The for-hire vehicle [FHV] surcharge could be a first step toward comprehensive congestion pricing, if Cuomo wants it to be, and it’s worth exploring what this means for Manhattan’s crowded streets. In a tweet last week, Charles Komanoff detailed the benefits and I’ll summarize. The FHV-only surcharge will eventually speed up Manhattan traffic by around 6.7 percent but not until transit investments have significantly shifted mode-share. The charge will generate approximately $650 million per year with 64.6% borne by Manhattanites, 18.8 percent by those in the other four boroughs, and only 16.6 percent by those outside of New York City. (A full-fledged plan would have resulted in a 20 percent increase in speeds, $1.8 billion in annual revenue and a more equitable split of costs with Manhattanites picking up 32.4 percent, 36.9 percent borne by the boroughs and 30. percent carried by those outside of NYC.)
As constructed, the FHV surcharge moves the needle but has the perverse outcome of penalizing Manhattan residents while giving suburban drivers another year of a free pass. To the extent the FHV surcharge increases the costs of ride-hailing services ideally designed to eliminate private automobile trips, this FHV-only fee incentivizes private single-occupancy auto trips, thus countering one potential impact of a congestion pricing plan. A real plan has to disincentivize these discretionary trips while improving traffic flow (including, vitally, for buses) and generating money for transit expansion.