On Sunday morning, Dec. 6, WNYC transportation reporter Stephen Nessen reported on a group of motorists who were poised at a toll collection point at midnight as Saturday turned into Sunday, eagerly looking forward to piloting the first automobiles past the cameras that would charge their E-Z Pass accounts the sum of $2.25 for the privilege of entering the portion of Manhattan south of 60th Street, a passage that had previously not required such a fee. Nessen quoted one of those travelers as saying that $2.25 to visit Manhattan was a good deal. What he did not say, because it was unnecessary, was that the discounted “night” rate is only valid after 9:00 PM. Before then, it’s $9.
While some motorists seem resigned to the new toll, apparently few would agree with the interviewee’s enthusiastic view, because many of them joined elected officials from both parties as plaintiffs who filed a multiplicity of actions to prevent the tolls from being collected. They included Republicans from New York State, Democrats from the part of the state that lies outside Manhattan (but includes New York City’s outer boroughs), and some of New Jersey’s top leaders, up to and including Gov. Phil Murphy himself. While it’s fair to note that supporters of the toll, including environmentalists and advocates for better transit in the City, also filed cases, it was the ones filed in federal courts in both states opposing the tolling program that garnered most of the attention.
Despite a monumental effort by the State of New Jersey and other plaintiffs, including a request that Judge Leo M. Gordon issue an injunction that would have stopped the tolling program, along with an unsuccessful appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the anti-toll forces did not get their wish. The flurry of legal activity during the final days before the machines started deducting the tolls as Saturday turned into Sunday was not enough. Judge Gordon’s issues with details of the way federal highway officials handled the matter were not enough to demonstrate the sort of “irreparable harm” or “likelihood of success on the merits” of which injunctions are made.
So, at this writing, the tolls have been collected for one entire day and part of another. Jan. 6 was the first day of business travel into Manhattan with the new toll and, at this writing, no major problems have been reported. Local transit ran well, despite the cold weather and a small amount of snow, circumstances that helped smooth the transition into the tolling scenario. Sophie Nieto-Munoz reported on the New Jersey Monitor, an online news site: “An apparent drop in traffic heading into Manhattan on the first weekday day of congestion pricing has transit advocates cheering.” Her numbers came from Congestion Pricing Tracker. As of 5:00 PM, the site showed that travel time through the Holland Tunnel into lower Manhattan was shorter than on previous Mondays before the toll started, more at peak commuting periods that at other times. Travel times were also faster than on comparable routes in Boston and Chicago. Nieto-Munez also reported: “While the average commute around 8 AM for drivers using the Holland Tunnel on a Monday was 23 minutes prior to congestion pricing, it plunged to 14 minutes at the same time Monday. For drivers using the Lincoln Tunnel, the average commute was about nine minutes before Monday—and on Monday, it was five, according to the tracker.” In a report for National Public Radio (NPR), Nessen ran a clip of a truck driver expressing his satisfaction that traffic was as light as it was. The MTA predicts that 11% of motorists who take automobiles into the tolling zone will switch to transit.
Whether or not the tolls reduce travel time for motorists entering Downtown or Midtown Manhattan, opponents are not going away. Instead, they are continuing to voice their objections. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) ran a story on the new toll on Monday morning, quoting John McDonald, a longtime New York taxi driver, blaming bus lanes and bike lanes on city streets for the congestion that the toll is designed to abate while raising money for New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority capital programs. His comments could be construed to indicate his dissatisfaction with recent policy changes that have given part of the width of the street from curb to curb to other transportation modes, space that had been available almost exclusively for automobile use in the past.
David Meyer and Gersh Kuntzman reported in Streetsblog NYC that an official with the union that represents the city’s firefighters claimed that the new toll will slow emergency response times, a claim that he did not explain. The fight against the toll will continue, and some opponents hope that the incoming President will find a way to kill it when he returns to office two weeks from this writing.
The most vitriolic criticism of the toll that we have heard so far came from an elected official. WNYC reported on Jan. 6 and 7 that a City Council member had made a post on Twitter/X that could be construed as supporting vandalism against the cameras used to track vehicles for charging the toll against the owners’ E-Z Pass accounts.
Liam Quigley also reported the post Jan. 6 in Gothamist, a news site affiliated with the station: “A Queens lawmaker on Sunday suggested that New Yorkers use laser pointers to foil cameras enforcing the MTA’s new congestion pricing tolls. City Councilmember Vickie Paladino, a Republican who represents parts of northeast Queens, wrote on X that ‘a high-powered green laser pointer like the ones you find on eBay for under $30 can destroy a camera sensor … So if you buy one of these lasers, be sure to NOT point them at any cameras, because they could be permanently damaged!’ she added.”
Despite her language that appears to set up an argument for plausible deniability, Paladino also wrote favorably about vandals who disrupted toll collection in London. Quigley reported: “She also shared a video of a vigilante group damaging license plate readers in London, where a network of cameras charges drivers in the city’s ‘ultra-low emissions zone,’ or ULEZ, for vehicles that do not meet emissions standards.”
Gus Rosendle reported Jan. 6 for NBC New York that his colleague Andrew Siff had interviewed MTA head Janno Lieber, who called Paladino’s comments “unfortunate” and said: “In any other context, we would be shocked if election officials would encourage people to break the law and to cheat other New Yorkers.” Section 145.00 of New York State’s Penal Law states: “A person is guilty of criminal mischief in the fourth degree when, having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he or she has such right, he or she: (1) Intentionally damages property of another person; or (3) Recklessly damages property of another person in an amount exceeding two hundred fifty dollars…” The offense is a Class A misdemeanor, which is punishable by fines or imprisonment for up to 364 days (Penal Law, Sec. 70-15(1)). Rosendale also reported: “The lasers in question are the same type that have caused concern when shined into airline cockpits from the ground,” and “By lunchtime Monday, Paladino’s post received almost 350,000 views and more than 300 comments.”
Meanwhile, there might be some indication that New Jersey political leaders are taking a more pragmatic stand than their statements showed before their legal effort that went down to the wire but failed to prevent the toll entirely. Christine Sloan reported for CBS New York: “There are mixed reactions, as expected, but there haven’t been any major hiccups on the first weekday commute, and drivers are now paying to drive in the Congestion Relief Zone, or Central Business District, of Manhattan.” With the proverbial sky not falling down and after widely reported efforts by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other officials having made an effort to settle with New Jersey as Judge Gordon had suggested and which Garden State leaders spurned, they might be shifting toward tempering the continued battle with efforts to solve the current problems. Sloan also said in her report: “Gov. Phil Murphy and other political leaders say they aren’t giving up on the fight, but also want to find ways to soften the blow to New Jersey commuters. Murphy released a statement saying New Jersey will “continue fighting against this unfair and unpopular scheme.”
Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich was quoted as saying: “Today was a very good day from a traffic standpoint but our celebration is a bit guarded. Monday is typically our slowest work weekday for traffic, and we are on the tail end of holiday schedules.” Fort Lee is in Bergen County at the New Jersey end of the George Washington Bridge, and local officials are concerned that vehicular traffic will increase there because it connects New Jersey with the northern part of Manhattan, far north of the area where the toll is collected. Sloan added: “Sokolich said attorneys aren’t giving up, but he and others are focusing now on mitigation.”
Advocates for transit riders have hailed the new toll. Jim Cameron, a longtime member of the Metro-North Rail Commuters Council from Connecticut and now founder of the Commuter Action Group, said in an online OpEd in the Greenwich Free Press that ran on Jan. 5 under the headline Congestion Pricing is Finally Happening in NYC: Oh, Happy Day!: “Finally, someone is doing something to deal with too many cars/trucks and not enough space. Though it will be initially unpopular, precedent-setting cases in other major cities indicate that this tolling plan will limit unnecessary traffic and speed up the remaining cars while raising billions of dollars for mass transit.”
Andrew Albert, head of the Transit Riders’ Council and a rider-representative on the MTA Board told Railway Age that an important part of the story that has been under-reported is the list of projects that the toll revenue will support. They include new New York City Transit subway cars, new railcars for Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road, electric buses, extending the Second Avenue Subway to 125th Street in Manhattan, making more stations accessible for persons with disabilities, and extending Communication-Based Train Control (CBTC) on the Fulton Street A and C lines in Brooklyn, “which will complement the CBTC on the Eighth venue line in Manhattan” and along 6th Avenue in Manhattan on the B, D, F, and M Lines, which will complete CBTC on the F line in Brooklyn. Albert also said: “I’m glad that it is finally in place, so that people and see and judge whether it will be successful. Earliest observations are that there are fewer vehicles at crossings on both sides of the tolling zone at bridges and tunnels. This program is a very important way of financing the MTA’s $68 billion capital program, which will make life better for everybody in the region, whether or not they ride. As I always say, our transit is the economic engine that runs the city, which is the economic engine that runs the state, which is the economic engine that runs the whole Northeast region.”
WNYC’s other transportation reporter, Clayton Guse, said on Monday morning that “It’s too early to tell” what sort of results New Yorkers will see from the new toll. It remains highly unpopular with many motorists outside Manhattan, including their elected officials. Their collective hostility toward the toll is one of the issues on which Republicans and many Democrats agree. Still, the precedent has been set, and the biggest city in North America is now charging motorists to bring their vehicles into the most-crowded part of Manhattan Island.
We will keep an eye on this story, even though the flurry of litigation has subsided, at least for now. We will follow up on such issues as opinions about the toll (how many people who have opposed the toll so strongly might change their minds?), as well as the results concerning reductions of travel time on the roads and improvements on the transit system that the toll revenue is dedicated to support.
This is now the longest series I have ever written for Railway Age, and we will have more to report. We will continue to report both on the continuing legal battles over the toll, as well as the changes in motoring, transit use and other changes that might occur in this closely watched experiment in transportation policy. The next installment will be a commentary about other under-reported issues related to congestion pricing and the current controversy surrounding it.
