Congestion Pricing Is Happening: Cue the Irrational Drama from the Placard Elite and the Suburbs

Relax, people — it's a toll.

Public hysteria over congestion pricing reached a fever pitch in the day before the toll switches on at 12:00:01 on Sunday morning — with businesses threatening higher costs for customers, politicians ignoring facts to join the fight, and one public sector union even urging its members to demand reassignments out of Manhattan's future toll zone.

With mere hours to go before drivers will begin to pay a peak toll of $9 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street (and a mere $2.25 overnight), the union representing FDNY's emergency medical service workers claimed that the new fees mean that EMTs "can simply no longer afford to protect the inhabitants of Manhattan from 60th Street to the Battery."

EMTs at the three stations within the zone "have been asking for transfers out of the three stations serving Midtown and Lower Manhattan" because of the toll, Oren Barzilay, president of FDNY EMS Local 2507, claimed in a statement blasted out on Friday to the region's oddly credulous TV news media.

It turns out that only about 270 of the union's members work out of the three downtown stations, just a tiny fraction of the FDNY's 4,100-strong EMS workforce. Barzilay claimed those workers cannot afford the toll on their just-below-$19-an-hour wage — disregarding the vast majority of central business district workers who make less and somehow find a way to get to work (almost entirely by public transit, according to the census).

Barzilay is hardly the first labor big to fall for the car-first approach. Unions for teachers and transportation workers pulled similar stunts in the run-up to Sunday's toll launch — even though few of their members actually use a personal vehicle to commute to the congestion zone, which is uniquely dense with transit options.

Around 90 percent of commuters into the toll zone get there via public transit, according to the MTA. Midtown and Lower Manhattan's obscene gridlock also slows response times for emergency services, so reducing the number of cars on the road — as congestion pricing is forecasted to do — would be a boon for EMTs and the passengers they rush to hospitals.

EMTs will only pay that fee if they make the personal choice to drive, noted one public transportation advocate — who called on Barzilay to focus on winning higher pay instead of opposing a toll that will fund $15 billion of subway and commuter rail improvements.

"The union has consistently failed to win respectable wages and improve atrocious conditions working in Midtown traffic yet somehow leadership finds time to meddle with members' transportation choices, as though our EMTs can't do basic math. What awful representation," said Danny Pearlstein, Policy and Communications Director at Riders Alliance.

With the toll looming, businesses warned customers about higher prices as a result. Brooklyn-based phone services company CompuVoIP announced a "congestion pricing surcharge" for customers located in the zone.

CompuVoIP's email announcement was easy fodder for at least one anti-congestion pricing City Council member.

"AND SO IT BEGINS," Bronx Republican Kristy Marmorato posted on X. "This congestion pricing cash grab is going to affect our every day commute, infringe on accessibility & affordability, but NOW we are also seeing how this is going to INCREASE all costs in our daily lives."

Reached by phone, CompuVoIP Vice President Abe Lemmer insisted that he had no choice but to offload the $9 toll onto customers — while questioning whether the toll would speed up trips due to the lower traffic.

"We don't have a choice," Lemmer claimed. "If we have to go out there to visit a client to do a service call or add on maintenance, obviously we have to pass our cost of doing business to our clients.  We're not looking to make money."

He also told Streetsblog that the company goes into the CBD only once or twice per day, and that he would adjust the extra fee accordingly.

Ride-share giant Lyft also raised last-minute alarms around the toll — offering a $1.50 credit to customers whose trips are charged the MTA's $1.50 congestion fee for for-hire vehicles despite the fact that fewer cars on the road may speed up traffic and allow Lyft drivers to make more money.

Placard privileges have consequences

Like many city workers, EMTs who commute by car have their commutes into Manhattan subsidized because they are given parking placards that allow them to store the vehicles, often illegally, on city streets and sidewalks without paying Manhattan's typically steep parking fees.

Many FDNY EMS Local 2507 members do not use city-issued parking permits but "courtesy" placards issued by their union. Several vehicles displayed those unofficial passes outside one of the Manhattan EMS outposts, Station 7 on W. 23rd Street in Chelsea, when Streetsblog visited the location on Friday.

It's unclear how many EMTs choose to drive to work. Christian Agredo, a spokesman for the union, told Streetsblog the union's members come in from as far as New Jersey and already pay the Port Authority $16.06 at peak hours to cross the Hudson River. (Those commuters will receive a $3 rebate on the $9 daytime congestion toll.)

Seemingly unaware or ignoring the steep overnight discount, Agredo said the first responders have to clock in and out at all hours of the day and therefore "don't find transit reliable enough," even though the subway runs 24/7. Agredo also ignored the fact that workers who live in the suburbs have chosen that lifestyle, despite the location of their jobs.

"Given the nature of EMS work where workers are assigned shifts to work late in the day or early in the morning or assigned double tours, members don’t find public transit reliable enough to get to and from work quickly," Agredo told Streetsblog in an email.

One EMT, who works in Chelsea, but lives on Staten Island, told Streetsblog that most of his co-workers drive to work. He said he had not heard about the union push to move him or his colleagues outside the congestion zone.

New York's Bravest have not logged a "spike" in transfer requests out of Manhattan, said mayoral spokesperson Liz Garcia, who added that there generally is strong demand to work in that borough.

"We do not expect any negative impacts to the department's ability to respond to emergencies," said Garcia in a statement. "Ensuring public safety is a top priority for the Adams administration."

Additional reporting by David Meyer