“Parking is already very much an issue. We have nine hospitals in our district, and many of them are north of 60th Street,” said Upper East Sider Valerie Mason, a member of New Yorkers Against Congestion Pricing Tax, a group suing to stop the scheme.
“We’re also very concerned that [the toll] will cause a huge amount of traffic and more cars trying to park north of the [59th Street Bridge],” Mason said.
The Upper West Side and Harlem are also expected to get slammed — a problem when parking spaces are already a precious commodity.
East Harlem is already plagued by congestion from out-of-town traffic taking up parking spots before heading south in the borough — because it’s faster than using the FDR Drive, said Xavier Santiago, chairman of Manhattan Community Board 11. He predicted the parking crisis “will continue to escalate” with congestion pricing.
The outer boroughs are also panicking.
Communities such as Long Island City in Queens, the South Bronx, and ritzy Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Park Slope in Brooklyn are fearing their quality of life will be uprooted — not only by their own drivers but also those schlepping to the Big Apple from New Jersey, upstate New York, Long Island and Staten Island.