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Pedestrians cross a street in front of traffic in the downtown neighborhood of New York, United States, on Saturday, June 17, 2023. The New York City Central Business District’s congestion pricing plan is expected to receive final approval this month.
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After New York City was cleared late last week to move forward with its congestion pricing plan, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Tuesday that America’s largest city is leading the way “to achieve cleaner air, safer streets and better transit.”
Federal Highway Administrationa division of the US Department of Transportation, on Friday gave green light for New York to advance a plan to manage congestion, primarily through tolls in parts of Manhattan.
The measure could go into effect as soon as the spring of 2024, and would be the first of its kind in the United States, according to the New York Center. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. State agencies have 310 days for standing fee program and associated infrastructure.
“We will be the first state in the country, and the first city in America, to have a congestion pricing plan,” Hochul said at a news conference Tuesday. “Others will be looking at us. Other cities are paying attention. How are you going to do it here? Well, we’ll show them. We’ll show them how you do it.”
Although it is a new model for the United States, congestion pricing schemes were previously implemented in the United States LondonAnd StockholmAnd Singapore.
The cost of the fee is still being determined. a Six members of the Traffic Review Board His task is to determine the exact pricing structure.
a report last August On the plan’s environmental impact, it included toll rates that ranged from $9 to $23 during peak hours, $7 to $17 during off-peak hours, and $5 to $12 during overnight hours.
Pedestrians cross a street in front of traffic in the downtown neighborhood of New York, United States, on Saturday, June 17, 2023. The New York City Central Business District’s congestion pricing plan is expected to receive final approval this month.
bloomberg | bloomberg | Getty Images
The toll area covers much of the surface road in Midtown Manhattan. Cars will be tolled at 60th Street and South, but not on FDR along the East Side or West Side Freeway. There will be no tolls at the Battery Park Underpass or on any portions of the surface road of the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel connecting to West Street, According to the MTA.
The fee will be collected via E-ZPass. For vehicles that do not have an E-ZPass, an invoice will be mailed to the vehicle’s registered address, MTA says.
Congestion pricing scheme, which is officially called Central Business District Fee Programcompiled by MTAthe New York State Department of Transportationand the New York City Department of Transportation. It aims to reduce congestion in Manhattan, improve air quality, and raise money to invest in the city’s public transit system.
Before the Covid pandemic, nearly 700,000 cars entered the CBD every day, according to data from New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Board. Shared by MTA. In 2020, traffic fell to just 10% of normal volume, but has since rebounded to more than 90% of pre-pandemic levels, a stronger rebound than mass transit commuters. MTA says.
The MTA Reform and Traffic Mobility Act was passed in April 2019 He advocated a traffic congestion plan, and included certain limits, including ensuring that passenger cars could only be charged once per day to enter the area. Residents of those neighborhoods with incomes of less than $60,000 will be eligible for a state tax credit. The law also requires that overnight toll rates be lower than peak costs and that a rebate be available to low-income drivers.
Jean dearThe Air Transport Authority’s chief executive said at Tuesday’s news conference that the plan would require a 4,000-page environmental assessment to get the federal government to approve it.
“They studied it to death,” Lieber said. And we studied almost every intersection all the way to Philadelphia. They studied air quality, they studied everything it meant, and they said that this initiative — this dramatic historic initiative — wouldn’t have a significant impact on the 28 million people in the area under federal environmental law. That’s what this means. “.
However, some Democratic New Jersey lawmakers are upset about the move and the costs associated with it.
“This is nothing more than a cash grab for MTA funding,” said Representatives Josh Gottheimer and Bill Pascrell and Sen. Bob Menendez. A joint written statement posted Tuesday.
The plan, they wrote, represented an attempt by New York to “balance its budget on the shoulders of hard-working New Jersey families.”
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