New York City Insider: Study: Uber, Lyft, et al. Cause 44% of Midtown Traffic; Low-Income New Yorkers to be Stuck Paying for It.

 Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free 

UBER/LYFT CAUSE MANHATTAN TRAFFIC JAMS: EXPERT STUDY .

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Working Class New Yorkers to be Punished with 

$23 Congestion Pricing Tax to Support Wealthier Riders.   

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“The ivory-tower geniuses who came up with Congestion Pricing Tax never considered the effects it would have on lower-income New York families.”

New York-Jan. 6…For-hire ride service companies, including Uber and Lyft, cause nearly half of all vehicle congestion in midtown Manhattan, a study by former New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Lucius Riccio has revealed. 

As a result, working class New Yorkers, who will have to pay $23 to drive in Manhattan south of 60th Street under Governor Kathy Hochul’s Congestion Pricing Tax plan, would be punished for a service few of them can afford to use. 

“When you boil it down, the Congestion Pricing Tax is a way to make working class folks pay for traffic jams caused by wealthier New Yorkers,” said Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free spokesman Joshua Bienstock. “Most New Yorkers would never take a Lyft or an Uber — they don’t have the money — so why should they have to pay a $23 fine for the habits of others? The dirty little answer is that New Yorkers of means want them off the road so they’re for-hire vehicle might be able to move a little bit faster. That’s wrong and elitist anyway you look at it.” 

The study by former Commissioner Riccio, an adjunct professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, shows that app-based, for-hire vehicles constitute 43.9% of all Midtown Manhattan traffic — more than yellow cabs and personal vehicles combined. Mr. Riccio says that any additional fee should be paid by Uber and Lyft passengers rather than by working class New Yorkers who rarely use those services. It has also been shown that a Congestion Pricing Tax would divert carbon-belching vehicles into low-income New York City communities, especially in the Bronx, that already suffer some of the highest youth asthma rates in America. 

“The ivory-tower geniuses who came up with this Congestion Pricing Tax plan never considered the effects it would have on lower-income New York families,” Mr. Bienstock added. “Those effects are becoming clearer by the day, and neither the city nor state can ignore them. The Congestion Pricing Tax plan should be permanently garaged.”  

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.