{"id":249694,"date":"2025-09-23T19:25:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T19:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/249694\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T19:25:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T19:25:26","slug":"foreign-leaders-exempt-from-congestion-pricing-tolls-during-un-general-assembly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/249694\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign leaders exempt from congestion pricing tolls during UN General Assembly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"driver\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Drivers in Manhattan are fuming not only over UN General Assembly gridlock; but also the fact that world leaders attending are not paying the same $9 toll for entering the area of Manhattan south of 60th Street, also known as the Central Business District (CBD) toll zone, as other drivers must.<\/p>\n

World leaders and diplomats are in NYC this week for the 80th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Manhattan\u2019s East Side, marking a historic moment in politics and transit. It is the first UNGA held with NYC\u2019s controversial congestion pricing<\/a> program in full effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But none of these leaders are paying the same $9 toll for entering the area of Manhattan south of 60th Street, also known as the Central Business District (CBD) toll zone, as other drivers must.\n<\/p>\n

In the waning days of the Biden administration, the State Department announced on Jan. 6 \u2014 a day after New York launched congestion pricing \u2014 that it would exempt diplomats from paying the tolls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exemption from charges assessed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York for entry into its designated \u2018Congestion Relief Zone\u2019 provided by this designation and determination shall apply to charges that have been or will be assessed against any foreign mission or international organization subject to this determination,\u201d a federal notice stated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The CBD is supposed to decongest gridlocked streets for NYC drivers. During UNGA, the traffic is typically so heavy that, like previous years, the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) announced gridlock alert days for Sept. 22 to 26<\/a>. Multiple street closures and reroutes are in effect to loosen the traditional bottleneck traffic in Midtown and nearby areas due to the traffic from General Assembly attendees.<\/p>\n

Early on, it is difficult to say how much of that traffic is caused by UNGA attendees, but the UN has 193 member states from around the world. Further, the MTA has not yet reported how many vehicles have entered the CBD this week, let alone on the first day of the annual conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s attendance at the General Assembly to address world leaders on Tuesday only added to the gridlock \u2014 as did protests against him.<\/a><\/p>\n

A \u2018tough day for traffic\u2019<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the MTA and DOT have urged New Yorkers to use subways to get around the city during UNGA week due to heavier-than-usual traffic. According to MTA data, New Yorkers appeared to take that advice.<\/p>\n

Subway ridership was significantly up at the start of this week on Sunday, Sept. 21, when it was 2,303,190 from Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024, which brought 2,131,910 riders onto NYC trains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Janno Lieber, chair and CEO of the MTA, said during an unrelated press conference on Monday that the agency has provided \u201cquality\u201d train service for the uptick in riders so far this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a very tough day for traffic in New York,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is UN week. Everybody in New York knows that is the worst traffic week that there is. We had unbelievable quality subway service, so a lot to celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n

As expected, there were still plenty of disruptions plaguing the trains. More than a dozen of the system\u2019s 36 lines experienced delays throughout the day on Sept. 22 and into Sept. 23. Mechanical problems, disruptive passengers, door issues, and other common issues caused the delays.<\/p>\n

Despite the inconveniences, it is not uncommon for the system to experience such a high volume of disruption on any given day \u2014 not just during UNGA.\n<\/p>\n

And the subways are also safer. According to the latest NYPD statistics<\/a>, year-to-date through Sept. 14, overall transit crime, including both trains and buses, dropped nearly 3% compared to the same period in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With an average of 4 million daily passengers on weekdays, the trains achieved a recent accomplishment in crime reduction on the rails.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cLast week we had a 66% reduction in crime compared to the equivalent week in 2024,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

As for traffic on Manhattan streets, it is, once again, as expected according to New York commuters.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hit or miss, depends on timing,\u201d bus rider Charles Frizziola said. \u201cAM and PM, when they\u2019re moving people around, are a mess. Mid-day, it\u2019s just traffic from streets being closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachel Newfield Cugini\u2019s husband waited an hour for a bus on Monday in Midtown.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe line was unbelievable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drivers in Manhattan are fuming not only over UN General Assembly gridlock; but also the fact that world…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":249695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,132370,132371,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5005,11900,130402,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-249694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-gridlock-alert-days","10":"tag-mta-ceo-janno-lieber","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-president-donald-trump","18":"tag-transit","19":"tag-un-general-assembly","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115255255295170085","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}