Trucking News: NYC congestion pricing plan hits a dead end

Jeff Berman, Group News Editor -- Logistics Management, 4/8/2008

NEW YORK—The plan proposed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to charge a fee to drivers entering the most congested parts of Manhattan appears to have hit a permanent roadblock.

The New York State Assembly rejected the proposal yesterday, according to various media reports.

Bloomberg’s plan, which was initially proposed on Earth Day in 2007, called for cars and trucks (those with low emissions being exempt) be required to pay $8 and $21, respectively, when entering Manhattan below 60^th Street from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. When the plan was first rolled out, it was slated for vehicles entering Manhattan below 86^th Street. While motorists and truckers driving along Manhattan’s east and west sides would not have been fined under the original plan, the fee would have been deducted from the tolls commuters already pay to come into Manhattan via the connecting bridges or tunnels.

In recent weeks, it appeared that the congestion pricing initiative’s chances of passing were promising, with New York Governor David A. Paterson saying he supported it late last month, along with a recommendation from the New York City Traffic Mitigation Office, a unit for the New York State Department of Transportation, which was charged with implementing the congestion pricing initiative had it passed.

And on April 1, the New York City Council signed off on the measure by a close 30-20 vote. Heading into the state assembly, congestion pricing also had the support of New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

In the assembly, the concept of congestion pricing faced major opposition from legislators from New York’s outer boroughs and city suburbs that said it would “unfairly target commuters and their constituents,” according to a Wall Street Journal report. New York State Speaker of the House Sheldon Silver added that many assembly speakers did not believe in that concept, which many felt was flawed. 

As a result of the assembly’s decision, New York will miss out on $354 million in federal funding for mass transit improvements through the United States Department of Transportation Urban Partnership.

Department of Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters, a proponent of congestion pricing as part of an effort to reduce myriad surface transportation issues, considered the news of the assembly’s decision disappointing.

“New York has engaged in one of the most vigorous and significant debates about transportation policy in modern U.S. history,” said Peters. “ While [this] announcement, if accurate, is deeply disappointing, New York’s mounting traffic and environmental woes point to congestion pricing as an inevitable solution, even if not in the next few months or with the assistance of federal Urban Partnership dollars. 

Peters added that the DOT will engage with many U.S. cities that have put forward ambitious traffic fighting plans to discuss how they could use this funding to cut traffic, improve transit and reduce pollution.

Even if this plan had been approved, there may not have been much to gain for shippers, according to John Gentle, Logistics Management columnist and president of John A. Gentle & Associates LLC, in a recent interview.

“Let’s recognize that any vehicle over 48 feet is not allowed in New York City in the daytime,” said Gentle. “This is not a heavy duty truck fixture. It is more geared for things like FedEx delivery trucks moving parcels. Parcel and less-than-truckload carriers say they move about two miles per hour or less in New York during the day, but they are coming there, because it is the only time [receivers] are in their offices. I cannot imagine that picture is changing at all.”

Gentle added that New York City already has rules regarding when commercial vehicles can be used to deliver goods and services, said Gentle.

“My sense is that this could [have been] viewed as a revenue gainer,” he said. “There is a system like this in London, which has been largely ineffective, with even more people driving into the city and paying a higher fee, and now fees are being raised again.”

Gentle added it is highly unlikely a system like this would have solved congestion-related problems.