In the DetailsĪs part of the plan, the MTA and the city and state transportation departments will commit to $207.5 million in measures aimed at mitigating the effects of pollution in neighborhoods that suffer from it most. “What we’re up against is the head-in-the-sand coalition of people who say, ‘Let’s not deal with our problems, let’s pretend climate change doesn’t exist, let’s stand still like a bus in the middle of traffic in Midtown Manhattan, ” Lieber said Friday at the Union Square rally.
Transit officials are bracing for more criticism of the plan, which New Jersey officials have protested. The proposed congestion zone exempts the FDR Drive, West Side Highway and the Battery Park underpass linking the two highways.
Kathy Hochul, with tolling equipment being designed, built, tested and activated over the course of nearly a year. Tolling could begin by next spring, according to Gov. If the feds then give the green light, the MTA can start building out the system on the streets, for which it has already hired a contracting firm, the Tennessee-based company TransCore. The latest step begun Friday sets up a 30-day period in which the fine details are available for public review before the FHWA makes its final decision. The state legislature approved the outlines of the plan in 2019, but its rollout has been delayed repeatedly. “We need fewer cars on the road, we need less greenhouse emissions coming from our transportation sector - we can do that by discouraging the use of automobiles in one of the most horribly congested areas in the country.” “Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot drive our way out of the climate crisis,” Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters said Friday at a Union Square rally for congestion pricing. It also aims to fight pollution by reducing the vehicle miles traveled within the Manhattan central district by up to 5%, and to cut the number of vehicles entering the area by 10%. The tolling plan - which would be the first of its kind in the country - would charge vehicles up to $23 a day in an effort to reduce the number of cars, trucks, vans and buses entering Manhattan by 15% to 20%, according to a study released last August that outlined several tolling scenarios. Members and sponsors make THE CITY possible. It’s a significant milestone for the long-stalled plan to toll vehicles south of 60th Street in Manhattan in order to raise billions of dollars for the transit system, to be spent on new subway cars and signals, accessibility upgrades, electric buses and expansion of the Second Avenue Subway. “But traffic, air quality, health, safer streets, better transit - that’s what’s in this for New Yorkers and for the whole region.” “I know that some people will use words like ‘cash grab,’” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said on Thursday ahead of the document’s release. The assessment also comes with a draft “Finding of No Significant Impact” (FONSI) by the Federal Highway Administration, which means the officials don’t believe negative impacts of the changes will outweigh positive benefits. The latest “environmental assessment” report from the MTA and state and city transportation departments nails down key details on how the plan will work, including: a once-per-day cap on charges for taxis and for-hire vehicles a 50% toll reduction in the wee hours of the morning funding for diesel-to-electric truck conversions, and even local park renovations. Now, the decades-long call for so-called congestion pricing is closer than ever to becoming a reality after the release Friday of a key document, thousands of pages long, that starts a 30-day clock for federal officials to make their final call on the tolling idea.
New York leaders have long flirted with the idea of tolling vehicle traffic into Manhattan’s central core as a way of raising billions for mass transit improvements.
0 kommentar(er)
