NYC Mayor's 'Green' Plan Includes a Fee for Entering Manhattan

On Sunday, April 22 New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg made a bold proposal to levy drivers for entering Manhattan. According the proposed scheme, motorists with personal vehicles will be charged $8 and commercial truck operators $21. The controversial plan known as congestion pricing is intended to reduce traffic jams in busy parts of Manhattan and is part of ambitions city-wide project to achieve a 30% reduction in greenhouse gasses by 2030.

Mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability is charged with the task and aims to implement the plan without any toll booths. Instead, the city will build a network of cameras that will scan automobile license plates to generate bills or charge so-called commuter accounts. Payments will only be collected between the hours of 6 AM and 6 PM. Commuters entering Manhattan north of 86^th Street will have a free ride. The fee will also be waived for those who are merely passing through the island via its tunnels, bridges and throughways like FDR Drive and West Side Highway.

Mayor Bloomberg addressed the media on Earth Day at the American Museum of Natural History. "As our city continues to grow, the cost of congestion to our health, to our economy and to our environment are only going to get worse," he said. "The question is not whether we want to pay, but how do we want to pay - with an increased asthma rate, with more greenhouse gases, with more wasted time, lost business and higher prices. Or do we charge a modest fee to encourage more people to take mass transit."

The all-encompassing plan comes in the wake of rapidly increasing population, which augments atmospheric carbon emissions and causes significant strain on the city's infrastructures. Bloomberg said that with its growing population of 8.2 million the city is "on a collision course with the environment, which itself is growing more unstable and uncertain". According to Bloomberg, implementing congestion pricing will generate $400 million in revenue the first year alone. City officials say that sizable portions of the money will be reinvested in New York's transit system, as well as other development projects.

While many environmental groups applauded mayor's efforts, the plan remains highly contentious. Enacting a fee to enter Manhattan will face strong opposition from various business advocacy groups, as well as state and local legislators in the outer boroughs. American Trucking Association has already come out against the proposal, citing potentially serious disruptions in Manhattan's vibrant retail industry. ATA spokesman Clayton Boyce also said that people who rely on FedEx and UPS for deliveries can expect to "bear extra expense".

New York City Councilman Charles Barron (D) represents more than a Brooklyn bedroom community. District 42 is home to some of the poorest and most underprivileged New Yorkers. Neighborhoods like East New York, Brownsville, and East Flatbush have marginal public transportation as New York's MTA lines don't extend far into the district.

In an exclusive interview councilman Barron expressed his intention to further investigate mayor's proposal, but said that his initial thoughts about charging Manhattan-bound drivers a fee remain unfavorable: "It has a classist ring to it, even racial undertones". A long-time social justice activist and a former Black Panther, Barron insisted that instituting congestion pricing will amount to "pricing people out of Manhattan" and will have an adverse effect on "poor working families and communities of color".

Councilman Barron also agreed that congestion fees will substantially increase the number of straphangers on MTA buses and trains, which are already extended beyond capacity. "We must find other, more creative ways to battle congestion," he said, adding that opting to ride bicycles, as well as "what we do with cars and fuels" will go a long way to solving environmental and congestion problems.

The Big Apple is not the first metropolis to suggest congestion pricing. Paying a charge for entering busy parts of the city is routine for car commuters in places like Stockholm and London. Driving into Central London costs British drivers £8 (roughly $16). Congestion pricing has been in effect in there since 2003 and produced mixed results. While official figures suggest a 10-15% reduction in traffic congestion, many London drivers continue to complain about clogged roads.

London's 'green' mission is also more environmentally comprehensive and socially balanced than its New York equivalent. Offered by London's mayor Ken Livingstone, the new congestion pricing policy in London will include provisions to increase the fee for SUV drivers and waive them entirely for green-minded Londoners that drive hybrids and EVs.

Stressing civilian sacrifice in the effort to make New York City greener is a step in the right direction. However, questions about the effectiveness of an open-ended congestion pricing policy signal an imminent uphill battle for the mayor.