The state of New York will announce on Thursday a toll of $9 for all vehicles entering the central part of the island of Manhattan at all hours except early morning, according to several New York media reports this Wednesday.
The measure will be announced by Governor Kathy Hochul, who in June froze her initial plan for a $15 toll, a measure that then sounded like an electoral calculation due to the political cost that an unpopular measure could have for her party (the Democrats). New Yorkers who live outside the city but enter daily to work in Manhattan, or vice versa.
A Hochul spokeswoman quoted by several media outlets said that the governor froze the $15 toll “because it was too much for hard-working New Yorkers,” without alluding to political considerations, but her Democratic co-religionist Robert Holden (municipal legislator) has already denounced in X “the shameful betrayal of New Yorkers” that means implementing the toll only after the election result.
The imposition of the toll, negotiated for a long time, had three objectives: to improve air quality in Manhattan, to decongest its avenues clogged for several hours a day and to provide funds to the metropolitan transportation company, which manages the subway and buses, two means of transportation in need of urgent renovations.
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It had been conceived in imitation of other cities, such as London, where it has been operating for twenty years and has managed to improve the city’s traffic and air.
The freezing of the toll project, apart from electoral criticism, was felt as a hard blow for the chronically underfunded MTA, since it counted on toll revenues to be able to alleviate the $211 million deficit and undertake long-delayed reforms.
700,000 vehicles enter the central district of Manhattan affected by this controversial toll daily, whose average speed has been reduced by 23% in the last 14 years – due, among other things, to the creation of bike lanes and the profusion of businesses such as Uber-. It is estimated that a New Yorker behind the wheel loses 117 hours a year in traffic jams
With information from EFE
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