Our estimate of city workers who drive to work in the CBD is based on the Public Use Micro Sample of the US Census.

Our estimate of NYPD, FDNY, and DOE employees is based on PUMS, and a combination of City payroll data and the issuance of parking placards. In the latter case we estimate that 24,604 NYPD, FDNY, and NYC DOE workers drive into the CBD with essentially free-parking. We don’t know from the City’s data how many municipal employees drive and pay for their own parking.

Using the Public Use Micro Sample of the US Census, we isolated the population identified as ​“local government employees” with workplaces in Manhattan. Based on the distribution of jobs in the Census Bureau’s 2021 Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics, we assume 80% work in the CBD.

Table M.1 shows the number of local government employees by job title who report driving to work in the CBD.

Assuming employees work in person 4 days per week and assuming a 48 week year (allowing for vacation and holidays), the loss due to this exemption would be over $140 million/year, or, approximately, 14% of the revenue to be generated.

The benefit accrues to the wealthiest employees, even within a job class as illustrated above.

All analysis flows from these facts.

City agencies issue parking placards to some of their employees. Assuming placards are issued to employees who drive, we assume placards are a proxy for the lower bound of municipal employees who drive for the three main city agencies that the Governor has proposed exempting from congestion pricing: teachers and administrators (NYC Department of Education, DOE), police officers and detectives (NYPD), and firefighters (FDNY). We assume some employees without placards also drive but we have no strategy to estimate how many, hence we do not estimate an upper bound. We assume the lower bound for further calculations.

Department of Education (DOE):

The DOE issued 62,294 placards to DOE employees; 9,227 are issued to people with work locations in the CBD, according to Citywide 2021 Payroll Data provided by the NYC Office of Payroll Administration and NYC Agency Authorized Parking Permit Data provided by the NYC Department of Transportation. This is shown in Table M.2.

The New York Police Department also issues placards to some of its employees. The distribution of those working in Manhattan is shown in Table M.3.

The Fire Department of New York also issues placards to some of its employees. The distribution of those working in Manhattan is shown in Table M.4.