New York City Insider: Study: Congestion Pricing Tax Would Hurt Black and Brown New Yorkers Most.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: STUDY: CONGESTION PRICING TAX WOULD HIT MINORITY COMMUNITIES HARDEST.

‘Just Call It a Black and Brown Toll’ Released by The Black Institute.

New York-Jan. 17…An 85-page study on New York’s planned $9-$23 Congestion Pricing Tax, showing that Congestion Pricing would disproportionately affect New Yorkers of color, has just been released by The Black Institute, the group Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free today noted. 

“This study reinforces much of what we’ve been saying for years: Governor Kathy Hochul’s Congestion Pricing scheme picks on communities of color economically and environmentally,” said Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free spokesman Joshua Bienstock. “Congestion Pricing wouldn’t just divert carbon-belching truck traffic into lower-income communities already suffering some of the highest youth asthma rates in America, it would predominantly target Black and Brown drivers for revenue, be they for-hire vehicle drivers or commuters to Manhattan living in New York transit deserts. The plan is as unfair to communities of color as it is counterproductive to New York’s efforts to get workers back into Manhattan offices, following Covid-driven workplace habit changes. The more one looks at this plan, the more one realizes what a mess it really is.” 

The planned Congestion Pricing Tax would erect a paywall to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street by vehicle - the very area of the City to which officials want businesses and workers to return. Both Mayor Eric Adams and State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli have lamented the massive loss of State and City tax revenue from Manhattan’s core business districts in recent years. A Congestion Pricing Tax paywall would almost certainly make things worse. 

Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free, a diverse coalition of civic, business, and labor organizations and businesses throughout New York City, argues that implementing a tax on vehicles traveling south of 6oth Street in Manhattan will, among other things, permanently damage efforts to revitalize the two districts.