The Death of NYC Congestion Pricing

When I lived in NYC many years ago I'd be walking, biking, driving, at a park, dining in an outdoor cafe, in my living room, etc and perpetually surrounded by the noise, smell, and inconvenience of gridlocked traffic and road construction. I eventually tuned it out, but every time I left and came back it drove home how ridiculous it was.

I eventually moved to New England because it became clear that despite the city having good bones, the leadership (and many voters) were more interested in coming up with ways to make it convenient for drivers to drive and/or park in every neighborhood in the city than making it a pleasant place to live. The ghost of Robert Moses influences everything there.

So I was floored when it seemed like such an incompetently managed city as NYC was actually going to implement the obviously correct solution of charging money to allocate a scarce resource. What was less surprising was the fact that it was derailed by a state politician but only at the last minute and after hundreds of millions had already been spent.

"Contractors who work with the MTA on these projects already charge a premium for having to manage the substantial risk that construction is delayed or canceled—introducing “the Governor might suddenly decide your job is over” as another risk to worry about will just increase those cost premiums, thin the pool of companies who are capable of working with the MTA, and reward the politically savvy. ... The fact that infrastructure plans can go through years of study, environmental review, public consultation, pilot projects, revisions, lawsuits, construction, delays, and more only to then be shelved days before final implementation is a large part of why public works are so expensive in the first place."

Savvy point that's often missed in these discussions. I'm on the boards of two buildings in Manhattan and see these invisible "taxes" all the time.

This is a nice, data heavy summary of the situation!

Something that stood out to me: there's been a marked decline in state and local funding for NYCT since before COVID. I wasn't fully aware of just how much the city and state had independently cut back: it looks like NYCT part of MTA alone is receiving $3B less per year than it was in 2019.

Congestion pricing is sound policy regardless, but this hammers home the perception that NYS treats the MTA (and NYCT in particular) as a financial sponge that can be squeezed for spare change whenever a boondoggle needs funding somewhere else.

> The policy would have charged vehicles for entering the perpetually gridlocked streets of Lower Manhattan,

If driving is so bad, and public transit is so convenient, why are people still driving?

People like this author write from a position of "people are stupid; they don't know what's good for them, so let me enlighten them". It's this assumption that is stupid.

People want the most convenience in their lives. If you want them to use public transit, make the public transit more convenient and cheaper than driving! I mean, take a look at a city like Tokyo. How many people drive there? Almost everyone takes public transit, putting NYC to shame. There is no need to drive in Tokyo! As a tourist, a 3-day all-you-can-travel subway pass costs less than $10, which is < $3.50/day and subway stations are every couple of blocks. How's that for convenience?

Instead of trying to tax the people into complying with your desires, make them want to do so of their own free will!

The article vastly underplays how mismanaged the MTA is and how poorly the subway is run on a massive budget. It is one of the last organizations that should be receiving this level of additional revenue, regardless of any sunk costs that have been put towards congestion pricing. This whole thing has been a mess for years so why double down on it when it would punish a set of residents and commuters and have very little chance of improving things for riders?

What I haven't seen mentioned is the political context at exactly this point in time.

People are freaked out about inflation and the prices of everything rising and I think they're very sensitive to anything that is going to add more expenses. Even in Ithaca, NY apartment dwellers have developed a consciousness that rising property taxes are going to get tacked on to their rent.

In terms of national politics, Democrats feel vulnerable, and I think Democrats everywhere feel pressure to drop unpopular policies that could affect them nationally. For that matter the rest of New York is rich in competitive House seats that could go either way.

>Increasing the density of jobs, hospitals, restaurants, homes, schools, and more is key … as density grows mass transit becomes essential

This guy has it all backwards. No developer in his right mind is going to plow billions of dollars into high density housing without existing rail access. The new subway and commuter lines have to be built first, then the high density development becomes viable around it.

Related. Others? I'm sure there were others:

With congestion pricing stop, New York City enters new era of economic gridlock - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40625307 - June 2024 (150 comments)

NYC Congestion Pricing Delayed Indefinitely by Governor Kathy Hochul - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40587485 - June 2024 (16 comments)

MTA board votes to approve new $15 toll to drive into Manhattan - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39841703 - March 2024 (831 comments)

NYC's plan to ease gridlock? A $15 toll for Manhattan drivers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39549726 - Feb 2024 (24 comments)

New York approves the first congestion toll in the US: $15 to enter Manhattan - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38583532 - Dec 2023 (155 comments)

NYC Congestion Toll Could Cost Drivers $23 per Trip Starting Next Spring - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36512248 - June 2023 (41 comments)

New York City will charge drivers going downtown - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36270597 - June 2023 (671 comments)

Interesting that the major cities with sizable public transport user populations are all in the northeast hub. Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, DC. Growing up and living here, cars aren't really necessary day to day in any of these cities. I'm shocked when I travel to basically any other major-ish US city, especially "newer" big cities like Denver, Phoenix, Miami, Tampa. The best way I can describe it is older cities are built at human-scale, newer cities are built at car-scale.

How do you have an article about commuting into NYC without even mentioning Long Island or the Long Island Rail Road? 0_____0

LOL people on the thread whining about MTA efficiency. Individual personal care are insanely inefficient, double when you consider all the roads and parking required.

I gave up my car when moving to Manhattan and now subway, walk and bike everywhere. It's a dream and saves $5000+ per year including capital cost, maintenance, gas, tolls, parking, insurance, repairs, cleaning, traffic tickets. As a society there's another $N000/year saved on the marginal cost of another car: road maintenance, traffic cops, people sitting in traffic instead of living their lives, etc.

Robotaxis change a bunch of this math: utilization shoots up and drives down cost per user, and people can live/work (on their cellphones) while being passengers.

I wish urbanists (I more or less consider myself one) would stop bringing up climate change. There is a chance that these issues could have strong bipartisan support if you would stop tying them to highly partisan issues. Put a pin in it - there are lots of other reasons to support these measures.

Kathy Hochul really dug her political grave by killing this at the last minute. So at least there’s that.

The Volts podcast dove into this recently (with transcript): https://www.volts.wtf/p/new-yorks-congestion-pricing-fiasco

History will not look kindly upon the treachery of Kathy Hochul. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for her little stunt to be rightfully shot down - she doesn't have the authority to stop this policy.

Justice would be immediate termination from her position along with a prison sentence.

I wonder how cars traveling east/west between Queens-Brooklyn-Long Island to New Jersey affect traffic? I wonder how congestion pricing will affect already problematic George Washington Bridge and Staten Island routes.

Does anyone have answer as to why MTA is a financial mess and a single elevator project costs $81 mln[1] ?

Congestion pricing seems like a pathetic attempt to squeeze money to fund bloated MTA salaries and bogus overtime[2]. that just eats MTA's budget. Widely cited $15 bln budget hole is roughly comparable to the decade of bogus $1.4 bln overtime that MTA workers accrue

Transit agency must go through a deep and thorough cleanup and restructuring of its finances, before it demands more funding from taxpayers

Same like city of San Fransicko spent $24 Bln with a B with nothing to show for it, arguably situation got only worse[3], while nonprofit and homeless industrial complex only got record funding and record fraud charges

  1. https://slate.com/business/2019/09/mta-elevators-are-the-perfect-example-of-new-yorks-cost-problems.html
  2. https://www.masstransitmag.com/management/blog/55017643/op-ed-excessive-mta-employee-overtime-continues-year-after-year
  3. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/california-homelessness-spending-audit-24b-five-years-didnt-consistently-track-outcomes/

"The immediate vicinity of the North Berkeley BART stop in California is surrounded on all sides by parking lots, and thus the station currently sees only about 1,700 riders per weekday."

?!!? No: 1. North Berkeley is extremely low density housing. 2. There's a casual carpool pickup right in front of the station, which siphons 100s of riders away from BART. It's very fast, there's little wait time and it's free.

If North Berkeley had skyscrapers and riders didn't have a better option then you'd see NYC level ridership.

Given the opportunity to demonstrate that they can solve problems: improving the transit system for millions of New Yorkers - especially poorer and disabled riders, take steps to improve the environment, AND make it easier for who want or need to drive to drive in lower Manhattan; Democrats chose to make a power-grab and throw it all away.

It's absolutely disgusting. Yes the MTA is a mess, yes this money could have been spent more efficiently by a better run organization, and I'm sure the plan wasn't perfect; but to see Dems very publicly go out of their way to show they can't solve problems if doing so upsets a handful of rich people is somewhere between disheartening and enraging.

> Stockholm’s congestion tax was approved by voters after a 7-month trial period.

How dishonest must you be to lie in such a blatant way?

From the Wikipedia page referenced from the article: "Local consultative referendums regarding whether to permanently implement the congestion tax were held in Stockholm Municipality and several other municipalities in Stockholm County on September 17, 2006. It was only the referendum in Stockholm Municipality that the at the time reigning government would use as a basis for the decision. The municipalities surrounding Stockholm in Stockholm County, especially those that are part of the city of Stockholm, showed discontent with the fact that the people of those municipalities get no say whether the congestion taxes will be implemented permanently."

And the data shows unambiguously that it was only the resident of the centre tha voted yes.

Does this apply to the vehicles of people or businesses that reside in the city when they come back in when returning from a round trip to someplace out of the city? Or is it just for vehicles that are based outside the city?

> as density grows mass transit becomes essential since it can far surpass the maximum throughput capacity of even the largest roadways.

Once again this idiocy! Planners love so much to talk about throughput, and then they are surprised when people "do not understand". People do understand: people know that the only important metric is door-to-door time!

Nobody could care less about how many people can get to the station! Everybody just wants to minimize the time wasted within transportation, because the 24 hours in a day are not expandable.

I've never been to New York, please don't take this as a critic specific to this city. It's just that I'm tired of planners trying to "evangelize" the people while ignoring their actual concern.

""so congestion pricing serves redistributive purposes as well.""

In many places this would be called this socialism.

Wonder if they decided to return the revenue from the congestion pricing to the cities residents if they would get more support… just take the total revenue, divide it by the number of citizens, and cut everyone a check for their share. It would still reduce congestion, and would transfer money from people who drive to people who use public transit. People might support it if it meant money in their pockets.

I hope congestion pricing withers away and dies. It really promotes public infrastructure for the wealthy and disadvantages the people who cannot afford.

MDs at my firm can easily afford any such surcharges, and for many it will be business write offs, and not even their own.

Fund public infrastructure - put more buses on roads, maybe even limit some avenues and roads for buses only. Reduce the costs - yes, I know NYC tickets are really low, but make them simpler and easier for people to get a monthly pass and hop on buses, Really, buses everywhere even if they operate at net losses - get the business to subsidize bringing their workers in.