Congestion pricing amounts to nothing less than an unfair resident and commuter tax that will disproportionately burden low and middle-income workers, small businesses and outer-borough residents by imposing a penalty for driving into Midtown Manhattan.
The Queens Chamber of Commerce is working with business, government, transportation, labor and community groups who have formed a broad coalition to oppose any congestion pricing schemes in New York City. The group fully supports studying reasonable measures to reduce traffic congestion and the attendant assault on air quality.
To date, Mayor Bloomberg has stated that congestion pricing is not on his second-term agenda and does not support any measures that financially burden New York City residents. We applaud the Mayor for his position in support of the working class and small businesses.
A group promoting congestion pricing, spearheaded by The Partnership for New York, is now aggressively campaigning for the establishment of a $7.00 to $14.00 a day “congestion charge” - in effect, a new, onerous tax of as much as $3,500 a year - on all vehicles which travel into Midtown below 60th Street. The burden of this new tax would fall heavily on residents of, and businesses in, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island and upper Manhattan.
It is regrettable that the Partnership has ignored an economic study sponsored by the Queens Chamber of Commerce which concluded that congestion pricing would be an economic failure costing New York City $2.7 billion in economic activity, $235 million in state and local taxes and 23,100 jobs. The Partnership also fails to mention that a congestion pricing tax would force approximately 180,000 people onto an already overburdened mass transit system. Perhaps they are unaware that many residents in the other boroughs have no practical access to mass transit.
The Queens Chamber of Commerce and the “Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free” coalition calls for a more coherent traffic management solution. The coalition supports the following recommendations to help ease traffic congestion:
The fact is New York City does not need to develop divisive schemes such as congestion pricing, which will hurt the economy, discriminate against the “outer” boroughs and against working people, small businesses and minority communities, when it is patently clear that there is a better, far more equitable solution: better traffic management and improvement of all aspects of public transportation.
Raymond J. Irrera is President of the Queens Chamber of Commerce
