New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Wednesday abruptly “indefinitely postponed” New York City’s controversial first congestion pricing plan. Democrats in competitive US House races later this year.
Under the politically unpopular plan, which would have gone into effect later this month, passenger cars would have had to pay $15, small trucks $24 and large trucks $36 to enter Manhattan under 6th Street, and would collect as much as $15 billion Have contributed. for New York’s public transportation system and infrastructure improvements.
In a recorded statement, Hochul said she was concerned the toll would have a negative impact on the city’s post-pandemic recovery and that there would be “unintended consequences” if it were to go ahead.
If the toll were implemented now, she said, economically challenged commuters could return to working from home, leaving offices in Manhattan, which still have a 20% vacancy rate, even emptier.
“Circumstances have changed and we must respond to the facts on the ground, not the rhetoric of five years ago,” Hochul said.
The congestion pricing plan has faced fierce opposition, with the neighboring state of New Jersey arguing in a lawsuit that it violates the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits states from enacting laws that discriminate against or unnecessarily burden interstate commerce.
The plan was also deeply unpopular with public sector employers, taxi drivers, police, firefighters, farmers and delivery drivers, who were denied exemptions, while some were intended for emergency vehicles, specialist city vehicles and buses on regular public routes or city buses. school contracts.
Hochul is expected to discuss the issue at a press conference later Wednesday, but the suspension is likely to come as a political embarrassment – license plate readers had already been set up at the entrances to the restricted zone. Other cities, including London, have seen a political backlash over similar toll increase plans.
Eric Adams said he agreed with Hochul’s decision because “we have to get it right” and that he is “all for” looking at other options to generate revenue without harming people’s lives.
“We have to get it right,” New York’s mayor said. “We need to make sure it isn’t an undue burden on everyday New Yorkers and we need to make sure it won’t impact our recovery. If she wants to analyze other ways we can do it, I’m all for it.”
The plan’s suspension was attacked by public transportation advocacy groups.
“The next time your train is late, your bus is stuck in traffic, your subway station still doesn’t have an elevator, you know who to blame: Governor Kathy Hochul,” Transportation Alternatives said in a statement.
“Transit riders make up the majority of New Yorkers — and certainly the majority of New Yorkers of color, low-income New Yorkers, disabled New Yorkers, New Yorkers with children — and today Kathy Hochul instead sided with powerful special interests – just days before. program would come into effect.”
Riders Alliance, an organization of subway and bus drivers in New York, said it was staging “emergency actions” outside Hochul’s Manhattan office to “make sure she knows that the real political threat is not charging suburbanites drivers to enter Manhattan, but negating public transportation improvements. for millions of New Yorkers!”
The latest move is also sure to upset climate advocates, who pointed to congestion pricing efforts as a catalyst for reduced carbon emissions and air pollution.
A 2023 environmental assessment by the MTA noted that congestion pricing could reduce air pollution in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens overall. Although, as the New York Times noted last month, diverted traffic could increase air pollution in both the Bronx and Staten Island.
Jonas Eliasson, director of the Swedish Transport Administration, told the Times that air pollution in Stockholm, Sweden, had declined since the congestion charge was introduced 18 years ago and that the city’s improved air quality was linked to strict regulations on trucks and cars. .
