The start date for the $15 toll most drivers will be charged to enter Manhattan’s central business district will be June 30, transit officials said Friday.
Under the so-called congestion pricing plan, the $15 fee will apply to most drivers who enter Manhattan south of 60th Street during daytime hours. Tolls will be higher for larger vehicles and lower for nighttime entries into the city as well as for motorcycles.
The program, which was approved by the New York state Legislature in 2019, is supposed to raise $1 billion per year to fund public transportation for the city’s 4 million daily riders.
“Ninety percent-plus of the people come to the congestion zone, the central business district, walking, biking and most of all taking mass transit,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority CEO Janno Lieber told WABC. “We are a mass transit city and we are going to make it even better to be in New York.”
Supporters say that in addition to raising money for buses and subways, congestion pricing will reduce pollution be disincentivizing driving into Manhattan.
“We cannot drive our way out of the climate crisis, and congestion pricing will provide critical funding to upgrade our mass transit system, benefiting the millions of daily commuters across the region and encouraging countless more to ditch their gas-guzzling cars,” said Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters.
Opponents say the fees will be a burden for commuters, who already pay bridge and tunnel tolls, and will increase the prices of staple goods that are driven to the city by truck.
The state of New Jersey has filed a lawsuit over the congestion pricing plan, will be the first such program in the United States.
Lieber said he is “pretty optimistic” about how the New Jersey lawsuit will be resolved.
Congestion pricing will start at 12:01 a.m. On June 30, Lieber said, so the first drivers will be charged the late-night fee of $3.75. The $15 toll will take effect at 9 a.m.
Low-income drivers can apply for a congestion toll discount on the MTA website, and disabled people can apply for exemptions.