Driving into Manhattan? That'll cost you, as new congestion toll starts Sunday

Traffic enters lower Manhattan after crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, Feb. 8, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

New York — New York’s new toll for drivers entering the center of Manhattan debuted Sunday, meaning many people will pay US$9 to access the busiest part of the Big Apple during peak hours.

The toll, known as congestion pricing, is meant to reduce traffic gridlock in the densely packed city while also raising money to help fix its ailing public transit infrastructure.

Drivers of most passenger cars will pay US$9 to enter Manhattan south of Central Park 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 US$2.25 for most vehicles.

After years of studies, delays and a last-ditch bid by New Jersey to halt the toll, the program launched without major hiccups early Sunday. But transit officials cautioned the first-in-the-nation scheme could require adjustments — and likely would not get its first true test until the workweek.

“This is a toll system that has never been tried before in terms of complexity,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority 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 fee — which varies for motorcyclists, truck drivers and ride-share apps — will be collected by electronic toll collection systems at over 100 detection sites now scattered across the lower half of Manhattan.

It comes on top of tolls drivers pay for crossing various bridges and tunnels to get to the city in the first place, although there will be a credit of up to US$3 for those who have already paid to enter Manhattan via certain tunnels during peak hours.

On Sunday morning, hours after the toll went live, traffic moved briskly along the northern edge of the congestion zone at 60th Street and 2nd Avenue. Many motorists appeared unaware that the newly activated cameras, set along the arm of a steel gantry above the street, would soon send a new charge to their E-Z Passes.

“Are you kidding me?” said Chris Smith, a realtor from Somerville, New Jersey, as he drove against traffic beneath the cameras, circumventing the charge. “Whose idea was this? Kathy Hochul? She should be arrested for being ignorant.”

Some local residents and transit riders, meanwhile, said they were hopeful the program would lessen the bottlenecks and frequent honking in their neighborhoods, while helping to modernize the subway system.

“I think the idea would be good to try to minimize the amount of traffic down and try to promote people to use public transportation,” said Phil Bauer, a surgeon who lives in midtown Manhattan, describing the constant din of traffic in his neighborhood as "pretty brutal.”

President-elect Donald Trump, a Republican, 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.

In November, Trump, whose namesake Trump Tower is in the toll zone, said congestion pricing “will put New York City at a disadvantage over competing cities and states, and businesses will flee.”

Lieber, the MTA head, said he was not overly concerned that the president-elect would succeed in unwinding the program, even if he did follow through. “I think he understands living on 59th and 5th Avenue what traffic is doing to our city,” Lieber said Sunday.

Other big cities around the world, including London and Stockholm, have similar congestion pricing schemes, but it is the first in the U.S. Proponents of the idea note the programs were largely unpopular when first implemented, gaining approval as the public felt benefits like faster bus speeds and less traffic.

In New York City, even some transit riders voiced skepticism of a plan intended to raise much-needed funds for the subway system.

“With my experience of the MTA and where they’ve allocated their funds in the past, they’ve done a pretty poor job with that,” said Christakis Charalambides, a supervisor in the fashion industry, as he waited for a subway Sunday morning in Lower Manhattan. “I don’t know if I necessarily believe it until I really see something.”

The toll was supposed to go into effect last year with a US$15 charge, but Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul abruptly paused the program before the 2024 election, when congressional races in suburban areas around the city — the epicenter of opposition to the program — were considered to be vital to her party’s effort to retake control of Congress.

Not long after the election, Hochul rebooted the plan at the lower US$9 toll. She denies politics were at play and said she thought the original US$15 charge was too much, though she had been a vocal supporter of the program before halting it.

Congestion pricing also survived several lawsuits seeking to block the program, 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, a Democrat, has vowed to continue fighting against the scheme.

In response, Lieber described the New Jersey governor’s views as the “definition of hypocrisy,” adding that he expected the state to adjust its strategy after “losing again and again and again” in court.