A bit of London living has now hopped the pond and made it’s way to New York City. In London, this was a plan to reduce traffic into the city by charging drivers to enter the city. Their plan has been successful for them but many of the London locals have not been happy with it. And now the same is about to happen to New York.
Mayor Bloomberg’s plan has barely passed by the city council which will now urge politicians of Albany to make it a law. Drivers will be charged to enter manhattan below 60th street. Cars will be charged $8 and trucks will be charged $21, Monday thru Friday from 6am to 6pm.
The general idea behind this plan is to reduce traffic within our city streets and will also promote cleaner air within our city. The budget plans for this will also help the MTA provide better transportation to the city. However, this has many locals concerned and worried that the MTA will cheat New Yorkers and will not make proper use of the budget and many are asking what this can do for their wallets and for their businesses. Many are asking if they will get charged if they already live in the zone pricing area, others are concerned what this can cost people living in Brooklyn and Queens that rely on driving into the city as a way of commuting. This also raises the questions of how this will affect middle-class and income sensitive New Yorkers.
As a native New Yorker, I feel that this plan is not in the best interest of the city. This can discourage many outer-borough commuters and can discourage any tourists that are taking in a road trip travel. I also wonder what’s going to happen if I take a cab within the city, will my cab driver charge me an extra $8 to go downtown on top of the already raised meter prices? I think businesses will feel this pain if not now, maybe later on down the roads if this plan gets established. I think there is always going to be traffic and the city is always going to be chaos. That’s the city life and that’s always going to be in NY. Before you know it, there’s going to be too many people walking the streets of NYC. What then? We’ll be charged to walk a few blocks?
How do other people feel about this new plan? If you are a visitor, do you think this will work? If you are a local, can this plan benefit us at all? Definitely sound off your pros and cons about this new plan.
and some were caught.
