New York congestion charge and city cars

The New York congestion charge is now real. Having finally followed the example of London, Stockholm and Singapore by initiating a congestion charge for vehicles, residents in New York and New Jersey might need to rethink their driving needs.

Over a decade and a half in the making, the New York congestion charge has faced legal challenges and much scepticism. In principle, it discourages single-person passenger car loads into the Midtown and lower Manhattan, where personal cars will now trigger a $9 charge during peak hours.

But, there are many issues with the New York congestion charge. The city’s public transport system runs at full capacity, carrying more than a million passengers daily. That leaves it with little margin for downtime, which is needed to repair, modernize and expand the public transit system.

What about the EVs?

Zones bordering the congestion charge area, primarily the Bronx and northern New Jersey, are concerned the $9 charge could create pollution migration into their neighbourhoods. Motorcycle riders will pay $4.50, despite having a negligible impact on inner-city traffic.

Unlike some other global cities which have implemented an inner-city congestion charge, like London, there is no exemption for EVs. At a time when uncertainty about EV incentives in the US is an issue, it seems peculiar policy for New York to not incentivize EVs for inner-city congestion charge fees. Or is it?

If the issue is pure traffic, vehicle size directly correlates to that density. Oversized luxury sedans, SUVs and pick-up trucks occupy a lot of road space, creating traffic densification. Compact city cars with EV powertrains, don’t.

Smaller cars – less traffic gridlock

Despite the obvious logic of incentivizing smaller vehicles to reduce traffic issues, the New York congestion charge doesn’t do that in its current form.

The US market might have a dearth of compact city cars, especially EVs. Still, for New York inner-city residents or outer borough commuters, the smarter incentive would surely be smaller cars, better configured for the traffic issues and available infrastructure of their city?

There are options

Compact EVs like the Mini Cooper SE, Hyundai Kona, and Fiat’s tiny but capable 500e, would be excellent New York traffic congestion alleviation cars. With the benefit of creating zero tailpipe emissions in the city.

A proven way of reducing congestion is to shrink the size of vehicles which make-up daily traffic. Although only a few true city cars are available in the US market, they do exist – and many of them feature the option of an EV powertrain.

Instead of a blanket $9 congestion charge, a size-specific approach could have created more powerful and effective incentives to ease New York’s inner city traffic. Without punishing passenger vehicle futurists who already own compact city cars with NY or NJ registrations.