A suite of congestion pricing cameras on Third Avenue near 60th Street.
Photo by Aidan Graham
With the prospect of congestion pricing looming in Manhattan, many New Yorkers living near the northern end of the toll zone remain bitterly divided over the contentious plan.
If implemented, congestion pricing would charge drivers $15 per day to enter the Central Business District (CBD) of Manhattan, which includes everything below 60th Street, between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays, and between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. on the weekends.
Fines will be automatically sent to drivers using camera scans of their license plates, and the revenue generated from the proposal would help fund the public transportation system in the Big Apple.
The MTA board voted by a significant margin last month to approve the measure, and hopes to have the system online by the spring.
Along 60th Street on the Upper East Side, which will soon be the border of the pay-to-enter zone, residents had mixed feelings about the idea — with some welcoming the proposed change, and others dreading the idea entirely.
“Yeah drivers have to pay a little bit, but they bring noise and traffic, and so I think it’s fair,”said Cassidy Siebold, a Park Avenue resident, who does not drive. “You should be allowed to do it, but it might cost you a bit.”
Another Uptown resident agreed, noting the nuisance caused by constant noise and pollution from cars.
“Pollution, noise pollution — it’s not good to have this many cars cramped around all these people, it causes problems. So it shouldn’t be free when you could just take the train,” argued Paul Rossi, a 32-year-old resident of Lenox Hill.
While there were locals who saw the pending congestion pricing plan as a positive development, others lamented the idea — and the extra cash they might be paying on their car-based commutes.
“[It’s] another way to take money from people. They’re out of ideas, so now they charge people to use…
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