That doesn’t mean they don’t make up a disproportionately large number of automobile commuters in Manhattan.
The older PDF cites all automobile commuters coming into Manhattan, regardless of origin, versus the number of people who work in Manhattan. That’s the 14% number.
Sorry not sorry I guess. Also the congestion charge is reduced by 75% during off-peak hours.
Manhattan is probably the last place in the entire country anyone should be trying to drive through, especially if it’s just to avoid other tolls. Again, sorry not sorry. Road space is limited, and if there’s more demand than supply, our system of cultural methodologies dictates that pricing is the best means of allocating that resource.
The money was already earmarked to the MTA to improve transit service, which would include helping those non 9-5ers. $12 billion was to be spent on capital improvements to the subway and bus system, and $1.5 billion was to be spent on each of LIRR and Metro-North, including phase 2 of the 2nd Avenue Subway, new equipment, platforms, and accessibility improvements, all of which are now on hold. These are all projects with in-place contracts and Federal funds that may be subject to cancellation fees and returned monies. All to pander to some whiny suburbanites.
36,000 / 3 shifts = 12,000 / 5 boroughs (& only ½ of Manhattan); let’s say 2000; not all of them drive & some carpool so let’s say 1200 cars, going to multiple precincts in different parts of lower Manhattan. The city streets can handle that volume; I hardly think that’s a disproportionately large number of automobiles in NYC.
Then why do you need a congestion charge at night if it’s not so congested & there’s no public transit? That just shows this is a money grab.
Are you offering up the $18/trip in tolls to avoid Manhattan?
& if the MTA was to clean up their own corruption, waste, & excessive costs they’d have the vast, vast majority if not more than the $1 billion this was required to raise w/o any new tolls…$690 lost to turnstyle jumpers alone last year!
Since the further transportation is full of commuters from Westchester and Long Island I can understand they wouldn’t want to take the subways and buses.
I don’t have a problem with an exemption for teachers and police. They’ll work it into their contracts eventually anyway.
I’m not sure I see the ghost town compared to the past. It’s clearly got a lot of workers downtown as traffic shows you. I can’t find any post COVID numbers, but in 2019, Chicago had the highest number of jobs downtown it ever had. I’m sure it’s down because of work-from-home these days, but I don’t find downtown much less crowded than before.
London instituted a congestion tax over two decades ago, and continued to increase it over time. London is still one of the most congested cities in the World. It does however collect about £230 million per year through congestion permits, etc. People that pay that tax find ways to pass it along to their customers, etc.
Cities suffering from congestion whose goal is to reduce it will need to eventually need to limit the number of permits available that will allow vehicles to drive within the city boundaries, with a combination of severe fines and penalties for those that violate it.
I expect that eventually when automated driving is more perfected, that cities like NYC and Chicago will only permit automated driving vehicles within the city boundaries.
According to KBRA Analytics, Chicago has the highest default risk of all major U.S. cities, and its office vacancy rate far exceeds the average. The situation is so bad that some downtown office buildings have sold for less than 25% of what they were valued a few years ago.
Specifically, the beleaguered city’s office vacancy rate has soared to 16.3%, up nearly 37% from the 11.9% rate reported in early 2020. By comparison, the U.S. average office vacancy rate is 13.8%, according to CoStar.
Even worse, nearly 75% of the office mortgages that have been converted into securities are either in default or at risk of default, the highest of any major metropolitan area in the nation. - SOURCE
That doesn’t add up to Chicago downtown being a “ghostown” compared to its former self in any way. Office vacancy is only 4 percentage points more than in early 2020, just pre-COVID. That’s actually a lot better than I had thought. That amount of people isn’t going to be noticed. (And what’s the raw number of actually employees vs just office vacancies, which can be increased by building new offices and misjudging demand? Like I said, in 2019, more Chicago jobs than ever were downtown.)
The reason you are seeing horrible traffic out of downtown during rush hours (which is like have the day now), is because there are a lot of people working downtown. Yes, there is visible retail vacancy compared with before, especially along State Street, but there’s also still a shitload of people here.
Lawn Guyland (& Brooklyn & Queens); Can get on or off the Island w/o driving thru NYC; sure there is some ferry service to Connecticut but it couldn’t handle the number of cars that currently drive thru the city, plus the additional time to drive into north into CT when you really want to go west or south.
The GW is perpetually delayed; can’t imagine how much worse it’ll be if there’s a $15 toll on the tunnels driving (heh) more traffic onto the bridge.
People who just drive through are of no value and are in fact creating negative value for all the reasons HMS mentioned. It’s only the ones who stop and buy things or work there that matter.
Citation needed. A quick Google search seems to indicate that London’s congestion charge has helped, but it’s not the best implemented system, and exemptions for taxis and buses has counteracted many of the pollution gains. There’s a fairly equal spread of articles that say “London congestion charge sucks” and “London congestion charge works great”.
Who on Earth is just “driving through” your dense urban centers?
Maybe it’s different where you guys are, but here in California, if I’m driving through downtown LA, it’s because I am going to downtown LA. If I didn’t want to go to LA, I’d drive around the city, not deal with downtown gridlock.
If you’re upset that motorists ever dare to drive past your city on the highway, I don’t have much sympathy.
I drive on interstates through cities (usually Orlando, FL) all the time, because the interstates go through the city. And the fastest toll free route often takes you street level through the center of the city.
In fact it would be a major pain for me not to drive through the city if I wanted to go anywhere west, north, or south. We’re talking +1 or 2 hours.
FWIW, same for Philly. If I’m north of the city and going somewhere south of the city, the closest I’d come to Philly is a road like I-95. And maybe not even that road, depending on the time of day.
I love visiting Philly if I have something to do. I don’t love it so much I’d put up with the traffic if I didn’t need to.
Apparently a lot of people are driving from the outer boroughs or Long Island through Manhattan to New Jersey and vice versa. At least that’s the claim being made by some posters here.
And that’s exactly what sets Manhattan apart from most other major urban centers: the only interstate highway is a short stretch of I-95 connecting the George Washington Bridge to the Bronx. If you’re taking just about any other route from one side of Manhattan to the other (say, Queens Queens-Midtown Tunnel Manhattan Lincoln Tunnel New Jersey), you have to take surface streets.
But I think it is worse than those numbers show. Many companies have long-term leases in place. Five year leases seemed the minimum for most offices. Some might be longer. I’m willing to bet the buildings expect them to bail as soon as they can do so.
Further, many people are working from home with, maybe, a 2-3 day in the office policy. So, also not filling the downtown.
I have worked downtown Chicago my whole life and I can tell you it is a lot less crowded than it once was. Loop streets would be filled with cars and taxis and busses and it’d take a long time to commute through it. Not so much anymore.
Restaurants are closing all over. Others have much reduced times they are open. I used to work in the Chicago Board of Trade building (famous background shot in The Dark Knight movie). On the first floor is a restaurant called “Ceres.” Used to be crowded in the afternoon and evenings and especially on Friday nights where there would be literal lines out the door. No more. It is never, ever full now. Not even close. The outdoor eating patio is rarely if ever full in the summer.
Also, Chicago is earmarking money to start conversion on some office buildings to residential. That’s a big job. They would not do that if these office buildings were mostly but just a little less full than usual.
The Chicago Loop continues a transformation from a storied, yet near empty, downtown to one filling with people again.
After new hotel developments, the City of Chicago is allocating funds for major conversions of handsome, but partly empty, office towers.
That’s the linchpin – especially for the affordable housing component – for the partial remakes of four stately historic and modern towers on LaSalle Street, the main north-south artery that bisects The Loop and West Monroe Street, which crosses it. - SOURCE
I’m not an expert on the geography of that region, but wouldn’t it be possible to build a bypass route for people to take without going into the city rather than charging a fee that will regressively impact poorer people more?
Sure, but people who work in the city and people who stop and buy things in the city are also creating traffic, so the idea is to discourage everyone from driving through the city if they don’t have to. Take the train or bicycle or something.
There is no bypass for Long Island. It is hopeless. Living on Long Island means isolating yourself from the rest of the country unless you’re flying out.
From NJ you can bypass the city and it is easier to get to Connecticut than Long Island beyond Brooklyn. Vice Versa of course for Connecticut.
I just went to Long Island a few weeks ago and I will not be going back for many years. The traffic is as bad as LA.
We’d be doing much, much better. A daily commuter might buy a $10 sandwich once a day, this doesn’t come remotely close to making up for the traffic congestion, infrastructure wear, utility demand, and environmental impact they create.
They create enormous cost burdens, they don’t come close to making it up, and then act like it’s a big mystery why cities have such high taxes relative to Town of Podunk. It’s simple, Podunkers offload all their costs on us without giving anything back.
Queens-Midtown Tunnel