As we've been discussing for days now, Gov. Hochul will announce her post-election "unpause" of congestion pricing — with a peak toll of $9 — today in Manhattan.
Gothamist broke what was left of this story yesterday afternoon and everyone followed, including The City, Crain's, the Daily News, The Post (which reported the governor wanted to go as low as $7) and amNY (which had the best lede: "It’s rush hour for congestion pricing"). But one thing we didn't hear anything near enough of is that the pause, and the resulting lawsuits and demagoguery and grief was a crisis of Hochul's own making.
The Times used such language as, "The last-minute effort to save the tolling plan ..." as a way of suggesting that Hochul had saved congestion pricing from Donald Trump's defeatist jaws. But that adjective — "last-minute" — only exists because of Hochul's original inaction verb.
Frankly, we were surprised that the Paper of Record was simply willing to tell the truth about Hochul's naked political game playing — and, frankly, how badly she played it. According to the Times (emphasis mine), "She has consistently insisted that she held up the plan because she believed that a $15 toll was too high, but many speculated that she also believed the toll could hurt Democrats in the November election."
Many speculated? There's, in fact, no speculation because if Hochul truly believed the $15 toll was "too high," she could have (and should have) proposed $9 on June 5 when she announced her pause. She didn't need to wait until after an election, especially with Janno Lieber holding a big rubber stamp in his hand, just waiting for inking orders.
Late on Wednesday, the key advocacy groups — including Riders Alliance, Transportation Alternatives and Reinvent Albany — hailed the governor for indeed setting congestion pricing in motion, but we're not carving sculptural busts of the 57th governor just yet. She created this crisis, robbing the MTA of (as of last night) $375 million in revenue, while adding nearly one million tons of carbon dioxide into the air. And New Yorkers lost nearly 5.5 million hours in traffic that would not have happened if the $15 toll had been properly implemented.
Worse, Hochul has pulled the political insulation away from congestion pricing. Instead of allowing it to be implemented properly, she has now shown that whining by drivers is a winning strategy. The notion that she, or her successors, will one day raise the toll is laughable. There will be fights about this toll from now until Elon Musk invents toll-free teleportation (which he will then only give to the Russians anyway).
But, yes, today will be a good day. Hochul will announce that congestion pricing will start (albeit six months delayed and very much endangered by the incoming president). New York City will be a better place (albeit with more traffic than it would have had). There will be fewer road deaths and less pollution (again, more than we all wanted). And there will be a nice funding stream for transit (although narrower).
Mission accomplished, albeit by a very flawed general.
In other news:
- First, don't miss Sophia Lebowitz's look inside the shopping bag at Instacart, which could be called "Insta-exploitation."
- There was a brushfire in Inwood Hill Park. (NY Post)
- How corrupt is this administration? Even the Post is covering it!
- And The City has been covering it all along. Here's the latest.
- The voice of the Long Island Rail Road has gone silent. Van Ritshie has died. (amNY)
- Mayoral wannabe Zohran Mamdani spoke to Hell Gate about free buses and other things.
