Since the beginning of the year, a toll of $9 has been applied to all cars wishing to access the south of the island of Manhattan. This decision marks a turning point in urban traffic management in the city that never sleeps. He toll was introduced with the aim of reducing traffic congestion and pollution, while funding much-needed improvements to the city’s public transport network. New York.
After the first days and with the anger of people who have to access Manhattan for work by car, the first effects of the measure are already being seen: there is noticeably less trafficaccording to the New York Timesand the buses circulate faster, now complying with the schedules.
New York’s urban toll: fewer cars and more parking for residents
Since the entry into force of the urban toll, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) assures that traffic has dropped by 7.5% on the first day it came into effect. It is estimated that traffic fell by 18.5% on Sunday. On average, we are talking about 43,800 fewer cars per day and 219,000 fewer cars per week.
According to authorities, in the first six days of application of the program, the number of vehicles entering the busiest areas of Manhattan below Central Park (the area where the toll is applied) was reduced by tens of thousands.
“There is a lot of evidence that people are experiencing a much less traffic-congested environment,” Janno Lieber, president and CEO of the MTA, which oversees the program, explains to the New York newspaper. “They see streets where circulates more efficientlythey hear less noise and perceive a less tense environment around tunnels and bridges” leading to Manhattan.
With only a week of data available, it is too early to definitively know if the program is working or will be a success. MTA officials recall that the data is preliminary and that there is no historical data on the number of vehicles that entered the area daily before the toll, so it is not yet possible to make perfect comparisons.
However, reducing the entry of cars also means a better quality of life for the millions of people who live in New Yorkand in that sense, it seems to have been a success. “The data seems to confirm what some New Yorkers have already noticed: fewer traffic jams, fewer honks and more free parking on some blocks in the toll zone.”
Of course it is too early to say that access tolling, in the style of London’s Congestion Charge, will solve the traffic problems of New York and Manhattan in particular.
Let us remember that, in the case of the Lincoln Tunnel alone, 120,000 vehicles circulate daily between Manhattan and New Jersey. And Manhattan has several tunnels and access bridges with a similar traffic density. It is estimated that there are close to 900,000 daily car trips between Manhattan and the rest of the city and New Jersey.
But the toll is the beginning of a solution. As Michael Ostrovsky, a Stanford University professor who studies congestion tolling, told the New York Times: “The results are showing that tolling can be very effective.”
Photo | Nout Gons
Source: www.motorpasion.com
