Now it’s Day 3. Will this be the day when some questions are answered? For example: What happens when it’s not a Monday, because fewer people commute early in the week? And, what happens when snow is not in the forecast or falling, giving Manhattan the Currier-and-Ives look (as was the case on Monday)
Something was different. When the clock said the morning rush was on, traffic in the tolling zone was “unmistakably Manhattan,” according to my colleague Nate Schweber. The usual taxis and trucks swarmed by.
On second glance, though, something was subtly different. “For whole seconds, stretches of 57th Street were carless,” he said.
It was no day for speed demons.
The average speed in the congestion pricing zone had dropped to 11 m.p.h. at noon, according to INRIX, a transportation analytics company. That was slightly slower than the 11.6 m.p.h. recorded at the same time on Jan. 8 last year.
Some drivers tried mass transit. “Including me,” said Alexei Moncayo, who manages a garage on East 63rd Street near Second Avenue.
After 20 years of driving there before dawn every morning, he took the train from his home in New Jersey. He said he was ready to pay $2.25, the congestion-pricing charge at about 5:30 a.m., when he would have driven into the tolling zone on his usual route from the Lincoln Tunnel. But the toll is higher later: “What about the $9 when I go back?”
He said he had written to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, asking whether he would be charged. He said the response he received did not answer the question, so he opted to take the train — and to ride an electric scooter from Pennsylvania Station to the garage.
His commute did not go well. The train was delayed. The trip took two hours. He said he can drive it in half an hour. Worse, he arrived at the garage at 6:03 a.m., three minutes late.
Others still drove, but found new places to park. To avoid the $9 congestion-pricing charge driving into Manhattan from the Bronx, Marjorie Hirsch parked in a garage on West 61st Street with an “early bird special” of $16.90, not including tax. Until Monday she had parked in one on West 60th Street — just inside the congestion pricing zone and down the street from the Professional Children’s School, where she is a teacher.
Still, she approves of congestion pricing. “As much of a pain as this is,” she said, “I believe in it.”
Some drivers found out workarounds. Jay Beam, who drives an Access-A-Ride van, bypassed the congestion toll zone by exiting the Queensboro Bridge at East 63rd Street.
