New York Relaunches Congestion Pricing With $9 Toll, But Plan Is DOA Thanks To Trump

Several months after abruptly pulling the plug on a $15 charge just hours it was set to start, arguing it would have strained working families and small businesses, New York Governor Kathy Hochul decided to strain working families and small businesses anyway, and announced plans to revive congestion pricing for drivers entering large parts of Manhattan.

Hochul announced the initiative on Thursday, this time with a $9 charge for most motorists driving into Manhattan’s central business district.  However, the proposed plan is DOA: since Donald Trump opposes the plan, the governor has limited time to implement the new charge before the Jan 20 inauguration and avoid the incoming administration stalling the program, as it did during his first term. The $9 toll could bring in revenue that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s decrepit transit network, would borrow against to modernize a more than 100-year-old system.

“Governor Hochul paused congestion pricing because a daily $15 toll was too much for hard-working New Yorkers in this economic climate,” Avi Small, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement. “Tomorrow, the Governor will announce the path forward to fund mass transit, unclog our streets and improve public health by reducing air pollution.”

Donald Trump immediately responded, saying that “I have great respect for the Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, and look forward to working with her to Make New York and America Great Again. But I strongly disagree with the decision on the congestion tax."

“It has never worked, but especially so with a city, town, or village that is trying to come back from very rough times, which can certainly be said of New York City. It will put New York City at a disadvantage over competing cities and states, and businesses will flee.”

Trump, whose platform of tax breaks for workers and retirees helped secure his return to the White House, said it would be those struggling to make ends meet who would suffer most.

“Not only is this a massive tax to people coming in, it is extremely inconvenient from both driving and personal bookkeeping standards. It will be virtually impossible for New York City to come back as long as the congestion tax is in effect,” he said.

So $15 is too expensive, as Hochul herself admitted, but $9 is "just right" for working families? Meanwhile, as it pleads that the MTA is in dire straits, New York spends over $4 billion on illegal aliens: If just these funds were redirected, NYC would have more than enough to support the MTA without further financial burdens. But, alas, Democrats seem unable to do simple math.

Pausing the congestion pricing opened up a $15 billion deficit in the MTA’s current capital plan and deferred signal upgrades, subway renovations, accessibility projects and purchasing 250 electric buses; it did however enable continued embezzlement, corruption and inefficiency that have marked the MTA for decades. The MTA’s next five-year $65.4 billion capital budget is also at risk as nearly half of it is unfunded. The transit provider is seeking to rehabilitate aging structures after years of neglect and improve service to attract more riders to its system of subways, buses and commuter rail lines.

Hochul’s revised plan would initially slash the prior tolling structure by 40%, with E-ZPass motorists paying $9 rather than $15 to drive south of 60th Street during peak hours, according to the people familiar.

To begin the program, Hochul needs the federal government to approve the revised tolling structure and to also sign a value pricing pilot program agreement with New York. However, it is guaranteed that the incoming Trump administration will not make those authorizations after the president said he would terminate congestion pricing in his first week back in the White House.

Even if Hochul gets federal approval - which it won't - Bloomberg reports that congestion pricing faces several lawsuits, including from New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who says the environmental review of the tolling program was insufficient and doesn’t show the potential impacts to some Garden State neighborhoods. A lower fee fails to make up for the failures of that review, lawyers for Murphy wrote in a letter dated Wednesday and filed to the court.

“Merely lowering the toll amount would not cure the defects in the National Environmental Policy Act review process conducted by the defendants when the Federal Highway Administration issued its Finding of No Significant Impact,” the lawyers wrote in the letter, which urges the court to make a ruling in the case.

If implemented, the toll would apply to motorists entering Manhattan’s central business district, which runs from 60th Street to the southern end of the island. New York City is the world’s most-congested urban area, according to INRIX Inc., a traffic-data analysis firm.

The goal of congestion pricing is to reduce the number of the vehicles in the district by 17% and improve air quality. It may be difficult to hit those targets with a lower $9 toll because it may fail to persuade commuters and visitors to use public transportation rather than cars to get into Manhattan.

The tolling program could still face risks even after Trump takes office. Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller — who supports congestion pricing and has been push Hochul to restart it — warned that the incoming administration could try to end the program through litigation or administrative action.

“Theoretically in the same way that New Jersey sued, the federal government could turn around and sue to say it was done improperly,” Lander said Wednesday, speaking about the environmental review process.

Trump and Hochul have been sharply at odds over the years, but had a warm phone call after the Republican won the Nov. 5 election over Vice President Kamala Harris.

Hochul, 66, has the power to pardon Trump of his May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal reimbursement of 2016 hush money payments — should Judge Juan Merchan not dismiss the case outright pending sentencing later this month.

Trump’s ambitious tax-reform plans call for eliminating the $10,000 State and Local Tax (SALT) federal tax deduction cap — which hits New Yorkers particularly hard –– as well as eliminating taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits.