There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
I live around this mess and I have mixed feelings about congestion pricing. I am for a congestion pricing scheme but the revenue should be shared among all transit agencies that travel in and out of NYC. Who the hell wants to travel into the city when PATH trains only come every 15-20 off peak and weekend hours? Why not beef up transit routes FIRST, and then implement the pricing?
The concept is a good idea. The execution is short sided and insular and I don’t see the MTA benefiting from any of this for at least a decade. That’s IF this money actually goes towards public transportation infrastructure.
I see this going the way of the mandatory 911 fee we all pay and then having almost none of that money going towards 911 service.
Are you saying every 15 minutes is too infrequent for off peak? Because that seems pretty frequent to me.
Apologies, I was incorrect. The typical off peak day time schedule spreads out to about 20-30 wait times between rides. I do believe this to be a huge problem. They used to be more frequent.
Well the first time around this was to be introduced, there was a full toll rebate for NJ drivers, which caused the Port Authority (who run most things NJ-NY within 50 miles of Statue of Liberty, including PATH and the tunnels) to raise their tolls to the full price of the proposed fee ($8 roughly 15 years ago iirc). Thats why toll credit was a non starter for many remembering the PA’s actions the first time around, and ended up being limited to $5.