Congestion Pricing Plan Wouldn't Hit Most Commuters: Study

NEW YORK, NY — A plan to toll cars entering part of Manhattan to boost public transportation funding wouldn't empty most commuters' wallets, a transit advocacy group argues in a new report.

No more than 9.2 percent of commuters in every state legislative district in New York City and its suburbs drive or take taxis to work in Manhattan below 60th Street, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data the Tri-State Transportation Campaign published Tuesday.

A proposal Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Fix NYC task force released Jan. 19 recommended an $11.52 toll on cars entering that zone, as well as a $2 to $5 surcharge for taxis and cabs and a $23.54 toll for trucks. The plan could raise as much as $1.5 billion a year for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The vast majority of New Yorkers wouldn't have to pay a toll because they ride subways, buses or other public transit to work, according to the campaign's analysis, first reported by The New York Times. Straphangers outnumber drivers 30 to one in some districts. And Manhattan is home to the areas with the highest concentrations of commuters into the toll zone, contrary to skeptics' claims that the plan would hit the outer boroughs hardest.

There's also a wealth gap between city residents who drive into the zone and those who take trains or buses, advocates say. In one Assembly district covering parts of Midtown and the Upper East Side, the median income is more than $125,000 for drivers but $84,000 for straphangers.

The dynamics are different in the Long Island and Hudson Valley suburbs, where those who take trains make more than those who drive, but the number of people driving into the toll zone is still relatively small.

The report is an attempt to rebut arguments by opponents of congestion pricing who say it would be a regressive tax on working-class New Yorkers forced to drive to work. State lawmakers who would have to approve the plan should know what the numbers really say, said Nick Sifuentes, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign's executive director.

"If legislators choose to vote to preserve the status quo — failing subways and a free pass for drivers — those eight million constituents should hold them accountable," Sifuentes said in a statement.

The report's conclusions are similar to those of a 2007 study that Sifuentes' group published in support of then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal. Opposition from city and suburban legislators reportedly killed that plan in Albany in 2008.

Transit advocates have pushed congestion pricing as a reliable revenue stream for the MTA that could help fund fixes to the city's struggling subway system while improving Manhattan's notoriously bad traffic. Cuomo, a Democrat, got behind the idea last summer and commissioned the Fix NYC panel.

Critics, including Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio and some lawmakers from Queens, worry the proposal would put too much of a burden on middle-class residents of the outer boroughs, where commutes are often longer.

Some skeptics argue outer-borough commuters drive to work in Manhattan out of necessity because they lack good access to public transit. City Councilman Barry Grodenchik, a Democrat from northeast Queens, said he has "more cows in my district than Long Island Rail Road and subway stops."

Grodenchik said 9.2 percent of people commuting into the toll zone by car is still "a lot." Even if they don't go in every day, many others enter Manhattan for errands or to see attractions like the 9/11 Memorial or Broadway shows, he said.

"We have to make a commitment to mass transit and we shouldn’t be looking to single out one group or another group to pay a penalty for the streets that are public," Grodenchik said.

State lawmakers must still hammer out specific congestion pricing legislation. Cuomo has said he wants the plan to also reduce tolls on outer-borough bridges.

(Lead image: Traffic crawls along 42nd Street in Manhattan on Jan. 25. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)