Congestion Pricing Scheme Equals Tax Hike

$2,000. That's what the Mayor's congestion pricing scheme will cost if a commuter into Manhattan decides to tough it out and work in Manhattan based on 240 days of commuting. The cost jumps to $5,040 for commerical vehicles that enter the zone during the business hours of 6am to 6pm.

The congestion pricing proposal is a central part of the long-range sustainability plan Mr. Bloomberg unveiled in April and could be a defining element of his legacy as mayor. The plan calls for charging cars $8 and large commercial trucks $21 to drive into Manhattan below 86th Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. The mayor says the plan would encourage people to leave their cars at home and would raise $380 million a year to improve and expand mass transit options like subways, buses and ferries.

But opponents say the fees would be a regressive tax on the middle class, and they question the ripple effects the plan would have on traffic and parking outside the zone. Mr. Lancman as well as the Weprin brothers also oppose the plan because, they say, inadequate mass transit options leave many of their constituents with no choice but to drive, with improvements years away.

All those tax funds will supposedly raise tax revenues of several hundred million dollars a year to fund mass transit projects around the city that are supposed to make the city more liveable.

I think all the congestion pricing will do is force those small businesses, sole proprietorships, and companies that are on the cusp of profitability to choose to do business elsewhere because of the sting of having to pay $2,000 to $5,000 more per vehicle entering the city. So, the tax may end up working, but at the cost of reduced economic growth and fewer people entering the city.

The Mayor's plan might end up solving the issue of congestion, not by building more mass transit, but by reducing the number of jobs in the City.

The mass transit improvements wont come for years to come, and there's no way to predict that the congestion pricing scheme will actually improve mass transit options. The notion of the congestion pricing scheme to lure nearly $500 million in federal funds is simply too much to pass up, even if it amounts to another tax on New York metro area commuters.

This proposal will simply accelerate the shift of jobs to regions around the country that do not have the crushingly high tax burden that the New York metro area has.

The carrot that the Mayor suggests is the reopening of LIRR train stations that have long been shuttered because of lack of interest and ridership for years. How much time will it take to actually get those stations opened? What is unmentioned is the reason those stations were closed in the first place - lack of ridership. No word on that; and one would be most interested to see what would happen if the stations were opened to see whether people would actually use them, or whether the Mayor's office is simply blowing smoke.