Written by: Jesse Lin

For recording producer Joe Patrych, driving to gigs “is not a commute. It’s part of the job.”

“I have three hundred pounds of equipment with me. I’m not carrying that onto the subway,” he said. 

Tri-state drivers have held their breath for months waiting on congestion pricing details. A date is finally set; the MTA announced congestion pricing is “on track” for May 2024 at its monthly board meeting late last month. While pricing specifics have yet to come out, drivers will pay between $9 to $23 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street under current proposals. But for people who work late, have odd hours, or simply need a car for work, the environmental policy runs up against very real economic considerations. 

“Frankly, I’ve already been planning how to get around it,” said Patrych. 

He is the host of Sunday Evenings at Klavierhaus, a weekly event for musicians to perform on the piano store’s Steinway pianos, just inside the congestion pricing boundary on 54th Street. The plan each Sunday: park at his girlfriend’s at 61st and walk.

For other gigs below 60th Street, the cost of congestion pricing is enough for Patrych to consider not taking them.

“If it’s a really big gig, then I’ll pay whatever it costs me to get there. But my clients have to understand they have to absorb the cost,” he explained. 

Patrych conceded, however, that congestion pricing is necessary. 

“Midtown is insane trying to get through during the day,” he said while driving. “A snail crawls faster than the cars go. So it could help with people who drive in just because they want to.” 

That’s precisely the desired outcome for Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director for Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group. 

“Driving is a luxury and a privilege that impacts other people,” Pearlstein said. “We’re going to put a price on that.”

Sanchie Bobrow, who lives on Staten Island, defined luxury differently.

“Out here, I could take my whole day waiting for buses, or I could take my car and get there in eight minutes,” she explained. “I wouldn’t call that a luxury, if you have a life to live and you’re working.”

Bobrow’s workday often takes her between teaching violin in Hell’s Kitchen and rehearsing for the Richmond County Orchestra on Staten Island. Before she started driving during the pandemic, which she continues to do because of her compromised immune system, Bobrow’s hour and a half commute involved a train, a ferry, a bus, and many missed connections. Driving takes half an hour. 

Asked what she would do without her car, she responded, “I’d have to give up a lot of work or cancel classes, which is giving up income.”