a day. There would be no cap on the number of times trucks are charged, and it would actually give a credit for trucks that cross the bridges into Manhattan. In the tunnels as well. Not that they're using tunnels, but the bridges. Once you add in those exemptions for people then the price goes way up. Do you know what I'm saying?

Arun Venugopal: Yes.

Stephen: Let's say, for example, under their base plans, Scenario A they call it, the peak charge would only be $9. That's not so bad, I guess. For a lot of people, it certainly sounds better than $23, but there would be no cap on the number of times a vehicle is charged for entering Manhattan. Under some plans you would only be charged once a day. Therefore the price needs to be higher because they expect there's going to be more traffic, so it needs to be a little more serious. With no cap you could be charged multiple times a day but it would be lower for everybody.

These are some of the considerations that the MTA is weighing when they decide how much to charge and what kind of exemptions or caps they would put on the charging scheme, because really right now they're looking at seven different options. It's hard to really generalize because each one has its own details, but this is what they're mulling over right now.

Arun Venugopal: I guess the big question for a lot of people and what they're going to experience firsthand is whether this in fact does reduce traffic by as much as a lot of New Yorkers hope. What do the details say about that?

Stephen: At the best-case scenario, traffic could be reduced by 20%. With a pretty high toll, that would discourage a certain number of vehicle trips, and it might make the cost more onerous for trucks as well so they may reconsider or figure out a different way. Let me tell you the high cost for trucks is pegged at $85 for big trucks. That's a lot.

Arun Venugopal: You said earlier that there'll be a big chunk of the day where everybody is being tolled the same amount, so $85 is presumably outside of that time zone?

Stephen: No. That would be like peak charge, $85, to enter Manhattan.

Arun Venugopal: Oh, okay. Okay.

Stephen: It's not even clear if it's once a day that they could come and go as they please for $85, or whether it's going to be $85 each time a truck enters Manhattan.

Arun Venugopal: Is the idea that traffic is going to be reduced pretty much everywhere or are we expecting that to happen more in certain areas than in others?

Stephen: Well, certainly it's focused on the central business district, is what they call anything below 60th Street all the way to the bottom of Manhattan. That's the area they're focusing on. When you talk about unintended consequences perhaps, this is their big environmental assessment of all the impacts of this program, and it runs hundreds of pages. Forgive me, Arun. I haven't read all hundreds of pages, but I've read a pinch.

Arun Venugopal: For shame, for shame, Stephen. [chuckles]

Stephen: I'll get to it this weekend of course. Looking at some of the interesting details, it does show that the Cross Bronx Expressway, particularly at Macombs Road where there's a lot of intersecting roads, that could see a major increase in traffic. They've noted it could be 4,000 additional personal vehicles, 704 additional trucks. That would increase traffic there. It could also increase traffic in Staten Island as well. The focus anyways is to reduce traffic in Manhattan where it's the worst. We have some of the slowest traffic speeds - and unbelievably slow traffic speeds - and it's only gotten worse over the years.

Bus speeds are down 28% since 2010. Travel speeds are average of 7.1 miles per hour. Buses are like at 5 miles per hour. The idea is to speed all those up of course.

Arun Venugopal: Okay. Hopefully, the user experience for people who actually use mass transit buses and the like, and maybe even people who are willing to pay the extra money, is going to get better. We have a question from Twitter. This is Jane Hahn. This is a good question. Please ask why is 60th Street the cutoff. If coming down 5th Avenue, East 62nd is the last street before E 60th. Why not 57th Street which runs river to river? No one has an answer. Why is 60th Street the cutoff? Wasn't it supposed to be 96th a while back? I know that's maybe a previous generation, but Stephen, any answers?

Stephen: I don't have a great answer. I do know that previous iterations also pegged it at 60th Street. I don't have an exact answer, but I'm going to assume that's pretty much where they see a major uptick in traffic. It starts to go down perhaps slightly north of that, but I don't have the bullseye answer for that, I'm sorry.

Arun Venugopal: Fair enough. Perhaps in those hundreds of pages that are going to make up your weekend leisure.

Stephen: [laughs] Yes.

Arun Venugopal: Let's take some calls. Lots of people have obviously very strong feelings about this who either are happy with it or are going to feel deeply impacted by these tolls. Richard in Astoria, let's go to you. Richard, how do you feel about congestion pricing?

Richard: Well, there's one situation I would like to discuss, and that is carpooling. I know the MTA would like to reduce congestion, and I rarely, if ever, hear anyone talk about carpooling. I'm a native New Yorker. When I moved down to Washington DC for my job, I received a list in the mail of all people who were in carpools and looking for-- they were looking for new people to join the carpool.

What I did was I joined the carpool, but no car could go on a highway in Washington DC or Virginia during rush hour AM, 6:30 to 9:30, or evening, 4:00 to 7:00 PM, with less than four people in the car. It was also enforced because an eagle-eyed police officer pulled over a car as my carpool was behind them. I said, "My goodness, there are four people in the car. I wonder what happened." Well, one of the four people was actually a mannequin, and they were given a ticket.

I think it's so important that we institute carpooling because I look sometimes at the number of cars going through in morning or evening rush hour, and most of them have one person in the car. If we're looking for a reduction of congestion in traffic, that's one way you can do it. You can set up stations near entrances to tunnels and bridges where a person who might be alone himself or herself can pick up people to reach the four quota and then go over the bridge. I think that's something that should be considered if you're seriously looking at reducing congestion.

Arun Venugopal: Thank you Richard from Astoria. Stephen, I guess basically moral of the story is don't try to beat law enforcement with your fake mannequins and nonsense.

Stephen: I can weigh in on this slightly. This environmental review covers literally every possible aspect of transportation into Manhattan you could think of, and indeed they do look at what would happen with carpooling. They found that it would meet the objective of reducing traffic in Manhattan similar to congestion pricing. Like the caller said, it would make a big difference.

However, it doesn't do the one thing that congestion pricing would do. It doesn't raise any money for the MTA. That's a key component of this is that part of the reason is yes, it's to reduce traffic and increase bus speeds and make life livable for people going forward in the future, but it also needs to raise money for the MTA to fund transit improvements so subways and buses are a more attractive form of transportation than driving.

Arun Venugopal: Let's taken another call. Lisa in Forest Hills, Queens, how do you feel about this whole plan, congestion pricing?

Lisa: Thank you for taking my call. I am 100% for it. I think it is long overdue. I don't think there should be a cutoff, however. I think they should try to figure out a way to have everyone entering the island of Manhattan paying a toll because to your guest's - I'm sorry I forgot his name - point-

Arun Venugopal: Stephen Nessen, yes.

Lisa: -people are just going to start funneling to the places they could get in for free, and that's going to cause other issues. Oh, not everyone, but a lot of people who come into Manhattan don't bat an eye at paying $20 or $25 for a drink, so they can pay a toll.

Stephen: [laughs]

Arun Venugopal: Anything to add to that, Stephen?

Stephen: No, that's right. I think with congestion pricing, assuming the tolling structure, the gantries-- They're going to use E-ZPass by the way. In case folks are curious, that's how they're going to collect the toll. I don't think there would really be any way to sneak into Manhattan without paying the toll. I'm sure people will try it. They always try with the bent license plates already and covered plates, but I don't think under congestion pricing there would be a way to weasel in without paying. At least it would be technically fairly difficult is, I think, the idea.

Arun Venugopal: Let's take a call from Susan who is calling in from Greenwich Village. Hi, Susan.

Susan: Oh, good morning. I live in the Village, which apparently is part of the business district. It has come as a surprise to most of us who live there. I haven't heard anything about how this is going to deal with residents who need to drive. They're talking about rebates to people who come over the bridges and through the tunnels from New Jersey who don't pay anything to support our infrastructure. Whereas if we cross over the bridge to go to the Jersey Turnpike, we actually get charged more than a Jersey resident. No rebate. I don't understand that part of it. I haven't seen anything written up about that part of it. Do you have any information?

Arun Venugopal: Good question, Susan. I don't know. Stephen, what do you think? Is there any answer obviously for all the people who do own cars and who actually live within the district?

Stephen: I do have an answer, Susan, and if you'll bear with me I'll go through one of the scenarios the MTA presented to us. Here's how it potentially could work. If you drive in Monday morning and you leave Monday before midnight, in the zone you'll be charged once. Like if you go away for the weekend or whatever.

If you drive in Monday and you don't leave until Wednesday you would be charged twice. You'd be charged for entering Monday and again on Wednesday, but you wouldn't be charged on Tuesday when your car isn't moving if that makes sense. Let's say you're someone who parks all week in Manhattan, and you leave on a Saturday but you come back before the end of the day, you would only be charged once. Essentially it's like any time your car is in motion then you would be charged, but if your car is just sitting there, it's not like you're going to be charged every day for just parking there.

As far as the New Jersey situation is concerned, she called it a rebate, the MTA calls it a credit. It's not clear exactly all the details because they have seven different scenarios. In some of the scenarios, you would get a credit. If you crossed from the Hugh Carey, the Lincoln, the Holland tunnels, or if you crossed the RFK or the Henry Hudson or the George Washington Bridge, in some of the scenarios there would be a credit, in some of them there wouldn't be a credit. It's really up to the MTA. They have a specific board that's going to decide on the final scheme but we don't know what it is.

What we do know is that New Jersey, as I'm sure Susan's been hearing, has been pushing real hard to get their drivers to avoid being tolled twice crossing a bridge and then entering the central business district. Governor Murphy has said absolutely no way are his residents going to pay this toll. Congressman Josh Gottheimer has been really banging the drum on this for a while. He even launched some legislation with local Jersey lawmakers called Stay in Jersey where he wants to incentivize businesses to open satellite offices in New Jersey so his workers don't have to commute.

Truly from a lot of the data I've read, the majority of people from New Jersey who work in Manhattan actually arrive by transit. They're not driving into the central business district. Many are of course, but the majority, I believe, are not.

Arun Venugopal: This is WNYC-FM, HD, and AM, New York; WNJT-FM 88.1, Trenton; WNJP 88.5, Sussex; WNJY 89.3, Netcong; and WNJO 90.3, Toms River. This is New York and New Jersey Public Radio. Stephen, we've got just a few minutes left, but let's ask a very basic question in terms of the mechanics of this. How are people going to get charged? How are drivers going to get charged?

Stephen: Well, it's going to use E-ZPass. The MTA says 95% of drivers in Manhattan use E-ZPass, so that would be easy enough. They're going to have the tolling gantries at various spots all over the city, even some like under the High Line. You're not going to get charged for the FDR Drive or the West Side Highway, but if you leave there and you go onto any city street you would be charged. If you're just going from the West Side Highway to the Hugh Carey Tunnel, I believe you would not be charged.

That's the bare bones of it. I think if you don't have E-ZPass they would take a picture and send you a bill and it would be much higher. Obviously, it's cheaper if you use E-ZPass. That's something we'll look forward to seeing. I don't think it'll be that intrusive. It'll be like sensors hanging on light poles sort of thing. That's how that's going to work, but we're not going to see this until at least the end of 2023, the end of next year. Maybe early 2024 is the goal when they're hoping this will be up and running.

Arun Venugopal: Now, Stephen, I know that you've spoken to people who drive Ubers and Lyft cars, including people who support this plan but hope that they're going to get carve-outs, which I guess is part of a very big debate that we're still be going through about who should get carve-outs. Am I doing the math right when I think that you can get charged under the current plan as a Lyft or Uber driver coming in up to three times? That means you could pay at the very minimum 3x23 in a given day on top of any other charges you have as a driver.

Stephen: Right. Whatever the funding scheme is, there is a for-hire vehicle charge and a taxi charge. It's not clear which one they're going to choose. Are drivers going to be charged once a day, three times a day, each time? We don't know yet. As of this moment, there's one plan that has an exemption for taxis, but taxis will be charged and they would pass that cost along to their customers.

Uber and Lyft drivers already complain that at the end of the day their take-home pay is so low. Anything that chips away at that, that would mean customers would not choose to take a taxi because it might be super expensive, which it could be. On the flip side, taking a taxi could be super fast if there are not that many cars on the road, so it's inexpensive but maybe a quick option under congestion pricing.

The MTA, this is sort of a quick static detail in the plan, is that if taxi drivers or for-hire vehicle drivers find it's costing them too much, the MTA will help enroll them in a program to become bus drivers for the MTA, or help them convert their vehicles to Access-A-Ride vehicles as an interesting alternative if this is crushing them. I spoke to one driver who said, "Actually, that sounds pretty good. I'd like a full-time W2 job where I'm not a contractor." On the other hand, the Taxi Workers Alliance called this mind-boggling and crazy.

Arun Venugopal: Let's take a call from Reggie calling from Park Slope. Hi, Reggie.

Reggie: Hey there. Congestion pricing is just a direct attack on the working class in New York. Let's call it what it is. I work in the film business and I have to bring equipment to work several times a week into the city, as well as electricians and plumbers and all these people that can afford it. What about the man or woman with a van? The person who has to work in it? What about the vendors? There are all these people, and they're people that have to come all the time to work and there's going to be no exceptions for them. How are you going to handle the biggest hit, which is on the lower and middle class?

Arun Venugopal: Thank you for your call, Reggie Stevenson. A pretty serious concern here is that there are people who need to come in and out and perform a service. If there is a plumber you're calling who's crossing the river coming into your high-rise, is that plumber going to be bearing the cost? Then so many other people like that.

Stephen: I don't have the exact statistic in front of me, but first of all, the vast majority of low-income New Yorkers get into Manhattan via mass transit. Sure. Like the plumber, the electrician - I've spoken to several - they say, "Hey, I'm just going to pass the cost along to the customer." I don't think this is going to necessarily put them out of business. It will cost you more to get your plumbing done. I should add there is really just one exemption in the legislation. The original congestion pricing legislation for Manhattan residents that earn under $60,000 a year, who also happen to drive, they will get a credit to help pay for the toll, if that helps.

I actually spoke with some folks in the film industry yesterday when I was out walking around, some Scouts who were doing location scouting, and he was like, "Hey, man. We're just going to pass it along to the company. We don't care."

Arun Venugopal: All right--

Stephen: In fact, they said they like it because it'll reduce the traffic. Because it is a pain in the butt getting around Manhattan right now with all the vehicles.

Arun Venugopal: Pardon his French.

 

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