After a two-year delay under the Trump administration, New York City has finally kick-started the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s congestion pricing plan that will impose tolls on all bridges to the city’s Central Business Distric south of 60th Street.

In a public meeting hosted and live-streamed by the MTA last week, residents who live north of 60th Street expressed concern that the plan will lead to collateral damage in their neighborhoods, including fewer parking spots, increased congestion and inflated garage fees. However, results from research studies and congestion pricing implementation in other major cities outside the U.S indicate only a minimal, if any, increase in cars outside the congestion zone.

The MTA meeting was attended by Upper Manhattan residents who were each given two minutes to speak.

“[Congestion pricing] will be onerous to people who live on the Upper East Side,” said Andrew Fine, an Upper East Side resident who represented the East 86th Street Association. “We’re going to see an increase in congestion, pollution, noise, and lack of parking. And we’ll see an acceleration of already exorbitant garage rates and overcrowding on the transit.”

While a majority of the speakers expressed strong support for the congestion pricing plan, Fine’s concerns were echoed by fellow residents living just north of the congestion pricing border.

Steve Chase, a fourth-generation New Yorker who has lived on the Upper East Side for the past 20 years, said the toll’s current planned location on 59th street is ludicrous.

“We know that drivers from out of town will pull off the highway and into our neighborhoods to avoid the toll,” he said. “Thousands of vehicles will take [the 59th exit] through Riverside Park which is crowded with elderly, cycles, joggers and young children.”

As a solution, Chase proposed moving the toll border to 56th street, where the exit off the West Side Highway is in an industrial area with fewer pedestrians.

The congestion pricing zone will cover all of Manhattan below 60th Street. Toll fees could cost anywhere between $9-$35 per trip into Manhattan with an E-ZPass.