will achieve the goal of reducing gridlock.Congestion pricing represents a hard bargain between well-capitalized ride-hailing companies, such as Uber and Lyft, and governments desperate for money to fix aging mass-transit systems.Successfully hailing a cab has always been a rite of passage for New Yorkers.
The congestion-pricing scheme is now part of a New York state budget, with the fees to kick in by 2021. People driving into the congestion zone — all of Manhattan island below 60th street — will be hit with a $12-14 fee . Taxis will be billed $2.50 per ride, while ride-hailing services will be billed $2.75.But Uber and Lyft, for example, will be able to carve out a discount for a"pooled" ride, knocking the fee down to $0.75.
Congestion pricing, of course, should ease Manhattan gridlock, but it will do this at the expense of turning over the city's most lucrative sections to Uber and Lyft while continuing the destruction of the taxi business. It's a hard political bargain, forged by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. " — with a cunning effort to get well-capitalized Silicon Valley companies to pay for upgrading mass transit.Taxi drivers are caught in the vicelike middle. They've persuasively argued that because their numbers have long been capped, they aren't part of the congestion problem. This is accurate — in fact, it's hard to see why taxis aren't exempt from the charge.