When the Port Authority raised its river crossing tolls and PATH fares a few weeks ago, I viewed it as a trial run for a congestion pricing scheme. With such a substantial toll increase, the city would finally see first-hand what impact a significant charge for entering Manhattan would have on both traffic and the public transit infrastructure. According to anecdotal evidence from the first week of travel, the changes have been substantial.
As The Post reports today, “thanks to the hikes, buses are now packed to the gills, NJ Transit and PATH trains are standing-room-only, and dust is gathering in Manhattan parking garages that used to be filled with commuters’ cars.” In its infinite wisdom, The Post makes it seem as though fewer cars entering Manhattan is a negative, and it even has the requisite whine over higher fees. “My wife usually drives over the George Washington Bridge,” one New Jersey resident said. “She carpools now. It’s too expensive to drive by herself.” Can you believe that? She has to carpool.
But the reality is that less traffic and fewer cars is a net positive for the city. I feel for the garage owners who lose business, but I also feel that the city has devoted too much dead space to those garages in the first place. Now, with tolls up, riders are flocking to PATH and finding more efficient and environmentally friendly ways of reaching the city. It’s too early to draw definite conclusions from the fare hikes, but everyone has their price when it comes to ditching a solo car ride into Manhattan.
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Is there any estimate for how much fuel consumption has been saved by this trend (both less driving and less congestion)?
Most likely none whatever, except locally. Oil producers decide what they’re going to extract from the ground and that’s what they extract. If something happens to really reduce global demand, then prices fall until all the oil gets sold and (eventually) used.
Theoretically, a big enough crimp in demand could push prices down and suppliers could eventually respond by cutting production to force prices up again. On the other hand, lower prices could get them to produce more to offset lost revenues. Depends a lot on what the supply curve looks like. Historically, you can find examples of falling prices leading to both higher and lower production.
If your goal is to reduce the number of cars in Manhattan, and thus the amount of local pollution from car driving, higher tolls will almost certainly help. If your goal is to reduce fossil fuel consumption and global fuel pollution, devote your life to lobbying for nuclear power and battery-powered cars. (And pray that economies of scale make those technologies cost competitive.)
I was thinking about local pollution more than global climate change. With climate change, cars are the little Satan; the big Satan is fossil-fired power generation.
“My wife usually drives over the George Washington Bridge,” one New Jersey resident said. “She carpools now. It’s too expensive to drive by herself.” Can you believe that? She has to carpool.”
Oh boo hoo! Get over yourself, some of us aren’t able to drive for one reason or another.
I get to work by chopper and parachute and its a tax deduction so its free. I love my life.
Wonder if cities on the NJ side of the Hudson (Newark, Hoboken, JC) are taking advantage of this toll increase up and enticing Garden State residents to eat, play, go to the theatre, etc in their towns? Parking is probably easier and cheaper than NYC, and many places have free parking. It would be a boon to the NJ food/entertainment industry.
What is always ignored with PA toll increases are the effects on the three Staten Island bridges. Since there are no public transit alternatives (outside of a rush-hour-only bus to/from Bayonne) and there is no need for “congestion” pricing between the Island and NJ, why should these bridges cost just as much as Manhattan crossings? And will drivers pony up or just stay on the Island to do their shopping and dining?
Hopefully, the toll will result in some service across the 3 bridges, and better service over the Bayonne Bridge. Hopefully, it will help bring back the 144 so that people can have a comfortable, one-seat ride into Jersey City without cannibalizing the S89’s ridership. And hopefully, the S89 will see some reverse-peak ridership (in fact, I’m starting to see the reverse-peak buses a little more crowded than they used to be).
And JAzumah has mentioned that he’ll try to start some service over the Goethals. I’d prefer a local service (to save money for myself), but an express bus would be alright as well.
I may be inclined to agree with you on the Staten Island situation, at least if congestion isn’t an overarching factor. But, for Manhattan’s sake, why would it even make a difference? It’s an extra $3.50. Reduced traffic congestion probably offsets it in fuel savings on some days.* If it’s about an evening out, $3.50 is less than a rounding error on many tips.
* And if that’s so, then here’s another possibility: eventually people will figure it out and the traffic equilibrium will go back toward what it was.
Tip: If you don’t like the tolls for bringing your private vehicle into Brooklyn, don’t live in Staten Island. Even if not for congestion, the toll for the SI bridges should be high just to discourage people from living in car-dependent suburbs and driving into urban areas.
Tip: use your brain for three seconds and consider this: if everyone who lived on SI decided to move to Brooklyn, where exactly would you fit 500,000 more people? Could the R train handle another half-million riders?
Here’s another thing to consider: maybe not everyone wants to live in 10-storey boxes piled up on top of one another. Maybe we like a little peace and quiet, and some nice parks not overrun by hipsters and bums pissing on the grass and having sex in public restrooms. And maybe some of us have families that lived on SI before the auto was invented (my family has been here since the 1740s).
Such amazing close-mindedness out there.
He wasn’t saying they should move to Brooklyn. He was saying that people who live in Staten Island shouldn’t have the expectation that they can clutter Brooklyn’s streets with their 2 tons of smog-spitting, steel-encased engines for free. It’s also a perfectly fair point that Brooklyn doesn’t gain very much by the people who drive through between Staten Island and Manhattan – and what it does gain is the polar opposite of “peace and quiet.”
Maybe some of us who live in “boxes” like a little peace and quiet too. Not to mention clean air, safe streets, mobility, and relief from suburban sanctimony about sex and drugs! You’ve fallen back on that “peace and quiet” rhetoric before without so much as considering how your actions and preferences affect others. Car-dependency is a lot of things, but it’s not exactly conducive to peace or quiet.
Well, unless you live under the BQE, you don’t have much of an argument here. Sorry if I don’t equate my driving thru Brooklyn with Hitler’s army invading Poland. And as you know, I don’t drive thru Brooklyn for free, I pay to cross the VZ Bridge.
You don’t pay to drive through Brooklyn. You pay to drive over the bridge.
*I* don’t have an argument unless I live “under” the BQE? How convenient that hundreds of thousands of people who live near it have no right to complain about a harm being deliberately inflicted on them. But, um, I live on a mixed use street that segues towards residential. The biggest disruptions at night are narcissists honking their horns or letting their car alarms go off. Not hipsters in parks shedding their skinny jeans for carnal delight, pissing down the drain, or having sex in public restrooms. At least those activities don’t disrupt the sleep of dozens of people within earshot for no obvious benefit to anyone. It may not be the same thing as Hitler invading Poland, but, you know, it affects other people‘s peace and quiet – which mysteriously seems to stop mattering when it bumps up against your convenience and/or sense of entitlement.
And the fact that you reference comments I made three months ago is just creepy. You need to spend some time outdoors, maybe breathe in all that clean Brooklyn air…
Gee, sorry for not being intellectually lazy. It’s not exactly difficult to type
into Google. Most people usually consider it polite to have cite when they’re accused of saying something.
Yet. here we can observe another unfortunately common rhetorical tactic: mocking victims. ferryboi by his own admission plays a part, however small, in the quality of Brooklyn air, complains about quality of life issues that affect him, and mocks others for deigning to mention legitimate issues that affect them. It probably reinforces his sense that he doesn’t have to be responsible for his own actions.
Now all they need is a new train tunnel…
What train tunnel? Oh…the 7 to nowhere (aka) Secaucus Junction?
At least that actually has the potential to make Secaucus useful for the vast numbers of midtown employees who work on the east side but must come through the west side. Taking the 7 from Secaucus is at least as good as taking a commuter train all the way to Penn and snaking up the E either directly to the east side or via transfer to the 7. It also lets Penn be more a focus for long-distance traffic.
Now, NJT commuter service to Grand Central would be a bigger boon to those commuters, but apparently it’s even less in the cards….
Now how long will it take for NJT to add buses so they are no longer “packed to the gills”?
I’m sure interagency cooperation in New Jersey will not become bogged down in bureaucratic infighting.
/heavy sarcasm
30 years?
Chris Christie is on top of it, for sure. New buses will be along, oh, about as soon as new rail tunnels to Penn Station.
No idea why this comment is showing up in italic. Even less idea of how to fix it!
Ben?
Nevermind.
Apparently the draft is italic, but prints in regular type. Except for a couple of comments above, which confused my confusable brain.
While I do think public transit/carpooling increases has a major net positive for the city (increased fare collection, increased support, etc.) I do wonder what a lack of parking tax revenue does for the city’s general fund. I’d be willing to see those numbers before drawing any conclusions.
I’m sorry, but how is this reporting? It’s totally anecdotal evidence, that’s supposed to pass as fact just because an unnamed attendant at an unnamed parking garage is saying so?
I know the Post is not public transit’s friend, but how this whiny little story held to a standard of a regular unbiased story is beyond my comprehension.
So we should really say, “The New York Post is positing by way of tenuous, unproven remarks…”
They didn’t even seem bother to call NJ Transit or the PANYNJ to try to get current ridership figures, or just a comment. What a non-story!
^^ Totally agree. The Post is as reliable as the 7 train in the morning lately.
What else do you expect from the Post & the News?
+2
It’s been, what, a week since the tolls went up? So it’s perhaps a bit premature to make sweeping proclamations about mode shifts. Give people a chance to try out their options and let things settle down before deciding that there’s been a real change. See how things are going in a month or two.
It’s also September, which means that all forms of transit are more crowded now than we’ve gotten accustomed to over the summer.
I’m amused by “NJ Transit and PATH trains are standing-room-only” – don’t PATH’s loading guidelines (granted, probably not NJT’s) call for standees during rush hours? So why should that be a surprise? I can’t remember the last rush hour PATH train I rode that had empty seats.
The other thing that will be interesting to see here is what happens to the gas tax revenues in New Jersey. Assuming most of those people jamming the buses to the gills were not buying fuel in Manhattan, the loss of drivers through the tunnels also likely means a drop in their fuel bills and in the governmental fuel tax revenues, along of course with less toll revenue on the NJT and GSP. The PA may end up finding the higher revenues they’re getting for the crossings are being offset at least on the New Jersey side by a loss in funding to maintain the roads to the tunnels.
Good point… and its an unsustainable funding situation… I think thats where it all started. NJ’s gas tax is all ready the among the lowest and its ability to fill the NJ transp. trust fund appears to be leading nowhere. Gov Christie wants to raid the PA piggy bank to filll it. The PA has its own large priorities. NYC wants fewer cars. Add all priorities which lead to the hike. Hope Gov Cuomo takes NY”s share and uses it to fund the MTA capital plan.
Those empty parking garages can be developed into productive space now…
Let’s see, cancel ARC AND raise the toll on crossings? Did somebody say Christie the tax and plunder Repubican?