Gov. Kathy Hochul will on Thursday revive plans to launch the country’s first congestion pricing program — at a reduced once-a-day toll rate of $9, multiple sources told THE CITY.
Five months after Hochul paused the Central Business District Tolling Program before its long-planned June 30 launch, sources said she will reverse course by announcing that motorists will be tolled south of 60th Street in Manhattan by late December.
“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 Hochul spokesperson, said in a statement Wednesday evening. “[On Thursday] the Governor will announce the path forward to fund mass transit, unclog our streets and improve public health by reducing air pollution.”
Hochul’s latest about-face comes after voters in last week’s presidential race elected former President Donald Trump, who has vowed to “TERMINATE Congestion Pricing in my FIRST WEEK back in office.”
Since Trump was granted a return to the White House, transit and environmental advocates have repeatedly called on Hochul to implement congestion pricing, saying it’s now or never for a vehicle-tolling plan is designed to raise billions of dollars for MTA capital improvements and reduce traffic in what studies show is the most congested urban area in the country.
“I hope it moves forward at this point, but our message all along has been that you’ve got to fund transit,” Joseph Rappaport, executive director of Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled, told THE CITY. “If you do it one way, fine. If you do it another way, fine.
“But you need to just do it.”
Hochul’s June pause of a years-in-the-making vehicle-tolling plan created a $16.5 billion funding gap in the MTA’s current five year capital program, which carries a price tag of more than $50 billion. The transit agency’s board in July instead approved a pared-back budget that included delaying signal upgrades on several subway lines, deferring elevator installations at 23 stations and the purchase of new subway cars and 250 electric buses.
The sudden shift led to repeated protests against Hochul, who then in August pledged to come up with an alternative plan to congestion pricing by the end of 2024 — as MTA officials repeatedly said they would take the governor “at her word.”
Hochul’s last-second turn also spawned lawsuits from environmental and transit advocates seeking to put congestion pricing back on track and also put into question the state’s commitment to fund $155 million in environmental mitigation work in “communities already overburdened by pre-existing air pollution and chronic diseases” as a result of vehicle emissions.
Multiple sources said MTA board members will be briefed by Hochul this week on the latest iteration of congestion pricing, with a $9 base toll that was among the scenarios that were initially floated as options.
The $9 base toll could eventually be increased, the sources said.
“Starting at $9 — which was studied in the environmental assessment — and increasing it over time is the right way to approach this,” Tom Wright, president and chief executive of the Regional Plan Association, told THE CITY. “Over 29 years, London has revised their system about 10 times, so it’s not just going to be set in amber and concrete for a decade.”
The $9 revival was first reported by Politico.
‘Game On’
London, Stockholm and Singapore are among the international cities that turned to tolling vehicles in their urban core, but the road to congestion pricing in New York has been filled with potholes.
“The problem has been a lack of leadership and vision on what we’re doing and why,” Nicholas Klein, assistant professor of city and regional planning at Cornell University, told THE CITY.
Klein cited how, in 2003, London’s then-mayor, Ken Livingstone, pushed through a congestion charge in the city.
First proposed 17 years ago by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, congestion pricing failed in Albany in 2008. State lawmakers approved another version of it in 2019, but the plan has faced resistance from motorists, New Jersey politicians and Hochul and her predecessor as governor, Andrew Cuomo.
Congestion pricing is also facing multiple lawsuits from across the Hudson River — and New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a chief opponent of the plan, vowed to continue pushing against what he labeled an “utterly absurd” move to hit residents of The Garden State with new fees for driving into the city.
“We stopped the Congestion Tax once and we’ll stop it again,” Gottheimer said in a statement Wednesday evening. “Game on.”
Transit worker union leaders have also been critical of a tolling plan that is “all stick and no carrot,” saying that without additional service outside of Manhattan, not enough drivers will swap their vehicles for mass transit.
“If the MTA doesn’t invest in new service, then the toll reduction is still a political quagmire,” John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union and a MTA board member, told THE CITY.
Congestion pricing has been counted on to provide up to $15 billion in funding for the MTA’s current five-year capital program. But officials have conceded that nearly half funding for the agency’s new $68.4 billion plan for 2025-2029 is no sure thing. The next capital plan focuses mostly on keeping the 120-year-old subway system in safe and working condition.
Transit advocates whose organizations sued Hochul over what she called an indefinite pause of congestion pricing said they are eager to hear more from the governor on how the revived plan will work.
“In this new era, New York leaders must govern with more courage than ever before,” Betsy Plum, executive director of Riders Alliance, said in a statement. “If she moves forward, Governor Hochul will demonstrate the kind of leadership that we will need in abundance and which riders will continue to demand from her.”
