Congestion Pricing Halted

As I said elsewhere, the Governor realized that low-income commuters are also voters?

I do not use much cabs or drive but it is a good news that congestion pricing is postponed. Manhattan is already expensive enough and retail is already hurting too badly to pay for increased cost of deliveries etc.

I guess someone finally woke up and realized Transmission Alternatives, Open Streets, etc are lobbying groups and that and extremely small but vocal fraction of the population are in favor of policies like Congestion On Purpose. And that this would have cost hundreds of thousands of commuters untold $ in time - which they never include in their "studies." From the house I grew up in to my current office the round trip commute is 2 hours more daily by public transportation than by car. If I made $75/hour this would translate to $39,000/year. That's a helluva tax.

Good news! Just hoping now that "indefinitely postponed" really does mean scrapped.

It's personal for the group who would pay these taxes, and a nebulous nice to have general public policy interest, among many other interests, for everyone else.

This is after they spent a small fortune on all the cameras, no?

That is just stimulus for which we will pay via increased taxes in some form.

This is a temporary reprieve I’m afraid. No doubt the Governor will bring back congestion pricing after the election in November

@300 what if the same is true of the entire anti-carbon industry? Reasonable sounding scientists have doubts

MTH, That is a bigger debate which doesn't belong on this board. My carbon foot print is rather small including flights. So I care more about NYC as it directly impacts my life as a homeowner.

@300 City, State and federal climate policy (things like LL 97 and congestion pricing if it's adopted) will have effects on taxes and RE values over time.

My cynicism drives the 'for the votes' statement, but I don't wonder if there's some grimmer underlying truth: My working hypothesis being: Test runs of the cameras determined that they weren't reading enough of the plates reliably, thus would open the city up to a lawsuit on the inconsistent application of fees. Given the ongoing lawsuits, legal fees may have already burned through much of the anticipated income from the first few months of use. Can they really afford more?

Or that the worst offenders when it comes to defacing plates work for the government.

Taking this from twitter:
Regardless of your stance on congestion pricing; to have an executive support a program, even brag about it overseas, spend half a billion ? on equipment alone leading to an 11th hr video reversal should infuriate all

A complete dereliction of leadership all around (again)

Hochul is just awful.

Nah, it would have been worse if she was stubborn because the state spent $ on it and then kept the program.

Exactly: sunk-cost fallacy

There were problems in how congestion pricing was going to be implemented: exemptions looked more like political favors than rational, far too low taxi/uber surcharge, and I was VERY dubious the revenue would be well spent to actually improve transit. Not to mention I doubted the charge was high enough to even reduce congestion!

However kicking the can at the last moment for purely political reasons using authority she likely doesn't even legally have is just going from bad to worse.

It's ultimately going to happen, this is a transparent "let's just delay until after elections" move to bail out some house candidates that are probably going to lose anyway.

So she did the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time, communicated poorly. It's insulting to voters who are going to see right through the move.

Now they are scrambling to find $1B for this year to replace the revenue, no idea where they will find another $14B for the MTA capital plan.. and best of all they are talking various taxes to replace the revenue.

So instead of the single-digit % of NYers who drive into the CBD paying.. we all get to pay!

Steve, The whole thing is crazy. But people keep reelecting this type of politicians.

Technically we've only elected 2 out of our last 4 governors on their first term...

NY Pols are a special breed.

"...using authority she likely doesn't even legally have..."

Well, she does require MTA Board approval for the delay, but she has effective control of the board (23 members, 4 of which are recommended by the mayor, and 7 (who represent the adjacent counties) who only have 1 collective vote). Sounds like something Robert Moses would have thought up.

We elected Kathy Hochul as Lieutenant Governor. Part of the job of Lieutenant Governor is to be able to assume the position of Governor in case of resignation of the Governor. It's all written in the law and transparent to the public.

The whole issue is a sham. We are going to "solve" the issue of congestion when it was caused on purpose to begin with. Of course Congestion Pricing won't dramatically change the number of vehicles entering the "Congestion Zone" because if it did the MTA would actually lose money from the reduction in tolls collected. Not to mention wh

The whole issue is a sham. We are going to "solve" the issue of congestion when it was caused on purpose to begin with. Of course Congestion Pricing won't dramatically change the number of vehicles entering the "Congestion Zone" because if it did the MTA would actually lose money from the reduction in tolls collected. Not to mention what a sham the "Zone" is:
So Avenue D and Houston Street suffers adversely from congestion, but 61st Street and Broadway doesn't?

If there was genuine interest in reducing congestion DOT would institute Off Hours Delivery which they have long recognized as the best solution to this problem.

It's more nefarious than that.

There's good, sound, rational public policy that averts disasters, mitigates the effects of poverty, tamps down on criminality and provides a bedrock of services and amenities. Then there's social engineering by technocrats - incessant tinkering with fiscal policy and government regulation intended to do some public good often with myriad unintended consequences. I wonder if the best thing to do in some cases is nothing. If traffic gets too bad, people will take public transportation.

This was a simple idea that didn't need to be so hard. If they simply tolled all of the pathways into Manhattan, not 59th street, at the same level of the tunnels, it would have generated as much or more money, and much less special interest. It should never be cheaper to drive into Manhattan compared to public transportation.

Saying that NYers elect the lieutenant governor is a little like saying we elect judges. Technically true, but not really. The current Lt. Governor (how many actually know who that is?) received the exact same votes state-wide, down to the last one, as Hochul.

Wonder how much increased crime (filth - people on 86 and lex must be familiar with a pooper) in the subways driven by mentally unstable people drives traffic into the streets? Then there is a fear of crowded places due to Covid. And in many cases bikes lanes reducing traffic lanes.

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+1 to below.

MTH: There's good, sound, rational public policy that averts disasters, mitigates the effects of poverty, tamps down on criminality and provides a bedrock of services and amenities.

I am no expert in traffic analysis but wonder why the govt hasn’t created 2 spot passenger loading and unloading zones in the middle of each block with penalties over 5-10 minutes of stopping using all the tech we have. A separate expensive commercial loading zone.

"...there is a fear of crowded places due to Covid..." It's certainly not keeping them off the subways, buses, or masked up in crowded places. I'm just back from errands: UES to Fashion District via subway: 1 or two people wearing masks, train was standing room only. Walked across to east side on various streets & avenues in the 30s & then further downtown - nobody on the street in a mask. 3rd Ave bus back to the UES: packed, probably 3 people in masks. Overseas, Taylor Swift sells out enclosed arenas, and there are reports that >30% of the attendees later got sick:
https://www.elnacional.cat/en/news/taylor-swift-spreads-covid-fans-ill-madrid-paris-concerts_1230525_102.html

Meanwhile, during today's travels I saw 15 (I counted) people staggering around or lying in various states of advanced disarray on the sidewalks, no doubt quite glad that the city isn't taking them somwhere for a bath, a meal, and a secure bed.

nyc_sport,
Bloomberg wanted to toll the Lower Manhattan East River bridges. He was barred by courts and his tantrum was Congestion Pricing

30yrs -- Yes, remember it well. As you have said here many times, his first tantrum was congestion on purpose, which he thought would sufficiently frustrate people to pave the way to congestion pricing. I was/am a huge fan of Mayor Mike, at least compared to his successors and what are likely miles worse future successors, but he played that card all wrong. But I do think that path alone would give rise to a legitimate gripe that one borough and a bunch of rich people in Westchester and CT still have a free pass into the city.

But it is fairly sad how little uproar there is over the fact that Hochul just threw $600MM in the fireplace. Seriously, has any politician anywhere ever did that? There are lunatics randomly slashing people in the streets and we just put the GDP of some countries in the "oops" shredder. And no one is even pretending that this was not done for purely political reasons.

That $600M is a sunk cost. While I agree Hochul's decision is a totally naked vote grab, no one ever brings up the indirect costs of Congestion Pricing. Like in the 4th post in this thread. Hundreds of millions in wasted time. Retail business lost. And that's the tip of the iceberg. It's amazing to me that no one recognizes this is COVID 2.0 as far as RTO goes.

Wall Street Journal says it's $700 million.

Check the photos in this article, https://www.wsj.com/us-news/new-york-congestion-pricing-collapse-traffic-7687ccaf, someone holding the sign "Judas Benedict Arnold Hochul" ...

And then she wore an MTA tshirt yesterday for the pride march.

@stache - I saw that, not sure if it was chutzpah or incompetence