The comparison to Providence isn’t really fair. Providence has never had a public transit infrastructure remotely comparable to New York City. It is a city where you almost must drive; New York is a city where few drive and where you’re generally better off not driving. The potential set of consequences from limiting auto access are completely different for the two cities.

People who sit in congestion gripe about it and want the government to do something because they don’t want to take personal responsibility for their own choice. They are sitting in traffic jams because they chose to live somewhere that requires them to sit in traffic jams. It’s easier to pass the problem off than actually do something about it.

And if the people of NYC are asking the city government to do something about congestion, then Bloomberg and company will be happy to obilge them.

There’s a giant leap from reducing congestion to eliminating vehicular traffic.

Not as great as you might imagine.

But again, to the main point: what’s wrong with congestion?

I reckon it’s a self-policing feedback loop kinda deal. If people don’t like it, they don’t drive in it. If they don’t like the alternatives, they move away from the congestion.

What’s wrong with that? OTHER than revenue raising, why should the government interfere?

And before you get started, I’m not buying that “congestion costs our economy $xb a minute.” So does alcohol abuse. It’s just part of the cost of doing biz. Period.

If we accept that today’s cars are one hundred times cleaner than they were only twenty years ago, unless you’re a global warming fighter, who cares if people are stuck in traffic?

Since when did traffic jams become anyone’s problem other than the people who choose to get stuck in them? Since the pols realized there’s money in them thar jams?

My hometown of Providence decided to kill congestion in the downtown area (and compete with the out of town malls) by pedestrianizing the two central arteries running through the main shopping district and sticking the bus station right in the middle of what was once a proud city square.

Traffic was duly decimated. And the town DIED. Downtown Providence went from being a vibrant New England city to a literal ghost town populated by some of the scariest urban dwellers you’ll ever see outside of a post-apocalyptic zombie movie.

The streets are STILL pedestrianized and the town is STILL dead, some forty years later.

Be careful what you wish for.

The only two groups truly affected by congestion pricing are (1) city workers who use “official” permits to get away with parking illegally and thus cheaply (a perk Bloomberg is trying to do away with, much to their chagrin), and (2) New Jersey, Westchester, Long Island and Connecticut residents who for god-knows-what-reason would rather sit in standstill traffic alone doing nothing than sit on a train and read or work for no more time than it takes them to drive anyway. I would point out that Bloomberg is Mayor of New York City, not Governor of The Entire Tri-State Area. His responsibility is to New Yorkers, not commuters, and if commuters don’t like the plan they can get over it or move somewhere else.

yes, but you are causing traffic jams where i live. so, i would suggest that you either…
a) take mass transit lirr to njt
or
b) take the george washington bridge

granted, these are not great solutions. robt moses actually planned on building an elevated highway down 34th street to connect the midtown tunnel to the lincoln tunnel. fortunately, that never happened.

Agreeing with David Hotzman- I live on Long Island and the best way for me to get to Seacaucus is the Midtown Tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel. BUT, if this pricing is going to allow me to fly through the city because of less traffic, I am in (within reason).

moraviapils :
Leave commercial plates exempt from the charge and if people start abusing it (registering Merc SLKs as commercial vehicles) make more crossings open to non-commercial vehicles only

good point. there needs to be an exemption or at least a lower price for commercial vehicles.
# SexCpotatoes :
I wonder how many protesting motorists it would take to shut down the city.

it’s statements like this that show how poorly people who don’t live in manhattan understand the situation. many of us would actually be happier if cars were banned on the island. driving is a privilege that has been sorely abused here.

the key to making the congestion tax work is mass transit. unfotunately, the upstate politicians and washington would rather subsidize highways and airports than mass transit. and don’t get me started on the subject of oil wars…

But the path stops running at 12:00, which doesn’t work out too good if you’re hitting the bars but don’t want to stay in the city overnight.

I must be daft then. When I drive from Boston to DC, I go from Westchester to the West Side Highway, and over the GW Bridge. And when I go from Mt. Vernon to Brooklyn, I generally go down the West Side Highway to the Battery Tunnel, and then around the Belt.

NYC has one of the best public transit systems in the world. Why would anyone need or want to take a car into the city? Quite stressful I would imagine.

Assuming of course His Lordship King Jon Corzine I’s plan for quadrupling tolls in NJ doesn’t drive all of our business out to Delaware/Md/Southland.

People like me, who live in Brooklyn, but work in Hoboken. While it may be easier in theory to just move to New Jersey, the truth is that I’ve tried that for a few years and I absolutely hated living out there. Between bad taxes, bad politicians, and an unusual amount of crime occuring in a ‘good’ neighborhood like I lived in, living out there to save a few bucks on gas and tolls just wasn’t worth it for me.

Except there aren’t other options for people like my father, who works on the pumps and motors that heat and cool apartment buildings. So he’s usually in the city every day with his van, hauling pumps and motors back and forth from his shop in Queens. He already pays a ton for gas (as you might expect, vans don’t get the best MPG) and now he’s going to have to pay even more to get into the city ($105 a week if his van is classified as a truck!).

Honestly, if you’re going to have a congestion charge, charge the people who do have the option of taking the train or bus and not those who don’t. Leave commercial plates exempt from the charge and if people start abusing it (registering Merc SLKs as commercial vehicles) make more crossings open to non-commercial vehicles only.

agreed, but on one in their right mind would drive through manhatten to get to somewhere else, unless there was a gun to your head. I go around manhatten alot, you learn these things if u dont wanna grow old in traffic.

I also am very familiar with the tolls, the hightest one that i know is the 9 bucks for a trip on the Verazzano, after the 6 bucks for a trip on the Goethels (both thankfully collected in one direction only), so if you are picking up someone at JFK, it can cost over 20 bucks with turnpike fees. It’s a crouded corner of the universe.

Take the train. If u wanna drive, pay.

Drivers coming in from New Jersey would be doubly screwed since there is no way to get into the city without paying a bridge or tunnel fee to begin with.

Yeah, they let the German politicians exploit them instead…

I beleive that it should be expensive to drive in NYC, because there are so many other options.

PS My friends in London say that traffic is as bad as it ever was, because people have simply absorbed the congestion fee, much like we have simply absorbed the huge increase in gas prices. Scuttlebutt has it that the city is thinking about doubling or even tripeling the fee.

It is an interesting that we have barely changed our driving habits between 95 cent a gallon gas and 3.50 per. There is a lesson there that lots of folks are looking at, smiling greedily.

It would appear that we will pay anything… ANYTHING… to be able to drive wherever we want whenever we want, in whatever we like.

PPS – i believe that public transit should be as cheap as possible or even free – to get people out of their cars – and it makes perfect sense for car owners to pay for that. And I own a car.

All you guys who live in Manhattan and register your cars ‘elsewhere’, listen up. I can hardly wait for the screaming when all those cars insured in “the hamptons”, “the berkshires” and “upstate” get tax notices from the ever hungry city of new york, not to mention the interest of the insurance industry who might want to know that that car registered in Woodstock, NY really lives on the Upper East Side.

Involved in a lawsuit ? Congestion charge records, like EZ pass, will become relevant for divorce lawyers.

Do we really want a world where the government is in charge of all comings and goings ? You could reduce congestion without a fee, but the Federal requirements are for a fee, so that private industry gets “theirs”, and if there is a fee, you can be assured of control. Congestion reduction without a tax is not part of the plan !!