If you’re looking to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Times Square, this year is likely to be the last you can drive in without being tolled south of 60th Street. Under the MTA’s proposed toll schedule, cars will be charged $15 to enter lower Manhattan during the peak travel periods of 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays, and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. Trucks will pay even more, with smaller tolls for both categories at night.
Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, says stakeholders in his district generally support congestion pricing — but the timing isn’t ideal. He worries the toll could put a strain on employees who have no choice but to drive in to work at a time when companies are scaling back work-from-home. He says it could also deter customers, who are still trickling back to Broadway after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re sort of plateaued at about 85 percent of pre-pandemic numbers," Harris explains. "Some of the restaurants aren’t fully open — they close on certain days and close a little bit earlier. So while we're doing well, and Times Square has certainly rebounded, we're certainly not at 100 percent."
Advocates, including New York Governor Kathy Hochul, have lauded the plan as a way to improve the quality of life in lower Manhattan by decreasing traffic, noise, and air pollution. And for the MTA, the timing is crucial. Chair Janno Lieber says the congestion pricing plan makes up about $15 billion of the transit authority’s capital funding program through 2024, and delays in its implementation have already postponed a number of MTA projects.
That hasn’t quelled pushback from lawmakers outside New York City, for a variety of reasons. In New Jersey, two lawsuits seek to block the plan, arguing it could lead to increased traffic and pollution in suburbs like Fort Lee. In the Hudson Valley, New York State Senator James Skoufis calls the plan incredibly unfair, as not all communities have equal access to alternative modes of transportation, like the Metro-North Railroad.
“It’s a slap in the face. We have a single train line in Orange County that brings people very, very sporadically into New Jersey," says Skoufis. "There is no viable public transit alternative if you’re trying to nudge people out of their cars with this toll.”
Orange and Rockland Counties contribute less than 2 percent of the 1.2 million commuters to the Central Business District, according to the MTA. About 6,400 of them are drivers, who often rely on either the George Washington Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel to reach Manhattan. Skoufis, a Democrat, says he’d like to see a toll credit for drivers in both counties included in Governor Hochul’s next budget — and if he doesn’t, he’s willing to join the New Jersey lawsuits, or pull Orange County from the MTA region altogether.
“To cut off the spigot, stop using us as a piggy bank," he warns. "Everything’s on the table.”
Rockland County Executive Ed Day hasn’t threatened leaving the MTA, but in a letter to the board before its vote, the Republican described the county’s relationship with the transit authority as “taxation without representation,” and criticized a lack of plans to expand service for Rockland commuters.
Even in areas with better train access, though, congestion pricing has faced opposition. In Dutchess County, where the Metro-North serves commuters as far north as Poughkeepsie, State Assemblyman Anil Beephan has introduced legislation that would exempt New York City employees, first responders, doctors, nurses, and medical patients from the toll. Several other groups have also asked for exemptions or government-backed credits, including teachers, utility companies, EV owners, and those who live in the CBD.
Which begs the question: if everyone receives the relief they’re looking for, what happens?
“That would defeat the purpose, the more exemptions that we give, obviously," says Zakhary Mallet, a Strauch Fellow researching the intersection of transportation finance and travel behavior at Cornell University.
On the whole, Mallett says the political uproar over congestion pricing is kind of missing the point right now. Yes, congestion pricing will raise money for the MTA and encourage people to help the environment by leaving their cars at home — but from an an economist’s perspective, the purpose of the toll is to get travelers to internalize the value of their time.
According to the private analytics company Inrix, the average driver in New York City lost 117 hours sitting in traffic in 2021. If productivity is top of mind for you, then that equates to a loss of about $2,000 — but it also means you just lost nearly five days of your life to congestion.
“When I get on the freeway, and then you get on after me, and then someone gets on after you, we all contribute to the additional congestion," Mallett explains. "And that delay time has value."
In that sense, if congestion pricing gets too watered down with exemptions and credits, all drivers will continue to pay up. (Although, to be clear, $2,000 is less than the annual $3,900 the toll would likely cost drivers entering the CBD every Monday through Friday.)
Mallett says part of the reason congestion pricing has faced so much pushback in the U.S., as opposed to Europe, is that American drivers are not accustomed to paying for the roads they drive on — at least not in an upfront way. Mallett says a lot of drivers assume their gas taxes pay for road maintenance and construction, but in reality, he says the country’s highways are heavily subsidized by sales taxes and property taxes.
"And the fact that gas taxes are not proportional to the amount of road that we use," he adds. "If I am driving a clean air vehicle that gets 50 miles to the gallon, and you’re driving a 1970s car because that’s all you can afford, you are disproportionately paying in gas taxes, compared to me.”
Long-term, though, Mallett says the toll will be transformational for New York City. It might already be the “city that never sleeps,” but with congestion pricing, Mallett says more and more people may opt to travel during off-peak periods at night. Businesses in the CBD may shift their hours to accommodate the travel tastes of customers and employees. And especially in outside counties, it may just impact where people work and live, encouraging us all to be a little more local.
"If it suddenly becomes too expensive for me to live in Poughkeepsie, and commute to Manhattan every day, then maybe I won’t do that anymore," he posits.
So far, exemptions have been approved for city snowplows and emergency vehicles. Taxis and ride shares won't have to pay the toll — but they will pass a surcharge down to their customers. And drivers already paying to use the four tunnels that lead into Manhattan will receive a crossing credit toward the CBD. Some bridges also have a crossing credit, but notably, not the George Washington Bridge.
Back in Times Square, Harris has another idea. He says the Alliance would like to see the CBD’s peak toll hours shortened from 9 p.m. to 6 p.m., to allow visitors to more cheaply enter lower Manhattan for dinner or a night at the theatre. The Alliance is also pushing for a formal evaluation of the toll program around the six-month mark — not to determine whether congestion pricing lives or dies, but to expand the CBD in an effort to thin out fares.
“Congestion exists throughout the city. I was driving in Brooklyn the other day, and it took a long time to get down Flatbush Avenue," notes Harris. "And that had nothing to do with traffic in Midtown. It’s just that New York City is congested.”
Harris would know, as the Alliance gears up for its biggest draw of the year: he estimates about a million people to flock to Times Square by car, bus, foot and train to see the ball drop on New Year’s Eve.
The MTA plans to hold a final vote on congestion pricing in April. If it passes, transit officials estimate it could go into effect around June.
