This is going to eventually lead to general driving tax within the city.
Also note that this only effects poor people in any significant way.
Also note that this only effects poor people in any significant way.
How? There are discounts for the poor [1]. Those in the trades can add it to their bills. And there are precious few poor Manhattanites living within the congestion-charge zone who also have a car. (Parking a car in Manhattan is like renting another bedroom.)
[1] https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/05/09/mta-will-offer-conges...
Simply not true. The poor don’t drive into the city. They can’t afford cars, and even if they could, they can’t afford to park them.
This will most heavily affect taxi riders and city employees who park illegally and so don’t have to worry about paying, if they don’t just evade the rules by illegally obscuring or removing their license plates. Which they will—-secure in the fact that the NYPD will never do anything and even if they do OATH will have their backs.
I can buy that excuse in SF which has a lot of poor exurban car commuters by necessity, but NYC has a much bigger public transit network and parking is even more scarce and expensive in Manhattan than in SF (so unless you’re just taking a shortcut through Manhattan, which this is intentionally penalizing, you’re going to be paying a lot for parking anyway and are probably already wealthy).
I've lived in NYC as well as upstate NY and I can tell you for a fact that my friends with cars in university statistically speaking were from Long Island. Total anecdata, but you can look at the actual demographics of who owns private vehicles in NYC and what economic class they belong to. It sounds like the results may surprise you!
However, the more pressing issue is whether the existing democracy is inherently designed to marginalize those below a certain economic threshold. I think it is.
BIG claim. Especially because, obviously, all poor people and only poor people drive in NYC. Citation needed.