With a month to go before drivers begin being charged to enter Midtown and Downtown Manhattan under New York City’s congestion pricing plan, a new group of challengers are joining a very numerous group of critics: truckers.
The Trucking Association of New York, a trade group representing a wide range of delivery companies, filed a lawsuit Thursday in an attempt to delay enforcement of the policy, saying it would unfairly charge vans and trucks entering the new toll zone up to $36 per trip. rush hour. That cost, the group says, could soon be passed on to local businesses and consumers.
“We’re not questioning the entire program,” said Kendra Hems, the group’s president. “It’s just the way trucks are targeted.” The suit was filed in federal court in Manhattan.
The congestion pricing plan, set to begin June 30, will impose fees on most vehicles entering Manhattan on or below 60th Street. Passenger vehicles entering the area will be charged up to $15 once per day, with some exceptions. Commercial trucks will be charged $24 or $36 per entry, depending on vehicle size and time of day.
Transit leaders have already planned a 75 percent reduction in tolls during off-peak hours, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. on weekdays and 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. on weekends. But Ms. Hems said that was insufficient because customers often demand that deliveries must be made during day shifts. The trucking association wants lower or less frequent tolls.
The program has already drawn the ire of critics, including from the governor of New Jersey, a teachers union, the Staten Island borough president and some residents of Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan. With this latest complaint, eight lawsuits challenging the deployment have been filed.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which will oversee the congestion pricing program and benefit from the money generated by it, declined to comment on the new lawsuit.
Supporters say congestion pricing will alleviate some of the nation’s worst traffic, improve air quality and provide a lifeline to the city’s public transportation system. The plan is expected to raise about $1 billion a year in tolls, which will be used to secure $15 billion in bond financing to help finance much-needed improvements to the city’s subway, bus and commuter rail systems.
But critics of the trucking industry, which delivers about 90 percent of goods in the five boroughs, say the fees are excessive, especially for small companies that make up a significant portion of the city’s trucking sector, with a fleet average of around 20 trucks. .
Larry Zogby, owner of RDS Same Day Delivery, a medical courier company in Long Island City, Queens, said the added cost could be significant for his fleet of about 30 vans and trucks.
Unlike large delivery operations like Amazon or FedEx that can more easily absorb tolls due to a high volume of shipments, he said, his company makes dozens of emergency trips to Midtown Manhattan every day , often carrying a single piece of medical equipment or a batch. blood samples.
He estimates his fleet will make 26,000 trips a year in the toll zone, at a cost of $400,000 to $500,000. That would become his third-largest annual expense, behind payroll and insurance, he said. The estimate does not include the $100,000 he anticipates each year for bridge and tunnel tolls, nor the $85,000 in parking tickets.
“If you have $85 delivery and you charge a $24 toll, how is there any money left to make a profit? He asked.
Christopher Gawarecki, compliance manager at Hub Truck Rental Corporation, said the tolls would be passed on to about 600 customers who rent the company’s 2,500 trucks. And Julio Pena, co-owner and manager of Il Posto Accanto, an Italian restaurant in the congestion charge zone, said if the extra fees on delivery trucks were passed on to small businesses like his, it would cut into his margins beneficiaries.
“How much more can you increase the price of a plate of pasta?” » said Mr. Pena.
Tom Wright, president of the Regional Plan Association, which supports congestion pricing, said the trucking industry’s complaints were unconvincing because they did not take into account the benefits the program would have for economy as a whole.
A 2018 study by the Partnership for New York City, a business group, found that the annual cost of commute and business travel delays in the metro area was $9.2 billion. dollars.
“Will they pass the savings on to consumers when their deliveries are made faster? » asked Mr. Wright.
Rishi Mehra, vice president of business mapping and routing technology at Trimble, a technology company specializing in logistics, cited central London as a cautionary tale. There, a form of congestion pricing has existed since 2003, and Mehra said rising truck tolls had contributed at least in part to rising consumer prices.
Yet supporters of congestion pricing cite London as an example of the model’s success. Less than a year after the toll policy was introduced, the number of vehicles entering the area dropped 18 percent, city officials say, a substantial feat, and air quality improved. is improved.
Traffic has gotten worse since then, but this is partly because London authorities have radically changed the cityscape since tolls were introduced, increasing the space for pedestrians and cyclists, while reducing the space reserved for cars, said Richard de Cani, who helped design London’s congestion charge. program and is now a director at Arup, a large design and planning consultancy firm.
From a broad perspective, there is no doubt that congestion pricing will benefit New Yorkers, said Eric A. Goldstein, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit group that supports versions of the program for decades.
“The overall benefits of injecting $15 billion into the mass transit system that transports the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers every day should not be lost in this shakeup,” he said.