I lived in the Hudson Valley for almost 3 years. I visited the city every other week in that time. I drove in twice, every other time I took the train. 

Are missing the fact that the way it’s set up is that it’s going to charge drivers to reduce congestion, while at the same time raising money to fix the mass transit system? It’s a push/pull design, with disincentives to drive and incentives to take mass transit.

The MTA budget also includes maintenance on the bridges, which are currently free. Congestion pricing would actually make things more fair.

I used to live in the Hudson valley.  I visited NYC plenty of times, and drove there exactly twice.  The rest of the time I’d just hop on the train.  Simple, easy, and far cheaper than driving down, paying for parking, etc.

Here’s s thought: eliminate Uber and Lyft COMPLETELY from Manhattan. The ubiquity of these services severely increases congestion. They’re not needed just like they were not needed 5 years ago.

I live in Brooklyn. Yes, parking is expensive in Manhattan. Tolls are expensive. That’s why there are trains.

Bicycles and scooters, who obviously cause the most congestion and the most wear.

The flip side,

The most convenient electric vehicles in NY do not need charging. They are available to the public, and powered by the third rail, which covers most of NYC.

They’re already spending close to a thousand dollars a month on parking, plus another $300 a month or so on tolls. Anybody spending $1,200 a month to drive into Manhattan for their commute, when there are perfectly acceptable commuter trains they could be taking, is not in a financial situation where they’re “barely…

New Yorkers: It’s too crowded, let’s charge a congestion tax!

Electric cars take up just as much space as fuel-powered cars.  

I would absolutely LOVE to hear the argument that commuters in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island will be hurt by this. “I already sit in traffic for four hours every morning to go 30 miles into Manhattan, and then spend $60 every day to park in a garage, rather than having to sit on the LIRR or Metro North with the…

The number of poor people driving in Manhattan is effectively zero. Like, other than delivery drivers and taxi drivers and other people whose profession is specifically to drive a car -- and for those people, the cost of this will be passed on to somebody else -- I cannot imagine any circumstance in which a person…

Why is that inherently a bad thing?

As somebody who actually regularly commutes into Manhattan from the outer boroughs by private car: yes, do this, immediately. It’s super-dumb of me to drive into the city, and adding incentives not to do so would save me a lot of money in the long run.

Bottom line, there’s no failure of bureaucracy a Republican won’t blame on Democrats.

Bottom line, there’s nothing... NOTHING... a Democrat won’t tax.

So wait, not spending $8,500/year (AAA estimated average cost) to own a car (or $17,000 for two) enables people to put that money to use elsewhere within their local economy on things like education, food, savings, etc, and that the overall GDP of the region goes up?

Beijing is like a colder Los Angeles: growth through sprawl. Their saving grace is their transit system is arranged in rings and intersecting subway lines around the city. You can actually reach a point on one of those transit rings by going in either direction (think a bunch of squares within squares). There is a…