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“New York Gov. Kathy Hochul halted a plan to charge most motorists $15 to enter the core of Manhattan, upending the nation’s first ‘congestion pricing’ system on Wednesday just weeks before it was set to launch…
“She cited New York’s fragile economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the financial burden that the toll would pose on state residents struggling with inflation, as reasons to ‘indefinitely pause the program.’” AP News
The left criticizes Hochul’s decision, arguing that the plan would have benefited both commuters and residents.
“London and Stockholm have had similar programs in place for decades. After implementation, London immediately saw a 20 percent reduction in carbon emissions and a 37 percent increase in bus transit use. The results in Stockholm were similar and that city also saw a nearly 50 percent reduction in childhood asthma cases. (Children in the Bronx suffer from one of the highest rates of asthma in the country.)…
“Under the New York plan, the toll revenue would underwrite a long list of critical investments to the city’s mass transit system, including signals to allow subway trains to run faster and with fewer interruptions on several lines. It would help pay for 500 new buses, better access for disabled commuters at 40 subway stations, new bus depots in the Bronx, Staten Island and Brooklyn, and electric buses systemwide…
“[Hochul’s] decision to suspend this program at the 11th hour raises real concerns about the region’s collective ability to pursue major and essential public projects.”
Tom Wright and Kate Slevin, New York Times
“Before her eleventh-hour decision to reverse course and ‘indefinitely pause’ a landmark plan to charge drivers higher prices for clogging up Manhattan streets, Democratic New York governor Kathy Hochul received $36,000 from lobbyists for state automobile dealers. Half of that money came from a lobbying group that opposed congestion pricing, citing ‘consequences for dealers and the thousands of people they employ.’”
Katya Schwenk, Jacobin Magazine
“The plan was supposed to recognize that bringing a car or truck into this very dense stretch of city has costs—not just the personal cost of going slowly mad while waiting to enter the Holland Tunnel, but costs in carbon emissions and air pollution. Limiting the time that vehicles spent idling in lines to enter Manhattan and exit Manhattan and turn in Manhattan and park in Manhattan—and coming to Manhattan at all—could have reduced the region’s carbon emissions and air pollution…
“Cars are one of the least convenient modes of transportation [in the city]. The city has subway stops blocks apart from each other. It has buses and, in the most congested parts of Manhattan (and in the Lincoln Tunnel), specially designated lanes to speed buses past waiting cars. It has commuter rail going in every direction out of the city… That cars appear to have won out even in New Yorkshows how little room there might be for us to try anything different.”
Sarah Laskow, The Atlantic
The right applauds Hochul’s decision, and urges her to cancel the plan permanently.
The right applauds Hochul’s decision, and urges her to cancel the plan permanently.
“The delay was the obvious choice politically in an election year: A whopping 63% of New Yorkers are against it, and the plan faced opposition from everyone from the teachers union to members of Hochul’s own party. Yet she’s treating it only as bad timing: Times are hard and the city is still bouncing back from the COVID shutdowns — but signaling that the tolls could return under the right circumstances…
“No: Kill congestion pricing for good — otherwise, this looks like a stall to avoid putting a deeply unpopular policy in place before the November election, when Hochul’s Democrats hope to pick up suburban House seats. As The Post has reported, and Hochul herself now admits, the fees would slam all New Yorkers, not just drivers, slowing tourism and slamming businesses. That’s all still going to be true even if the city’s economic outlook improves.”
Editorial Board, New York Post
“ABC points out that the congestion tax would have been added on top of tolls already charged to use certain key bridges and tunnels into Manhattan, such as ‘the $13.38 to $17.63 it costs to take a car through the Lincoln or Holland tunnels.’ There is also already a $2.50 congestion surcharge on taxi journeys that begin, end, or pass through Manhattan south of 96th Street… [Hochul] should be congratulated for being prepared to change her plans in the face of a difficult economic reality.”
Andrew Stuttaford, National Review
Others argue, “To backtrack at the eleventh hour like this, with the MTA having already purchased $500 million of equipment for tolling, is clearly representative of her ineffectual governance. If there was ever a possibility that the plan had problems or would need to be disposed of, why spend the money and drag New Yorkers through this controversy in the first place? The sunk costs here are immense. The congestion pricing plan has distressed many residents of the city, and the MTA has already set aside $15 billion for projects that would have been funded by revenue from the program…
“What might be worse is how deceitful she has been leading up to Wednesday’s controversial reversal. Two weeks ago, at the Global Economic Summit in Ireland, Hochul asserted that the program was vital to ‘making cities more livable.’ On Wednesday, she claimed the city’s post-pandemic economic recovery played a factor. The reversal comes as positive news to many and is indeed the correct choice, but the evident mishandling of the situation proves Hochul isn’t fit for office.”
Carter Schroppe, Washington Examiner
