Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan seems to me to be largely a good idea--good for the environment, good for pedestrian safety, and all that.
But the costs for driving trucks into Manhattan is about to skyrocket, and those costs will need to be absorbed by productions. I can see this cost becoming onerous to the point of deterring low budget films from shooting in Manhattan at all. We already have a runaway production problem, and this could make it worse. Those in film production at the high end of the spectrum will be fine. The rest might begin to find it more difficult to make a living.
It might behoove the Mayor's Office of Film to consider subsidies for the congestion pricing tolls.
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May 3, 2007 - 2:01pm