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Along with grey skies and kerbside slush, New Yorkers have something else to look forward to this January: the novelty of paying to drive in parts of Manhattan.
One week after the presidential election, Kathy Hochul, the state governor, announced she was reversing her decision to shelve a toll on vehicles in Manhattan’s central business district. She has reduced it from $17 to $9 a day to placate vociferous opponents.
The charge was swiftly approved by the city’s transport authority and will be levied south of 60th Street from January 5 — making New York the first city in the US to impose congestion pricing.
“New Yorkers are going to look back on this moment with pride — a moment where we chose to do the hard things that will make our city a better place for generations to come,” New York’s deputy mayor for operations Meera Joshi told the FT.
Billed as a way to finance a $15bn modernisation of the transport system, supporters hope that once it is rolled out, the number of vehicles coming into the city will drop — making life more pleasant for cyclists, pedestrians and residents.
It is sorely needed. For a city that thinks of itself as being at the cutting edge, the crowded roadscape of lower Manhattan can feel very 20th century. Vehicle traffic is prioritised and driving is aggressive. At big intersections, monitors with high-viz vests have to force drivers to stop at lights during rush hour in an effort to prevent gridlock and allow pedestrians to cross safely.
Cycling here is not for the faint hearted. Bike lanes tend to be used as extra parking space by cars or trucks. Sharing even quiet streets with vehicles can be nerve-racking for anyone on two wheels.
“There’s way too much space preserved for cars and that space can be used for a better, more liveable, more pleasant, safer city,” says Alexa Sledge, spokesperson for campaign group Transportation Alternatives. She also hopes the lowered rate will help New Yorkers get over the psychological hurdle of paying to drive in the city centre, as well as reduce the number of vehicles.
“We know that the majority of New Yorkers do not own cars yet they’re constantly trapped in car traffic, breathing in car exhaust and really paying for the free parking of millions of other people,” she says.
This traffic takes its toll on local residents, with high rates of childhood asthma on streets close to major roads, and many accidents — in the first nine months of this year, 123 people were killed in the congestion zone, according to TA data.
As a cyclist, I think of these statistics as I dodge huge SUVs running red lights across intersections. But Mike Berkowitz, a New Yorker who is executive director of the University of Miami’s climate resilience institute and has been cycling in the city for over 30 years, assures me that it “has gotten a lot better”. He laughs as he explains that when he first started, “cars were really all over the place”.
He points to the success of the city’s bike share scheme, Citi Bike, as a sign of how cycling has been normalised. When first introduced in 2013, it was attacked by many. Dorothy Rabinovitz of the Wall Street Journal fulminated that New York’s best neighbourhoods were “begrimed” by bikes forced on them by “totalitarians” in City Hall.
But in just over a decade, millions have used the scheme, with an average of 166,049 daily rides in September. As Berkowitz points out, “having more and more people in the bike lane makes it feel much better” for other cyclists and pedestrians.
Berkowitz is optimistic that congestion charging will be accepted once it is in place. “It’s hopefully a virtuous circle — you both make it harder to drive and you invest in transit, and between these two things roads get better and better,” he says.
There are still some obstacles to overcome. The Federal Highway Administration has to give its stamp of approval and while city officials say the charge will be difficult to remove once it is running, Republican lawmakers are hoping that Donald Trump will scrap it.
As City Hall’s Joshi says, “Congestion pricing will require a learning curve . . . this is just the beginning.”
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