Opposition to Manhattan Congestion Tolls Takes Shape

The earliest Manhattan’s new congestion tolls will be collected by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in the second quarter of 2024, which measured in New York City time means there’s ample opportunity for opposition to the scheme to grow.

The New York Post published an editorial this week warning that the congestion pricing plan, which sets up tolls of $15 for vehicles traveling below 60 St., threatens to exacerbate a shortage of paramedics and EMTs in the city.

The Post said that some of the busiest emergency service stations, encompassing 400 EMT workers, sit within the Manhattan congestion pricing zone. The MTA’s plan has not exempted any city workers from paying the toll.

The top salary for an EMT is $59K, with entry-level positions getting $39K, meaning the new tolls could consume more than 10% of their compensation.

Oren Barzilay, president of Local 2507, which represents FDNY EMS workers, told Gothamist that some emergency services workers may quit their jobs rather than pay the tolls to drive to work.

“What New Yorkers should be alarmed at is the increasing possibility of EMS members outright resigning from the FDNY due to this congestion pricing plan,” Barzilay told Gothamist. “FDNY EMS is experiencing staffing shortages already and congestion pricing is most likely to add a significant increase in ambulance response times.”

Lawsuits are lining up to take aim at the toll collection scheme, including a complaint filed by a Battery Park City resident who claims the MTA’s plan for congestion pricing will increase traffic on the West Side Highway.

Elizabeth Chan, who wrote the complaint and filed it in Manhattan federal court, argues that because any driver who remains on the West Side Highway will be exempt from the congestion tolls, the initiative will lead to more pollution and slower ambulance response times in her neighborhood. For Chan, the issue is a matter of life and death: her daughter suffers from seizures.

Battery Park City, at the tip of Lower Manhattan, is close to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and actually is west of the West Side Highway, which is likely to experience a surge in traffic traveling on the West Side Highway to and from the tunnel.

“The West Side Highway will not be tolled, and will, as a result of this exclusion, experience a sharp increase of vehicles seeking to avoid tolls,” Chan wrote in her suit.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a longtime proponent of Manhattan congestion tolls, recently announced he thinks the tolls are a bad idea.

Across the river in New Jersey, legal challenges are being mounted by the state and by Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, both of whom argue that the Federal Highway Administration’s approval of Manhattan’s congestion pricing plan was “arbitrary and capricious.”