As most of you probably already know, NY has issued on Jan. 5 that each vehicle will be charged $9 every time they travel on a certain street in NYC, which can be amounted to $270 per month.
It is not clear whether this charge applies several times per day or for once per day.
As read in the article above , drivers already trying to circumvent this law.
NY has got to be the craziest state in the nation.
Urban congestion tolls have existed in London, Stockholm, and Milan for quite a few years, and is considered to be very successful for reducing air pollution and traffic congestion, and cutting response times for emergency responders. Hopefully, this new program in NYC will increase Manhattan’s current average traffic speed of 4.9 mph.
Ever been to NYC? Driven there? Know anything at all about traffic issues in Manhattan? Nothing wrong with people trying to manage it. If you have any better ideas, I’m sure that the whole world of traffic engineers would be happy to hear your brilliant solutions.
It’s also NYC, not NYS.
I’m actually in NY. ( Manhattan ) right now. Typos are a common nuance.
People are paying a lot to live in NYC already to be penalized even more now. I am just gonna wait for them to send my toll bill in the mail.
As for other ideas, I think they can do something else rather than to take away more money from people’s pocket. I’ll have to think deeply about this but money is always a way to punish people in NYC
There is a very simple solution to this congestion charge. Move to another city or state.
There are homes and jobs throught the country. Many with less congestion and most with lower taxation.
You’re paying a lot to live in NYC because it’s a large, busy city with high demand for housing / real estate, generally.
Who or what is “penalizing” you? The city isn’t your landlord. Nor is it “penalizing” you for living there. The roads, and managing them aren’t free. It all has to be paid for.
Oh, yes. The evil gubmint who just wants to find reasons to take your money from your pocket. 
Grow up.
This is simple. There are high congestion times, and the traffic issues are a serious PUBLIC problem. The congestion fees incentive using alternatives like public/mass transport to reduce road congestion.
For those “anti-gubmint” / “right-wingers” out there, this is called using MARKET-based incentives to deal with public issues. Would you prefer bans on private transport at various times?
Your personal, individual, and private choices incur PUBLIC costs in one way or another.
If you want my real opinion, if you don’t want to pay to use my roads (taxes/tolls) - then fine. Make your own roads and stay the H off of mine.
Nobody wants to live in NYC anymore: it’s too crowded.
It’s always been crowded.
There are other states whose “gummints” use their resident’s tax money more efficiently.
Georgia, for example, spends half the taxes per resident than NYS. Atlanta has traffic problems, too, and has lower city taxes than NYC. Georgia has bypass lanes, for a charge, to move past the tie ups but that is a choice for the driver, not mandetory.
Even Illinois, another high tax state, spends 1/3 less than NYS. Chicage has always had tons of toll roads to incentivize people to take the train. I only marginally helps. But I’d rather drive the Dan Ryan than the GW bridge into NYC!
And then Florida… half the tax spend as NYS, no congestion charges for Miami and no state income tax, which is why I see more and more NYS license plates.
As I said, if you don’t like it, move.
That was a joke based on a comment from Yogi Berra, a “Yogiism”.
Yogi Berra was once asked whether he wished to have dinner at a highly-regarded restaurant, and he replied with a remark combining wisdom with contradiction:
Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
Though variations of the comment go back to at least the 1800s.
If you did not dislike trains (BTW did you find a lawyer to take your case against the RR) you could do as my nephew, live in Connecticut, then take the train into NYC.
My own experience with Chicago&Miami, don’t drive, put the car in the hotel parking garage, the use a taxi or other car service.
In the '70s, '80s, & '90s, I drove into Manhattan almost every weekend. In addition, when I drove a limousine during the '80s, I drove into Manhattan 2-3 times every week, on weekdays.
The traffic in the '70s was not a problem, and in those days, it was even possible to find street parking–if you were willing to spend 20 minutes or so looking for a space. By the '80s, the congestion got worse, and by the '90s, it was essentially gridlock in Manhattan for most of the day and night.
By ~2000, I stopped driving into Manhattan because the congestion was so ridiculous, and also because the cost of private parking garages made the drive incredibly expensive. It’s just so much easier for me to drive to Jersey City and to take the PATH train into Manhattan. It’s far cheaper than driving/parking in Manhattan, and it’s actually quicker, too.
Singapore introduced their own version of Congestion Tolls in the '70s, and it resulted in a 45% reduction in traffic, and a 25% decrease in collisions. Since then, they have refined the process, but because it works so well for its intended purpose, their government has no intention of ending it.
But, keep thinking 
, and I’m sure 
that you can come up with a better solution to traffic congestion/air pollution than all of the folks in Singapore, London, Milan, and Stockholm have been able to devise over the space of decades.
Virginia uses congestion tolls on I-66 between the beltway and DC. The tolls are variable depending on how crowded the roads are and are in effect eastbound in the morning and westbound in the evening.
https://www.vdot.virginia.gov/projects/major-projects/66expresslanes/about/
You’re right. I mean everyone on here is right. I should have looked up congestion issues before commenting.
This is why I like CarTalk. The guys here are well knowledgeable about various topics despite the small amount of participants.
Thanks for sharing and enlightening me on the issue. Guess I’ll get used to more bills in the mail.
… or, you could simply take mass transit, which is the overall intent of that plan. And, if you’re planning on telling us that your handicaps prevent you from taking mass transit, it is possible to get an exemption granted to you:
… and yet, the poverty rate in FL is higher than in NY state, and it’s also higher than in the other states in the Northeast.
As you probably know, a lot of people in FL have decided to forgo home insurance because of the incredibly high rates, which they can no longer afford.
I spend 2 1/2-3 hours a day in the car commuting to and from work. I would love to take a bus or train to and from work. But the fact is the vast majority of cities do not and can never have an efficient infrastructure that allows suburban residents to get to work in an urban area. I would take public transport in a heartbeat if I could but I just don’t have that much time.
Yep, and thanks to a big mouse moving into central Florida in 71 the congestion has become horrible. I used to be able to drive from the coast to downtown with few delays. The towns of St Cloud and Kissimmee were still cow towns. Now central FL is one big metro area. Though main roads have had more lanes added they are at best 5 MPH during rush hour. I-4 has optional toll lanes. I think Atlanta has that too, but last time I went through there in 2020 it was closed.
Heh, I was an Elvis fan, in the 60s he was saying it was no longer fun to drive around in his Caddy because of congestion.
It’s a function of population growth, what we grew up with, plus supply and demand.
In Jr High one of our math books was using world population in an example, said if the population of the world was four billion, then noting the population had not yet reached four billion. Now, the world’s population is projected to be 8,231,613,070 in 2025.
I agree. When my NYC friends insisted that I didn’t need a car to commute to my job in the NJ suburbs, they were assuming that the mass transit availability in my area was as abundant as it is in NYC. If I tried to take the 2 buses to work, instead of a 20-25 minute drive, it would have taken me ~45 minutes via mass transit, and then I would have had to walk the last mile or so–in all types of weather–on a road with no sidewalk and no shoulder.
As I mentioned previously, on the rare occasions when I go to Manhattan, I drive to Jersey City, park my car, and take the PATH train (essentially a subway) into Midtown Manhattan. For a total of ~$15, I can self-park in a secure garage, and take the PATH round-trip.
By contrast, the car toll to enter Manhattan is $16, and now there is the additional $9 Congestion Fee. Once you get into Manhattan, a parking garage (where they park/abuse your car for you) will charge you ~$30 per hour.
At these prices, I wouldn’t be caught dead living there, and that’s not even considering the outlandish rent, outlandish tax burden, and crowded environment, etc. I would much rather live somewhere where my housing costs are reasonable, taxes are reasonable, free parking is readily available, and big crowds can be avoided.
Another reason living in a place like NYC wouldn’t work for me is because I don’t trust other peope to drive/park/retrieve my car, and I don’t like being near strangers, and being exposed to their diseases (eg on a bus or subway). I wouldn’t want to ride in a taxi either, as that’s another potential vector for transmitting disease.
