$8 To Get Into Manhattan

[PhilDernerJr]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267653,00.html

Infuriating.

If I have to pay an additional $8 to enter a place I pay taxes on, I will lose my mind and go nuts in protest. What an outrage to consider putting this on New Yorkers.

[Midnight Mike]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267653,00.html

Infuriating.

If I have to pay an additional $8 to enter a place I pay taxes on, I will lose my mind and go nuts in protest. What an outrage to consider putting this on New Yorkers.

Paying a fee on to people who drive into Manhattan is a good way to ease congestion. When I lived in New York, I can count on both hands how many times I drove into Manhattan.....


Seeking to alleviate some of the metropolis’ congestion woes, Bloomberg is proposing the fee for motorists entering Manhattan below 86th Street.

[NIKV69]

Jeez, NYC just gets worse and worse. I guess Bloomberg thinks we are all Billionaires like him.

[moose135]

Paying a fee on to people who drive into Manhattan is a good way to ease congestion. When I lived in New York, I can count on both hands how many times I drove into Manhattan.....

I already pay a fee to drive into Manhattan - it's called a toll, you pay it on most of the bridges and tunnels that lead into Manhattan.

[Matt Molnar]

I think it's a good idea. Traffic is choking the city and it's only going to get worse. Cars sitting in traffic lowers the city's productivity which costs everybody money. Something has to be done.

According to the study, only 5% of the cars entering Manhattan during rush hour are from the other boroughs...hence 95% of them are from Long Island, Westchester and New Jersey. Paying $160 a month to drive in is A LOT cheaper than a monthly pass on LIRR, Metro-North or New Jersey Transit. Yes I know the drivers are also paying for the car itself, fuel, insurance, registration, and parking. But in a congested city with very limited space, there should be a premium charged for autonomy and convenience.

[Matt Molnar]

I already pay a fee to drive into Manhattan - it's called a toll, you pay it on most of the bridges and tunnels that lead into Manhattan.

If you use one of the toll crossings the amount you pay for the toll will be credited to your owed congestion fee. For example, if you pay $4.50 at the Midtown Tunnel, your congestion fee is $8.00 - 4.50 = $3.50.

[hiss srq]

I like this idea personally. It is a good idea for this BUT this is probably going to raise the cost of public transportation as well if you are traveling from other regions onto the island which is what bothers me.

[Tom_Turner]

Supply and Demand.

[T-Bird76]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267653,00.html

Infuriating.

If I have to pay an additional $8 to enter a place I pay taxes on, I will lose my mind and go nuts in protest. What an outrage to consider putting this on New Yorkers.

Phil how does this even apply to you? You don't drive so I'm confused as to why you take such a reactionary response? Other cities do it and it might just get people to finally use Mass Transit more often. People took the same response when Rudy came out with the Metro card and now everyone loves it.

[stuart schechter]

I would think that the busses would be totally exempt from this so public charges wouldn't go up. If you think about it, this is 4 bus/subway rides. Good way to make people use more mass transit.

[hiss srq]

Most of the traffic lies with the ever so frustratingly annoying cabs and trucks. That is what most of the traffic in the city is anyway. Hit them with the fee. On the other hand the cabbies will pass that fee down anyway.

[ATAIndy]

Supply and Demand.

Exactly, it sounds like a great idea to raise money/lower congestion.

[pgengler]

Well, there are really two very different classes of drivers in Manhattan. First, there are the local drivers; this includes people to live in Manhattan, trucks making pickups/deliveries, people driving into Manhattan for something (work, concert, whatever). The second class is people just driving through between NJ and Queens/Brooklyn. For a lot of people, the most direct route to their destination is to go through Manhattan, and is likely beyond the reach of NYC's public transportation and probably either not accessible by or inconvenient to access by regional public transportation.

I, for example, live in Hoboken (NJ), and I make some trips out to distant Queens/Long Island. (I don't make these trips frequently, and they're almost exclusively on weekends.) Being right between the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, going through Manhattan is the most direct (and therefore, most efficient) way for me to get where I'm going. I could swing all the way down to Bayonne, over the Bayonne Bridge, through Staten Island, over the Verazzano and onto the mess called the Belt Parkway, but this is often way out of the way, just like a route taking the GWB would be.

So, in my case (and probably a lot of other people's cases), this "green" policy means we're making longer trips to the same destinations and therefore using more fuel and creating more emissions. Plus, while it might have some impact on congestion in Manhattan, it would just shift a lot of it to other places which are already overburdened.

To me, it makes sense to charge people whose destination is in Manhattan; those people generally have plenty of available options for public transportation into and around it. However, there are plenty of people for whom driving through Manhattan is simply the most direct way to get from a non-Manhattan origin to a non-Manhattan (especially non-NYC) destination.

On a different note, and this wasn't mentioned in the linked article (though the NYT article about it (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/nyregion/23mayorcnd.html) does), it looks like the plan involves adding a LOT of cameras to track license plates. I can't say I'm too happy about the idea of having cameras watching every car (and let's face it, pedestrians too, whether by intention or accident).

[Midnight Mike]

[quote="Phil D.":8eb3c]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267653,00.html

Infuriating.

If I have to pay an additional $8 to enter a place I pay taxes on, I will lose my mind and go nuts in protest. What an outrage to consider putting this on New Yorkers.

Phil how does this even apply to you? You don't drive so I'm confused as to why you take such a reactionary response? Other cities do it and it might just get people to finally use Mass Transit more often. People took the same response when Rudy came out with the Metro card and now everyone loves it.[/quote:8eb3c]

Tommy

Many people will complain first & think later...... :lol: :D

[ATAIndy]

All of this talk about traffic makes me feel glad to live in a smaller city... only problem is that there are not European birds though.

[PhilDernerJr]

Tommy, the Metrocard wasn't an additional cost to New Yorkers. This is yet another tax that will be absorbed by the people that realyl can'ta fford it much.

I think that this new tax should really be charged to commercial vehicles.
That's only way that it's fair and make sense.

My not driving anymore doesn't mean anything. I still feel that it's wrong towards many New Yorkers that DO drive.

New Yorkers, who pay a lot of city taxes, should not have to pay another $8 to go from Queens or Brooklyn into Manhattan.

[mirrodie]

I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, it could be a great thing. Perhaps its being toted as another way to get people to carpool and use other forms of transport into the city.


IIRC, Seattle has similar ways for getting people to use mass transit and clear the roads. It's been 8 years since Iwas last there but I seem to remember it was a much less congested city.

Sure the $8 is insane BUT I think its truly being done to encourage carpooling. Not a bad idea.

[Matt Molnar]

I think that this new tax should really be charged to commercial vehicles. That's only way that it's fair and make sense.
That would only raise money for the city and cause a price increase on everything in Manhattan, and not reduce traffic any significant amount. There have been plans attempted to encourage deliveries at night. Problem is merchants that are open during normal business hours (the vast majority of them) simply don't want to do that...it would be worth it to them to pay more for the delivery to arrive during the day, at which point the entire plan falls apart.

[Midnight Mike]

Tommy, the Metrocard wasn't an additional cost to New Yorkers. This is yet another tax that will be absorbed by the people that realyl can'ta fford it much.

I think that this new tax should really be charged to commercial vehicles.
That's only way that it's fair and make sense.

My not driving anymore doesn't mean anything. I still feel that it's wrong towards many New Yorkers that DO drive.

New Yorkers, who pay a lot of city taxes, should not have to pay another $8 to go from Queens or Brooklyn into Manhattan.

Phil

The people that can not afford the tax, more than likely, are using Mass Transit.

What this tax does is make people think before driving into the City, "Do I really need to drive here?"

New York City has an excellent Mass Transit System, and the City, should encourage the residents to use it as much as possible.

[T-Bird76]

Tommy, the Metrocard wasn't an additional cost to New Yorkers. This is yet another tax that will be absorbed by the people that realyl can'ta fford it much.

I think that this new tax should really be charged to commercial vehicles.
That's only way that it's fair and make sense.

My not driving anymore doesn't mean anything. I still feel that it's wrong towards many New Yorkers that DO drive.

New Yorkers, who pay a lot of city taxes, should not have to pay another $8 to go from Queens or Brooklyn into Manhattan.

Phil I know the Metrocard didn't cost New Yorkers anything but the reaction was the same, the people didn't want it and now they praise it.

Sometimes Gov't needs to do things to force an issue like the traffic problem. As Mike pointed out NYC has a great Mass transit system that people should be encouraged to use.

I don't know how they'll really be able to enforce this however. I was listening on the news that they'll send the person a bill based off a picture they take of the person's plate number. Seems simple but complicated at the same time.

I think the fact of the matter is we need to be forced into changing our transportation habits. The price of gas isn't doing it for us yet so maybe this will.

[USAF Pilot 07]

What happens if you live in the affected area? It'd be grossly unfair to charge those who already pay sky-high rents, as well as sky-high taxes extra to drive in their areas of residence.
Other than that, I'm not all against the surcharge. The only exception to the surcharge should be businesses doing business in the city.

If commuters want to drive into the city, then they should either have to pay the extra $8 or, as an alternative, drive to a park-n-ride facility and take the train or the bus into work.

Of course, before such a plan is implemented, major improvements to the current public transportation system need to be made, such as more trains/buses, and more FREE park-n-ride facilites.

Someone also mentioned the fact about how they commute from NJ to Queens or L.I. and go through the city. If that's the case, I think the plan should be designed to incorporate those who do so. I don't know how much the current tolls are, but if you pay say $4 to come through the Holland Tunnel, and then $4 to go through the Midtown Tunnel, then you're $8 "city fee" should be waived. The city could work in a system where you get like an hour or two hour grace period to get from one river crossing to the other...