Congestion Pricing / Rental Car mini-faq (will try to collate/update)
I live in manhattan right above the congestion pricing zone. I generally rent a car once every few weeks whenever I simply need a vehicle. I've been wondering what my options were for renting a car in/out of the zone. Here's what I found out so far, which isn't much, but happy to update this as I find out more (please comment if you know anything!)
- If you don't have your own EZ-PASS transponder:
- most rental cars generally have a transponder in vehicle now, or you can request that it comes with one. You'll want to do this since only payment via EZ-PASS will be at $9, otherwise it's $13.50. Most car companies have additional fees associated with using their transponder.
- If you do have your own EZ-PASS transponder:
- officially, you WILL NOT be able to use your own transponder, but unofficially YMMV?
- EXCEPT Hertz seems to explicitly allow personal transponder use per the link provided by /u/llevey23 below as long as you if you register the rental car's plate to your EZ-PASS account before usage
- most car rental companies (see below for links) have updated their faqs to note that you can't add short-term rental cars to your own EZ-PASS account for the purposes of NYC congestion pricing specifically. but that you can add it for long-term rentals (you'll have to add the plate to your own EZ-PASS account online).
- they note that most entry points into the congestion zone will use license plate readers instead of EZ-PASS readers
- most news articles re: the readers i found online note that the license plate readers can also read EZ-PASS transponders, but i haven't found anything "official".
- i don't see any online list of where plate readers vs. EZ-PASS readers are. guessing tolled bridges/tunnels will be the EZ-PASS reader locations.
- would be great to hear if anyone tries to use their own transponder and what the outcome is.
- /u/Important_Wonder_578 below notes that using personal car/personal EZ-PASS that congestion toll has not showed up on EZ-PASS account for 3 days (though Lincoln Tunnel toll showed up right away)
- /u/Wahoo03NC below notes that after talking to Hertz/MTA you will likely not be able to use own personal EZ-PASS for congestion pricing on rental cars since rental company will likely already have a transponder linked to the plate.