Most drivers will pay $15 to enter Manhattan’s business district under a new plan released by MTA officials on Thursday.
The planned toll is designed to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution by “taxing” most drivers to enter the city. It is the first such toll in the United States and will go into effect early next year.
New Jersey has already filed a lawsuit to stop the toll from going into effect.
Under the plan, cars will be charged $15 a day electronically to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street. Small trucks will be charged $24 a day and large trucks will be hit with a $36 charge daily.
The planned toll includes discounts for travel between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. and for frequent low-income drivers. Government vehicles such as municipal garbage trucks would be exempt, according to ABC News.
Taxi drivers can add a $1.25 surcharge to fares for entering the congestion zone.
Officials say the planned tolls are long overdue. But critics say the plan will kill off the taxi industry and drive thousands of livery drivers into poverty.
“The city has already decimated the taxi industry with years of unregulated, unchecked competition from Uber and Lyft, and the MTA seems poised to land a final blow to the prospect of stability and modest survival,” Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance, said in a news release. “If this proposal is implemented, thousands of driver families will get dragged back into crisis-level poverty with no relief in sight.”
