New York City’s Controversial Congestion-Pricing Plan ‘Indefinitely Postponed’

The Lower Manhattan section of the “indefinitely postponed” congestion-pricing zone
Days after it was revealed the New York Governor Kathy Hochul was trying to put the brakes on a highly controversial congestion-pricing plan for New York City that is, or rather was, set to go into effect on June 30, a New York City official confirmed that the plan is now dead in the water.
A New York City official who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the state government and asked to remain anonymous told Frequent Business Traveler and The Travelist that the plan has been “indefinitely postponed.”
What would have been the first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan was to charge drivers using the E-ZPass electronic toll collection system were to have paid $15 to enter the congestion zone, which was Manhattan south of 60th Street.
Trucks would pay a higher rate, as would drivers without E-ZPass transponders.
The governor, the city official said, still believes that the idea is good as an environmental policy but she fears it may further deter commuters from returning to the central business district and also serve as a deterrent to people driving in to see a Broadway or off-Broadway show or dine in a restaurant.
All Broadway theaters are below 60th street, the border of the so-called central business district.
The congestion pricing zone would run from 60th street to the Battery but would not include the two highways that right along the east and west edges of Manhattan, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive on Manhattan’s East Side and the West Side Highway.
Electronic overhead reader equipment that detects E-ZPass transponders and can read license plates has been placed at entrances to and exits from the congestion-pricing zone.
The tolling scheme would, in fact, reduce traffic congestion in Manhattan as well as air pollution, but it would also have created more congestion and air-quality issues north of 60th Street and in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens as well as across the Hudson River in New Jersey.
The congestion-pricing zone fees would produce $1 billion per annum in revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the city’s subways as well as regional buses and two commuter rail lines, the Long Island Rail Road, the busiest commuter railroad in the United States, and Metro-North Railroad, the descendant of commuter rail services dating back as early as 1832. The funds would have gone towards the MTA’s massive capital construction plans.
Not postponing or scrapping the congestion-pricing plan might have had political consequences as well. Some Democrats are facing difficult House races in the New York City suburbs (Governor Hochul is a Democrat) and Republicans planned to use the issue as a major campaign issue.
Congressman Mike Lawler, a Republican representing part of the Hudson Valley, wasted no time in weighing in on the governor’s decision.
“This decision is entirely political,” he told WABC-TV news Thursday morning, starting with a pronounced snicker.
The mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, which is on the west side of the George Washington Bridge and which would have faced a 25% increase in traffic that would have had an adverse effect on local air quality, applauded the move.
“I think it’s a great step in the right direction,” said Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)