The MTA Admits Congestion Pricing Won’t Cut Traffic Everywhere — But Will Do It Anyway

A federal environmental review found that congestion pricing in New York City would actually increase traffic in the Bronx and Staten Island.

Thursday evening, after years of delay over federal environmental review, the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority began accepting public comments on its proposal to charge cars and trucks between $9 and $23 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street during the day, raising $1 billion a year — at least — for new transit projects. So far, 946 people have signed up to speak because there’s plenty to comment on. 

Surprise: The environmental review predicts the Bronx will see more traffic, not less, under congestion pricing (as will Staten Island). “Increases in [vehicle miles traveled] in the Bronx would be driven largely by increases … on the Cross Bronx Expressway,” the report notes.

In all but one option on the MTA’s menu of seven tolling ideas, traffic on the Cross Bronx increases by 170 to 704 trucks daily. In only one of the MTA’s proposed toll-price scenarios — one in which the toll to enter Manhattan would be the same for trucks and cars — would the number of extra Cross Bronx trucks be kept to 50.

Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post

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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here.

This piece originally appeared in New York Post