New York’s toll system is the kind of market solution Republicans should be rooting for
CNN
“Congestion pricing” is the stuffy-sounding name of a New York policy that is, by every available metric, a resounding success. Anyone, including lapsed New Yorker President Trump, saying otherwise is simply ignoring the evidence.
“Congestion pricing” is the stuffy-sounding name of a New York policy that is, by every available metric, a resounding success. Anyone, including lapsed New Yorker President Trump, saying otherwise is simply ignoring the evidence. Here’s the basic topline: That last point is especially bad news for the folks like Trump who oppose the $9 toll to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan at the busiest times of day. Their arguments against congestion pricing — largely based on speculation that it would hurt businesses, when in reality even more people are visiting business districts than before — look even sillier when you consider the undeniable economic upsides. “The impact of the congestion relief zone in the city has been immediate and positive,” Kathryn Wylde, the CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group, recently told my colleague Nathaniel Meyersohn. “Congestion pricing is a market-driven user fee that allows people who opt to drive into the city to gain immediate benefits.” Days after the president, calling himself the “king,” vowed to kill the congestion pricing program (which was met with a swift lawsuit from the city to stop him), transportation officials announced that the toll system brought in nearly $49 million in its first 27 days, putting the city well on track to meet its goal of bringing in half a billion dollars a year. That money will pay for municipal bonds that fund urgent updates to the New York Subway, which is effectively held together with duct tape and prayers from the 3.6 million people (equal to the entire population of the state of Utah) who ride it every day.
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