They’re the largest losers in New York Metropolis relating to congestion pricing.
The town’s maze of one-way streets — and obvious unhealthy planning by the MTA — is forcing these New Yorkers to pay the controversial $9 toll even for simply driving off their block.
Residents and employees who use a parking storage on East 61st Avenue lamented to The Put up about having to pay the hated charge, which launched Sunday, regardless of it being positioned one block north of the Manhattan congestion tolling zone.
As a result of the 615 Storage exits onto Fifth Avenue, a one-way road headed south, drivers who park there haven’t any alternative however to enter the pricey space — even when they find yourself instantly turning round to move uptown.
“You must drive previous the congestion pricing to go across the block and to return uptown for any purpose, whether or not it’s to go to work, whether or not it’s to depart the town, whether or not it’s to go to your kids, or whether or not it’s to get a haircut or anything that you simply do uptown,” stated Andrew Heiberger, who lives at East 61st Avenue and Fifth Avenue.
His luxurious constructing’s “distinctive location” — the place the one exit is onto Fifth Avenue, and Central Park blocks westward visitors — successfully means there’s a toll proper outdoors his entrance door and no technique to keep away from it.
“There ought to be one thing labored out the place you’re not charged the toll, no matter whether or not you may afford the toll or not,” he instructed The Put up Monday.
Scores of sad New Yorkers and motorists have railed towards the unfairness of congestion pricing, even earlier than the $9 base tolls took impact Sunday.
For the reason that hated scheme started, residents have anxious about toll-averse commuters turning neighborhoods into parking heaps, corporations saddled prospects with congestion pricing surcharges and a primary responder union instructed its employees to flee stations within the zone.
Proponents argue that the tolls will drive down visitors in Manhattan and bolster mass transit — an purpose that Heiberger shares.
Heiberger known as himself a “large fan” of the whole lot from mass transit to bus and bike lanes to turning over Instances Sq. to pedestrians.
He additionally stated he would haven’t any drawback affording the $9 tolls simply to drive from his constructing, which is partly related to the parking storage — however the absurdity of doing so strikes him as unfair.
“It’s the identical as placing a toll on a suburban road in the course of a subdivision, which principally should you lived in a single home and also you needed to go to your folks down the road in a cul-de-sac, there could be a toll to get from one home to the opposite home,” he stated.
Juan Rios, 58, who works as non-public driver for a tenant within the luxurious constructing, likewise known as it “loopy” to pay a toll simply to drive.
“It’s not my automobile, however it’s nonetheless loopy as a result of each time it’s a must to go it’s a must to pay as soon as a day,” he stated.
David Delarosa, 50, a UPS employee who companies the constructing, was much more blunt.
“It sucks!” he stated.
“In the event that they park on this storage they usually need to go north, they need to go round move the toll and are available again. That’s horrible.”
It’s not clear if the block’s unfortunate geographical quirk was factored in by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority when it drummed up the congestion pricing plan as a part of a state regulation signed by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2019, and permitted by the feds in 2023.
MTA representatives didn’t return a request for remark.
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