Megacity of millions of inhabitants with dantesque car traffic, New York wants to introduce an urban toll like London, but this tax project in 2024 provokes the anger of the famous yellow taxis and the neighboring state of New Jersey.
The objective of this tax which would be levied at the entrance to the center of Manhattan, one of the five boroughs of New York, is threefold: unclog the main avenues that irrigate the island from north to south, improve the air quality of the Big Apple and financially bail out the metro network in poor condition.
Establishing “a tax against traffic jams is a historic opportunity”, rejoices John McCarthy, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the public operator of the New York subway and trains in the greater suburbs. Nearly nine million souls populate the city of New York, to which must be added the millions of inhabitants of the counties of the suburbs north and east and New Jersey across the Hudson River.
About $20 per day
This congestion charge of 17 to 23 dollars a dayat the entrance to 60th Street in Manhattan (knowing that there are already some on all the highways that surround the megalopolis) should come into force in the spring of 2024 but it is strongly contested. Some 21,000 New York taxi drivers – whose yellow cars have made the city’s legend – are up against the measure: the president of their union, Bhairavi Desai, believes that the tax will sign the death warrant for certain taxis already brought to their knees by the pandemic and competition from VTCs like Uber. Like Wein Chin, 55, who came from Burma in 1987 and who, with his 300 or 400 dollars a week, told AFP that he feared not “survive with a loan to pay and a family to feed”.
Faced with discontent, officials have proposed tariffs arranged for the lowest incomesin a city already hit by runaway inflation. Urban toll would affect 700,000 cars, vans and trucks per day and would allow, according to its promoters, to reduce daily traffic by 10% and therefore CO2 emissions. New York officials cite environmental studies made in London, which has long had a congestion charge: polluting emissions there have fallen by 20%.
“We know that car pollution is a major factor in the climate crisis which is damaging the planet and our health”summarizes Tim Donaghy of Greenpeace for whom giving up the car for public transport goes in the direction of history.
All Winners
“Everyone is a winner, traffic and the environment”, also insists Danny Pearlstein, from a group of public transport users, the Riders Alliance. Especially since the MTA, which manages the metro, with its sprawling network but with infrastructure in poor condition, has estimated the windfall it could draw from the urban toll at one billion dollars a year.
The project dates back to 2007 when billionaire Michael Bloomberg was mayor of New York. But the municipality and its legislature did not come to an agreement until 2019 under the mandate of the very left-wing mayor at the time, Bill de Blasio, predecessor of the current city councilor Eric Adams, a former police captain in grip.
The federal government gave the go-ahead in June for implementation next spring. in a city classified rather on the left and with social and environmental concerns. But New Jersey, a popular border state and Manhattan dormitory suburb, challenge in court this future new urban toll considering that it will weigh on the professionals who use the already paying bridges and tunnels every day to cross the Hudson River.
Still, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul has pledged to make the congestion and pollution tax a reality in the spring.
2023-08-07 16:13:23
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