Congestion pricing expected by the end of 2023

a good four years after it was signed into law [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( [VIEW IN BROWSER]( [DONATE]( [WNYC Politics Brief] The MTA thinks congestion pricing will start at the end of 2023 Plus: New York City doesn't have a lot of electric vehicle charging stations. The Taxi and Limousine Commission is behind on making its fleet wheelchair accessible. And OMNY's fare-capping program saw 76,000 people earn "free" rides in the first two weeks. By James Ramsay --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- [a traffic jam in SoHo] Kate Hinds/WNYC Congestion pricing in Manhattan could go into effect at the end of 2023, [more than four years]( after lawmakers in Albany approved the program. MTA Director of Capital Program Management Steve Berrang told the City Council's transportation committee yesterday that the agency expects the federal government to approve the required environmental review late this year, which will be followed by a year-long process of installing the congestion pricing infrastructure. The program will [feature tolls for drivers south of 60th Street in Manhattan]( not including the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway. The fees for cars and trucks have not been determined — it could cost from $9 to $23 for EZ-Pass users, and more for tolls-by-mail. Besides helping fund a large portion of the [MTA's 2020-2024 capital program]( the agency estimates that congestion pricing would help avoid 17 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions and save $100 million in health care costs from reduced emissions. Revenue from congestion pricing, which the MTA expects to reach $1 billion annually, will go, in part, towards mass transit upgrades, including new subway signals, new train cars, and making stations more accessible. — [Reporting by Jen Chung]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Electric car ownership in NYC remains a novelty as infrastructure is slow to come online [an EV charging station across from Prospect Park] Rosemary Misdary/Gothamist Despite New York's position as a leading state on climate policy, less than 1% of all the vehicles registered in the five boroughs are fully electric, according to state data. A major obstacle — besides the sticker price for many new EVs — is the lack of convenient charging stations. The city only has 15 super charging locations, where a car battery can reach 80% in half an hour. And overall, charging stations are disproportionately located in Manhattan, where there are only 11 registered EVs for every charging station. By contrast, Queens has 39, the Bronx and Staten Island each have 53, and Brooklyn has 98. Kenneth Gillingham, an economics professor at the Yale School for the Environment, said the city is staring down a chicken and egg problem regarding the switch to EVs. "You don't want to put in the chargers before people are going to be using them," Gillingham said, "[but] people don't want to buy electric vehicles until the chargers are in." — [Reporting by Rosemary Misdary]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's What Else Is Happening In the first two weeks of the MTA's OMNY fare-capping pilot, 76,000 people tapped enough to get free rides. In an effort to mimic the unlimited MetroCard program, the MTA is allowing OMNY tap payment users to get unlimited rides for the rest of a given week after they've tapped 12 times since that Monday. The agency said that last week, 27% of total bus and subway rides were paid for via the OMNY system. ([AM New York]( New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission wants to raise the flat fare for getting from Manhattan to JFK. In addition to raising the rate to JFK Airport from $52 to $65, the TLC wants impose the first-ever flat rate for the trip to LaGuardia Airport at $39. These rates would only apply to trips that leave from somewhere in Manhattan below West 110th Street and East 96th Street. The TLC, which will hold a public hearing about the rate hike next month, said the figures are based on what drivers would need to charge to make at least $15 an hour. ([New York Post]( The Taxi and Limousine Commission has failed to make at least 50% of its cabs wheelchair accessible, two years after it was supposed to have done so. Following a 2013 lawsuit, the TLC agreed to make at least half of the city's fleet wheelchair accessible by 2020. But as of now, only 37% of its cars and vans can accommodate a wheelchair. Disability rights advocates acknowledge that because Uber and Lyft have forced so many yellow cabs out of business, it's been an uphill battle to simultaneously increase the number of accessible taxis in service. ([THE CITY]( Neither of the budget proposals released by New York's Senate and Assembly include Gov. Kathy Hochul's plan to increase the fine for blocking a bus lane. Alongside the omission of Hochul's popular plan to make to-go cocktails permanently legal, the two legislative chambers' budget plans also left out a plan to increase the penalty for drivers who block bus lanes, as well as fine increases for drivers who evade tolls or obscure their license plate for the sake of evading tolls. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said they intentionally left out policy items because their goal was to confine the budget to fiscal matters. ([Streetsblog]( ) Why doesn't the federal government subsidize e-bikes the way it does with electric cars? Right now, a household making up to $250,000 a year can get a $12,500 tax credit if they purchase an electric car, but no such tax credit exists for e-bikes — though a small subsidy was included in the Build Back Better act, which is unlikely to pass in the Senate. Clean transit advocates argue that supporting e-bike purchases could help increase the number of American cyclists who use bikes to commute and run errands, on top of recreation. ([CityLab]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- And Finally: The Hunts Point rail station has been recommended for a spot in the historic registers [the Hunts Point Rail Station] New York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation The Hunts Point rail station, a famed French Renaissance-style building that served rail passengers until 1937, is among 21 sites that have been recommend by Gov. Kathy Hochul for a spot on national and state registers of historic places. Cass Gilbert, the famed architect behind the Woolworth Building and the Brooklyn Army Terminal, designed the station, which was built between 1908 and 1909 and serviced the Harlem River Branch line of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company. After the railroad went bankrupt in the 1930s, the station went on to house retail tenants. There are now plans to turn the building into an event space called Bronxlandia, the [New York Times reported](. Once listed on historic registers, the property owners can become eligible for revitalization funds via state grants and state and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits. — [Reporting by Sophia Chang]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Support WNYC + Gothamist Make a donation to support local, independent journalism. Your contributions are our largest source of funding and pays for essential election coverage and more. 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