See also: Singapore. When I first visited I was amazed at how little traffic there was. Turns out they had imposed so severe costs on car ownership that the vast majority can’t afford to own one.
Why Driving in Singapore Is Like 'Wearing a Rolex'
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/world/asia/car-certificat...
The people whom congestion pricing hurts the most are those who feel that public transit is beneath them but still rely on driving in Manhattan to a degree that the congestion charge is a significant tax. Which unfortunately seems to include most of the media class in NYC, hence the incessant whining about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/nyregion/mta-budget.html
"The M.T.A. expects to spend $10.9 billion to buy roughly 2,000 new rail cars, an order that will include 1,500 subway cars and more than 500 for the Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road. Some of the train fleet has not been updated since at least 1980, the year of the M.T.A.’s first capital plan. Another $3.3 billion will buy and support 2,261 new buses."
"The plan includes $5.4 billion to modernize the subway signal system, which dates back to the Great Depression. Over the past 15 months, the antiquated system has led to an average of nearly 4,000 train delays a month, according to the M.T.A."
It hasn't panned out that way at all however, it's just great for everyone.
OK, actually not everyone. There's one very specific group that this sucks for, which not-coincidentally was the group that was loudly opposing it using the excuse you tried.
That group is people who work for the city and/or are connected so they get free daily parking. That's a lot of cops and firefighters and various city functionaries at various levels and agencies that have been able to get their hands on parking placards. It's a core NYC subculture and they were the annoying loud voices that tried to stop this.
Almost anyone who was driving into central Manhattan and paying for parking already is thrilled by this, it's only a little more expensive and in exchange they shave hours of traffic out of their commutes.
It's the people that were gaming the system to get free parking that are suddenly screwed. Fuck them.
Oh, come now. Try a little bit harder to see the other side.
Live here, don't have a car -- haven't had one for 20 years. Ride the subway every day.
I freely acknowledge that the roads feel less crowded, but it makes no practical difference to me. As far as I am concerned, the entire thing is a small net loss, in that it's another tax, and on the rare occasions I do actually need a car or a service that requires a car (plumber, mover, etc.) it costs me more.
I look at congestion pricing purely as a question of "do I consent to another tax for the MTA?", and when framed in that way, the answer is emphatically "No."
That's the part you have to prove. I bet your statement is factually incorrect.
I encourage you to adopt this level of skepticism to claims on both sides of this debate, and not just things that violate your pre-conceptions of the world.
Edit: not that I use FreshDirect, but it took me about 30 seconds of searching to find this obvious example.
https://nypost.com/2025/01/09/business/freshdirect-quietly-s...
Your argument is that there are indirect costs. That’s the part that has to be proven.
Some company using it as an excuse to add a junk fee is anecdotal but hardly conclusive. It’s about as much evidence as a hotel saying they didn’t bring me new towels because they care about the environment.
Got it. I show you an example of exactly what you ask for, from one of the most common delivery services in NYC, and you dismiss it as a "junk fee".
Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.
You having to pay fifty cents more for FreshDirect is not a persuasive counter argument. Especially since that’s not actually an indirect cost at all.
Your order is quite literally causing more traffic congestion, directly, as the car pulls up in front of your apartment and double parks while some guy hand delivers your yogurt or whatever.
I told you that I don't use FreshDirect. You asked for an example of companies passing through the cost, and I provided one.
These aren't deep moral questions. You're trying to draw some sort of universal fairness doctrine around this that doesn't apply. It's just public policy. The people who live in the area are buying all the roads, through various taxes and fees.
Roads don't work the way you describe. Are you aware that there's literally no way to drive to Long Island without going through New York City? Or that driving from Princeton New Jersey to Providence Rhode Island requires going through New York City or driving about 40-50 miles out of the way? Why is all this solely the problem of people who live in Manhattan below Central Park again?
Occasionally? Tons of middle class people do it.
The majority of my social circle consists of middle and upper middle class Newjerseyans. Many commute daily into Manhattan via public transit. But if they’re going in for anything other than work, it’s always the car.
Which congestion price is perfectly fine for if you’re only going in occasionally.
I would not be surprised if occasionally driving into Manhattan is cheaper now. Surely the excessive prices on parking should be going down.
Edit: Happy to be downvoted by people who actually live in Manhattan and take 5 seconds out of their day to talk to anybody who works in a local store. Brooklyn transplants can move along.
But my in laws that drive in from the suburbs a few times a year? They can afford the $9.
But I am saying that not everyone that lives in the congestion zone are well off office workers, particularly those born and raised in lower Manhattan that have housing arrangements that go back a few decades. An extra $2-300 month in tolls is not nothing for many people. You can't easily bring hundreds of pounds of art and building supplies to your art warehouse in Newark every day on the path train.
It wouldn't be unfair if nobody were subsidized. It's unfair that just cars aren't anymore, but buses, etc. still are.
I only brought this up to agree that there are definitely working class people that live in the congestion zone and happen to need a car, and the extra $200-300/month does have a real impact on their lives. It would be nice to have taken them into account a bit more.
I postulate it's because they don't actually live there, or just moved there, if they do actually live there, they'd have to be severely socially inept to never speak to a store or restaurant owner and ask what their commute is like.
To act as though it affects nobody of moderate or lower income is downright dishonest, when 22% of Manhattan households own one - it's no longer an upper class activity, just a basic tool to get to work.
The point isn’t that it won’t negatively affect anybody of moderate or lower income, it’s that overall it will positively affect most people of moderate or lower income, because most of those people do not drive regularly into Manhattan.
Why is that an issue?
Public transportation and taxis are readily available.