Here’s the deal. Good Ol’ Mayor Mike Bloomberg wants to place an $8 fee on any car and a $21 fee on any truck entering Manhattan below 60th Street. The idea being that it will reduce congestion in the central business district, make the air quality better and create funding for the MTA, which is ohhhh $15 billion in debt or so.

Similar plans have had mixed results (it really depends who you ask) in places like London and Stockholm. I’ve been covering this exhaustively for my paper (the city council just passed it tonight and now it goes to the state), and was curious what people outside of the city would think about it.

The benefits are pretty straightforward. The plan is expected to generate between $5-6 billion for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which is mired in debt due to horrendous management. The money will be put in a lockbox and will only be used for the city’s umpteen mass transit projects that are on the block.

The plan would also substantially reduce congestion in the central business district and marginally in areas of the outer boroughs, creating cleaner air and reducing asthma rates etc. You’d also of course boost mass transit usage which will also help fill the MTA’s glaring budget gap. Passage of the plan by April 7 will also net the city a cool $354 million from the feds to fund short term transit improvements (buses, basically) to accomodate the expected burden on the transit system.

The other side of the coin is that the city projects that more than half of the revenues generated by congestion pricing will be collected from city residents in the outer boroughs who do not have access to good mass transit (for example, it takes some people in the rockaways more than 2 hours to get to Manhattan by bus or subway, but just 45 minutes by car). Many of these communities are also not wealthy communities, and may not be able to handle the additional $1-2K annual burden.

In addition, most of the capital projects the MTA has on the block are Manhattan-centric, meaning they don’t address the transit needs of those in the outer boroughs. So while the residents of the upper east side will have an easier commute with the installation of the 2nd Ave. subway. Folks in northeastern queens have to take a bus to the subway to another subway in manhattan to get to work.

So yeah. I mean there’s a lot more, but that’s the basic outline of what’s happening here. I just kinda wanted to get a sense of how this looks to someone outside looking in.