The Congestion Pricing is just a Money Grab. The Monies collected are slated to be used for" essential repairs to New York City’s subways and buses" and is suppose to go to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), but like all political cash grabs, the money goes into the General Fund and then it can be divided up any way they want…
The law specifies that the fee will only be applied once a day… And folks who use an E-ZPass get some price break…
I do not believe it will do much to reduce congestion. Folks do not drive through these areas for fun (Have you see the photos of the congestion and traffic Jams…), and the traffic is mostly required for business and ultimately the drivers are not the ones eating the cost, the truck, the taxis, etc… will all pass the cost onto the consumers receiving the goods by truck, the passengers in the taxis, etc…
Considering the poverty line is a nationwide average if we consider the cost of living, NYS is 22.5% higher than Florida, the 0.7% higher poverty rate seems overshadowed.
As for home insurance, we receive more hurricanes than anywhere else in the US and much of the population lives only 10 ft above sea level. Also, building code improvements have drastically increased the cost of re-construction. The Gulf states are all pretty strongly represented in that list. Oklahoma is tornado alley which is why they are so high.
Many London residents have to deal w/this issue already. Personally, at least for the area’s existing resisidents, I’m generally in favor , but only as applied to their newly purchased vehicles, but not for the residents’ previously owned vehicles. Seems unfair force someone to sell their car they’ve owned for many years, b/c they can’t afford the new tax.
Nope? Nope what, your link is pulled from a “Tree Huggers” web site, I am not saying anything negative about the group, but they have no real knowledge of the subject and are only regurgitating what they have googled on line, much of which is AI generated….
So do you disagree with my premise that this is a money grab because they will not spend the money to prevent much of the loss to the MTA caused by the Turn-style Hoppers or the Free-loaders on the busses, what?
Perhaps you have a rosy picture of the elected officials of New York City (wait, isn’t the Mayor and many of his cronies being investigated or under indictment for graft and corruption?).
Please elucidate your reasons and rational, Inquiring Minds Want to Know…
See, I can throw Links around too, but these are at least authoritative and from respected sources…
You’re going to have to specifically cite the parts of those two articles that support your statement that the monies collected via the congestion pricing plan “go into the General Fund”. Unless you can support your claim with something from a credible source, then your claim is just that… a claim without factual support.
Is there waste in the MTA?
Without question!
Do I think that the Mayor is corrupt?
Yup!
However, those two straw man arguments do not directly deal with the issue of Congestion Pricing, and do not support your claim that these monies will “go into the General Fund”.
Perhaps you do not realize that the “General Fund” is the catch-all for all taxes and fees collected and this arrangement is no mistake… When the color of the money is dictated, the General fund is off the hook… So it is really a “Nut Shell Game” and which shell is the pea under… Or where will the funding come from?
Yes the Congestion Fees are supposed to be in a “Lock Box” but all the previous funding came out of the General Fund and if the MTA can draw upon the Lock Box Funds then those Pols get a Wind Fall of funds no longer used to maintain the transportation infrastructure from the General Fund…
Do you remember the days before the lotteries, when all the funding for the schools came out of property taxes, which all went into the General Fund? And the General Fund provided all the funds for the schools. Then the lotteries came about with the Battle Cry, “It all goes to the schools…” Well that might be so… but did the schools suddenly has an influx of cash to build new schools, hire teachers, increase the pay for the teachers, buy school supplies, or anything at all.
No, not at all. Just like the “Lock Box” for the Congestion Fees, the Lock Box for the Lottery funds goes to support the school, but what did those Pols do is , they look at the school budget, put the lottery funds toward the budget and if there are any shortfalls, then and only then do the dip into the General Fund for the balance that had been collected from the taxes… And have you ever noticed that with all the billions of lottery dollars collected for the schools, your school taxes did not go down?
And when the school taxes are computed for your local, they still plan on collecting the full budget from the property taxes. When asked why they do this when they know most of the budget is paid from the lottery funds, the pols reply, “We have to plan as if three will be no lottery funds coming in…” Like that is ever going to happen…
Unfortunately that statement has not proven to be true. The word for 2025 is appeasement. Then the taxation of imported goods. Hmm, wonder if those taxes will be waived for Tesla?
See, brought it back to cars! Under category of cars I am not interested in.
I don’t want to live in NYC: it’s too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, too humid all year; the soil is poor, the hunting (500 years ago) only fair. It had great fishing before people moved in, and it’s a great place for a sea port, but that’s only reason for about 500K people to live there. The people who live there have made it a place that 8M or so want to live. It’s the center of much of our business and culture - because people have made it that way. No other city has achieved as much. LA and Chicago made good tries, but haven’t matched it.
The first Jews to move to NYC were Portuguese from Recife, Brazil, fleeing the Inquisition. Peter Stuyvesant didn’t want them. The Directors told him he had no choice: they were paying customers.
I predict it will become wealthier and more important when they ban all private cars, make it a place to live and work, not drive. I won’t live there, but that’s me.
The MTA reported that, on Tuesday, January 7th (the first day of Congestion Pricing), there was an increase of 40,000 people riding the NYC subway, as compared to the previous day. The MTA is planning on adding more cars to their trains, as are NJ Transit and the Long Island RR–both of which saw an immediate up-tick in ridership when Congestion Pricing kicked-in.
… and one of the few remaining cemeteries in Manhattan is the Chatham Square Cemetery, where Jewish burials began in 1683. This burial ground is tiny, and is completely surrounded by apartment houses in what is now the city’s Chinatown.
On the local news, they interviewed a guy who lives on 61st Street in Manhattan, and while his complaint is accurate, I call it bogus bellyaching. First, his statement, and then my comment on his statement:
“My daughter lives on 79th Street, and when I go to visit her, I will have to exit from my parking garage onto 60th St, and then I will be charged $9 because I entered the congestion zone, even though I was only going around the block.”
Let’s assume that this guy (who appeared to be a healthy specimen) wants to drive 19 blocks (a bit less than 1 mile), rather than walking, or taking mass transit, or a taxi, or an Uber. The question then arises of what he would do with his car when he gets to 79th St. The chance of getting on-street parking is somewhere between slim and none–unless he wanted to circle the block for a couple of hours. Or, he could pay $30 per hour to park his car in a private parking lot/garage while he visits his daughter.
I know that reporters aren’t supposed to question the truthfulness of the people who they interview, but I find it beyond questionable that this guy would REALLY drive his car less than 1 mile in Manhattan in order to visit someone.
+1
Whatever mode of transport he might choose, the bottom line is that Manhattanites who own cars typically only use them when they drive out of the city. It’s just not believable that this guy would drive less than 1 mile in Manhattan, and then have to spend either a LOT of time and/or a LOT of money to park the car when visiting his daughter.
The only exception might be those who have a chauffeur who can sit–double-parked–while the car owner does his visiting/shopping.
I can’t speak to how far is too far to drive, walk, or scoot to a daughter’ place, but her in my neck of the woods in Hampton Roads Virginia, sending the kids down to the school buses that travel through the subdivision is tooooo far for many of our “precious little children.” My Subdivision is built so all homes are off in cul-de-sacs and most cul-de-sacs are less than 1,000 feet long. You would not believe the parents that drive their kids to the bus stop (at the end of the cul-de-sac at the RED Line… ). Then they idle their cars at the end of the cul-de-sac, while their kids wait for the buses… By the way, so the kids do not have to cross the RED Line road that goes through our subdivision (25 MPH Speed Limit) there are two busses that travel this route, one going one way and one going the other way…
The guy who was interviewed probably should watch some of the old “Seinfeld” shows where Cramer borrows Jerry’s car so he does not lose his parking spot. L o L . . .
