… and another thing

Driving in Manhattan

April

Queens City Councilman John Liu was on WNYC radio this morning talking about express buses into Manhattan.
He’s among the City Council members who are open to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed daily driving restrictions—the so-called congestion pricing. Liu wants more express buses in return. That makes sense.
What doesn’t—to me anyway—is all the opposition on behalf of the poor and middle class. The ones who are supposedly driving into Manhattan each day.
Where do they park?
Garages are expensive to use every day, there’s no parking in midtown, Wall Street and other business areas and if you park in a residential area, you’ve got to deal with alternate side of the street parking.
So unless you’re entitled to special parking somewhere, public school teachers and other city and state employees, how can anyone afford it? Especially the poor and middle class.
I could understand if you’ve got a construction van, or are in some other way bringing in tools for your job. But not otherwise. Not if it’s just you. What do you do with your car? I’d be curious to know.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 10:10 am by Noreen O'Donnell.
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2 Responses to “Driving in Manhattan”

Steve C. April 30th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Most of the cars come from either Jersey or Rockland.
Thats my guess. the commute to Manhattan from Rockland Sans car is a nightmare of 2+ hours. one way any time..
Richard Tjoa May 5th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Lessee, Suffern to New York.

Train: $265 rt monthly pass on NJ transit (to Suffern) is $12 a day for a 22 day month. Add in $1 for station parking and figure that it’s a total round trip of at least 2 hours (70 minutes will getcha to Penn, then another ?? minutes to get to your destination in the city). $13 and 2+ hours of your life, probably more like 3.

Assuming you are only spending a day in the city, figure it’s $19 for a train ticket, plus $3 for parking. $22 and 2-3 hours of time.

Driving in? Tolls, $8 (Bloomberg plan), parking $10 (mmm, early bird), and $7 in gas = $25 and a total round trip as low as 1.5 hours, more typically around 2, and the flexibility of going when you want (and the aggravation of having to crawl along in traffic).

If you’re going “with at least one other person” driving yourself seems better.

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