Now in New York, entering a congestion zone will require not only patience, but also money. The city on Sunday became the first in the US to launch one in the city center. The information is from Financial Times and from Bloomberg.
Since yesterday, drivers entering Manhattan’s busiest neighborhoods during rush hour will have to pay a fee of US$9 (about R$55). The measure, which has faced years of delays and legal challenges, is intended to ease traffic and raise billions of dollars for local transportation.
The fee charged during off-peak hours is US$2.25 (about R$13.80) for drivers traveling overnight between 9pm and 5am on weekdays, and between 9pm and 9am on weekends. Small trucks will have a surcharge and will pay US$14.40 (R$85.74) to enter Manhattan during peak hours. Larger vehicles will pay a fee of US$21.60 (R$132.28).
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced early Sunday that the congestion relief zone, which stretches from the bottom of Central Park to the southern tip of Manhattan, was “fully operational.”
The project, which was suspended by New York Governor Kathy Hochul in June last year before being revived at a price lower than the original fee of US$15 (R$91.86), is expected to reduce the number of vehicles entering in the area each day by about 10%. It will also help raise US$15 billion (R$91 billion) for the local traffic department to invest in public transport projects.
“This is about being a 21st century city where we don’t spend all our time stuck in traffic,” said Janno Lieber, the executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is implementing the new fare, in an interview with Bloomberg Radio on Monday. Lieber anticipates a 10% to 20% reduction in traffic over time.
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About 500,000 to 700,000 vehicles pass through the toll zone, called the central business district, during a typical weekday. Following similar initiatives in London, Stockholm and Singapore, the aim is to encourage more people to use public transport and encourage trucks to make deliveries at night, ultimately reducing the number of vehicles in the zone by 80,000 per weekday. , the MTA said.
Between 500,000 and 700,000 vehicles pass through the toll zone, called the central business district, during a typical weekday. Following similar initiatives in London, Stockholm and Singapore, the aim is to encourage more people to use public transport and encourage trucks to make deliveries at night, ultimately reducing the number of vehicles in the area by 80,000 per day. week, the MTA said.
The agency has installed 1,400 cameras and more than 110 different detection points along the borders of the tariff zone, Lieber said at a news conference in Grand Central Terminal.
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“That’s the benchmark,” Lieber said of typical weekday traffic numbers. “And we will monitor this very, very closely. Over time, we will be looking at how traffic is changing, the number of vehicles and where they are coming from and where they are going.”
Hochul initially paused the scheme out of fear that increasing fees on drivers could hurt some Democratic candidates in the November elections as New Yorkers faced a rise in the cost of living.
Last year, New York was named the most congested city in the world by traffic monitoring platform Inrix, causing the average driver to be stuck in traffic for an average of 101 hours a year and causing a $9.1 billion impact. in the local economy.
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Dangerous traffic
Traffic in the city is also dangerous. There have been 252 traffic fatalities in 2024 as of Dec. 29, a slight drop from 262 such incidents in 2023, according to New York Police Department data.
The debut of congestion pricing follows years of political wrangling and a series of legal challenges, some of which are still ongoing.
Although New Jersey was unable to block Sunday’s implementation at the eleventh hour, the judge in that case gave the Federal Highway Administration until January 17 to submit additional information about efforts to mitigate the rate plan’s potential effects on traffic. and pollution in the state.
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(com Bloomberg)
