Listen to this articleDespite lawsuits aimed at stopping it, congestion pricing is now up and running, as drivers entering the center of Manhattan will pay $9 during peak hours.
Drivers from Long Island and other New York City suburbs took to social media to rail against the new toll where most will pay $9 to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street on weekdays between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. and on weekends between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. During off hours, the toll will be $2.25 for most vehicles.
Some Long Island drivers shared routes that avoid the midtown and downtown river crossings, like taking the Triborough Bridge or the Queensboro Bridge, where vehicles can enter above the designated congestion zone, but those detours don’t work for small businesses that rely on deliveries or service calls in midtown or below. There will be a credit of up to $3 for those who have already paid to enter Manhattan via certain tunnels during peak hours.
The congestion toll, which varies for motorcyclists, truck drivers and ride-share apps, is collected by electronic toll systems at over 100 detection sites scattered across the lower half of Manhattan.
Meant to reduce traffic, congestion pricing, which began Sunday, will also raise money that will go toward improvements in the city’s public transportation system.
There were several lawsuits filed to try to keep congestion pricing from going into effect, including a last-ditch effort from the state of New Jersey to have a judge put up a temporary roadblock against it. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has vowed to continue fighting against the toll program created by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
Murphy is far from alone in his opposition to congestion pricing, as many elected officials from Long Island have been vocal about the plan being unfair to suburban drivers. The Town of Hempstead filed a lawsuit in November against New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, the MTA, and the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority challenging the plan. Garden City law firm Rosenberg, Calica, Birney, Liebman & Ross is representing the town in the lawsuit that is still pending.
“The MTA’s predetermined vote is a sham,” Hempstead Supervisor Don Clavin said in a written statement when the lawsuit was filed. Gov. Kathy Hochul “and the MTA have completely silenced the voices of hardworking Long Islanders, rushing this plan through with no public comment or transparency.”
Though this is the first time congestion pricing has been enacted in the U.S., the practice has been working overseas in cities including London and Stockholm.
“This is a toll system that has never been tried before in terms of complexity,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said at a press conference held at Grand Central Terminal Sunday. “We don’t expect New Yorkers to overnight change their behavior. Everybody’s going to have to adjust to this.”
The toll was supposed to go into effect last year with a $15 charge, but Hochul abruptly paused the program before the 2024 election. Not long after the election, Hochul rebooted the plan at the lower $9 toll. She denies politics were at play and said she thought the original $15 charge was too much, though she had been a vocal supporter of the program before halting it.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to kill the program when he takes office, but it’s unclear if he will follow through. The plan had stalled during his first term while it waited on a federal environmental review.