{"id":1855,"date":"2006-12-05T10:16:52","date_gmt":"2006-12-05T18:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/12\/first_it_was_smokers_then_it_was_fried_chicken_lovers_now_comes_commuters_from_outside_the_city_who_drive_who_does_that_anyway.html"},"modified":"2006-12-05T10:16:52","modified_gmt":"2006-12-05T18:16:52","slug":"first_it_was_sm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/12\/first_it_was_sm.html","title":{"rendered":"First It Was Smokers, Then It Was Fried Chicken Lovers, Now Comes Commuters From Outside The City Who Drive (Who Does That Anyway?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is Bloomberg being provocative<\/a> or signaling that he could be amenable to reinstituting the commuter tax? Probably the former:<\/p>\n

Mayor Bloomberg said for the first time yesterday he’s open to charging a fee for driving in Manhattan below 60th Street — but only if city residents are exempt.<\/p>\n

Congestion pricing — in which drivers pay in advance for the right to drive into the central business district — has been instituted in several major cities, most notably London, where the daily fee is $16.<\/p>\n

But despite repeated calls by transportation groups, Bloomberg had dismissed the idea until now.<\/p>\n

His new position is a bit of a cop out, advocates say, because state officials are unlikely to support what would inevitably be viewed as a tax on suburban residents. The mayor doesn’t disagree.<\/p>\n

“It only works when you give a break to people in the city as opposed to those outside the city,” Bloomberg said.<\/p>\n

“That means it’s a commuter tax and the politics of a commuter tax in Albany are probably such that we would never get it passed.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is Bloomberg being provocative or signaling that he could be amenable to reinstituting the commuter tax? Probably the former: Mayor Bloomberg said for the first time yesterday he’s open to charging a fee for driving in Manhattan below 60th Street — but only if city residents are exempt. Congestion pricing — in which drivers pay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture_infrastructure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}