Poor people are not driving into Manhattan. Tradespeople who do, enjoy either more paying work during the day or faster commutes. As you point out, extremely wealthy people won't notice.
The only people negatively affected are those moderately wealthy who are unwilling to pay the charge for improved times and highly dislike using public transport. It's the same people that will circle around a block for 20 minutes to get a free parking spot instead of going to a garage.
Moving away from car centric urban spaces makes it better for everyone, including the poor. Owning a car shouldn't be a precondition to live in a society.
> The only people negatively affected are those moderately wealthy who are unwilling to pay the charge for improved times and highly dislike using public transport.
The people really negatively affected and the ones screaming their heads off are city employees who scam free parking via dubious placards and parking illegally. It’s a whole NYC subculture which is hard to miss if you live here. That’s what Hochul was scared of, it’s what everyone is scared of since they’re often somewhat connected. But fuck those people.
Public transit is difficult to use for eg tradespeople who bring a lot of tools on to the job and work at differing locations. Some such workers are not wealthy at all and are also carpooling to make it affordable to get into the city.
(Yes, I know you could haul all your stuff on public transit; I’m simply observing that many workers choose not to and they probably have a good reason. Those of us whose tools are limited to a MacBook Air in a designer bag should hesitate to dictate how other people live.)
I explicitly call out how the reduced traffic benefits tradespeople driving their van: every minute they are not stuck in gridlock is a minute they can either bill for or a minute they can get home earlier. We're talking about the price of a sandwich here, at most.
Tradespeople don’t get to bill more just because their commute got shorter, and the people I’m talking about are common labourers who commute in a car to the job site and work for a foreman. I am simply pointing out that _many_ common labourers do indeed drive into the city.
The only people negatively affected are those moderately wealthy who are unwilling to pay the charge for improved times and highly dislike using public transport. It's the same people that will circle around a block for 20 minutes to get a free parking spot instead of going to a garage.
Moving away from car centric urban spaces makes it better for everyone, including the poor. Owning a car shouldn't be a precondition to live in a society.