In the coming months, the nature of driving in New York City will go through a historic change — one that, in the long run, could have national implications: in June, the Metropolitan Transit Authority will charge motorists $15 to drive below 60th Street in Manhattan at most times of the day.
The long-coming, long-debated congestion-pricing system, which passed a final voting hurdle this week, will provide $1 billion in revenue annually for the MTA (which runs the city’s subway system and is perennially strapped for cash), in addition to potentially putting a significant dent in the some 900,000 car trips made daily into the city and the pollution that they generate.
RELATED: If Climate Deaths Are Homicide, Who Are the Victims?
Fewer cars on the road is a win for Black folks’ health because they tend to live closer to busy highways and streets, and breathing car exhaust-choked polluted air is deadlier than smoking. In addition, given all the carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide pouring out of tailpipes, vehicles are key contributors to climate change-driving greenhouse gas emissions. Anyone dreading 2024 being the new hottest year in recorded history can cheer for that.
Just 10% of car commuters who travel into the city are Black and brown.
But most car-owning New Yorkers, including Black and brown residents, just can’t get past the sticker shock of it all. A report from a group called the Black Institute titled “Just Call It A Black and Brown Toll” called it nothing more than a cash grab, and, ironically, morning-show radio hosts, including Hot 97’s Ebro Darden, have spent plenty of rush-hour minutes talking about how it’s guaranteed to be nothing but a mess.
But just 10% of car commuters who travel into the city are Black and brown, because having a car in the city during a weekday is already exorbitantly expensive due to parking-garage costs, and many of the city’s Black leaders, including public advocate Jumaane Williams, support the plan.
There are, however, legitimate concerns about the ripple effects that limiting car traffic in lower Manhattan could have on other parts of the city: namely, congestion pricing could push more truck traffic (which will be subject to a $36/vehicle fee below 60th St.) onto the Cross Bronx Expressway, which cuts through a Black and Latinx community that already has some of the highest asthma rates in the country.
Traffic diversions became a sticking point when the MTA’s environmental assessment was released in 2022, and showed that there could be an increase of anywhere between 50 and 700 truck trips on the expressway daily — and that those additional trucks would not cause any “adverse air quality affect.”
The MTA is going to be newly flush with cash.
That understandably caused some outrage from Bronx elected officials, (even if the bit about there being no effect on air quality meant that it would tip the overall level of pollution above the limit set by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, not that there would be no increase at all), and MTA responded with a $150 million mitigation plan that includes vouchers to electrify the refrigerated trucking fleet that serves the Hunter’s Point Market, the city’s primary wholesaler of fruits and vegetables, and installing new air filtration systems at Bronx schools that are near freeways. The MTA’s mitigation budget also includes $25 million for a “asthma case management program and center” for The Bronx.
The mitigation plan, which was first reported last year, is not so extensive because congestion pricing was going to do just that much damage to the Bronx — but because the MTA is going to be newly flush with cash and can start spending in a new way to make transportation better citywide.
Under the $15 toll plan that was passed, there could be an increase of about 170 trucks a day on the Cross Bronx Expressway. That’s on the lower end of possible diversions to the borough that MTA gamed out, which peaked at around 700 trucks under a more aggressive toll structure. Even without congestion pricing, there are already some 27,500 trucks using the expressway daily, which is why there have been various other proposals over the years to address pollution from the thoroughfare, including capping the lanes.
The transit benefits will not be limited to the Bronx: MTA has designs on electrifying its entire bus fleet, improving accessibility to subway stations, and maybe even building a new light rail line that will provide better public transit options for the more car-reliant residents of Queens and parts of Brooklyn. The agency will also be better able to continue its often beleaguered effort to replace the outdated switches on many lines that routinely cause train delays.
Policy makers and politicians in other majority Black and brown car- and smog-choked cities with struggling public transit systems — like Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles — have congestion pricing plans in various stages of being studied or planned. So they’ll certainly be paying attention to what happens in New York.