Wednesday’s Headlines: Welcome to the Panderdome

It starts.

Today in Albany, the first of what are expected to be more than a dozen bills aiming to chip away at the already-promising congestion pricing/congestion relief zone project will be introduced.

This first, according to a draft obtained by Streetsblog, is a bill by Assembly Member Stacey Pheffer Amato of Queens that would exempt all New York City police officers from paying the just-launched toll without regard for where they live.

The bill is a reintroduction of Pheffer Amato's bill from last session, A3341, which didn't pass last year after Gov. Hochul paused congestion pricing. (Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton is carrying the Senate version of the same bill.)

Pheffer Amato did not return a call and an email from Streetsblog on Tuesday to discuss why she wants to give police officers an exemption from this particular toll, especially since cops — a majority of whom live in the suburbs — get free parking at their precincts and disproportionately contribute to congestion.

But Pheffer Amato is hardly alone in throwing baubles at the placard elite. Streetsblog and Reinvent Albany have been tracking at least 17 bills (34 if you count the other-house versions) that were introduced in the last legislative session to grant a toll exemption to some cherished constituency entitled placard-holder. There was:

• Senate bill S9581 that would give all Rockland County residents a rebate on the toll.
• Assembly bill A9798, which would give all taxi drivers an exemption.
• Senate bill S8538 (Assembly version), which would give all first responders an exemption (that's another Scarcella-Spanton bill)
• Assembly bill A9558 (Senate version), which would give an exemption to all FDNY employees with the title of "firefighter, fire marshal, marine engineer, pilot or wiper."
• Assembly bill A8413A, which would require the MTA to "reimburse certain individuals from transit deserts when they travel into the central business district who need medical treatment or are providing religious services" [sic]. (What could possibly go wrong with that???)
• Senate bill S8702 (Assembly version) that would give the exemption not only to Rockland County residents, but Orange County residents, too.
• Assembly bill A8840, which would exempt all "individuals residing in transit deserts."
• Senate bill S8149 (Assembly version), which would simply repeal congestion pricing (you kinda have to tip your hat to the brass balls of that one).
• Senate bill S6388 (Assembly version) delays the start date congestion pricing to no earlier than Jan. 1, 2029.
• Assembly bill A8210, would exempt veterans (that's another Pheffer Amato classic).
• Assembly bill A8239 (Senate version) would exempt commuter vans (though they ended up being exempt anyway).
• Assembly bill A8414 would exempt "officers and employees of the city of New York, first responders, physicians, nurses, and people entering the city for medical treatment.” In other words, hundreds of thousands of people.
• Senate bill S7635 (Assembly version) would exempt "vehicles owned by civil service employees, college students and commercial and residential repair businesses.”
• Senate bill S7602 would exempt any resident of Staten Island (another Scarcella-Spanton giveaway).
• Assembly bill A541 would exempt residents of the central business district who have a household income less than or equal to 120 percent of the median income.
• Senate bill S8952 would exempt all residents of Lower Manhattan (another one from Scarcella-Spanton).

You get the idea. By the time the state legislature is finished, all that will be left of congestion pricing is a few even-angrier Jersey residents. Activists are watching.

"The last thing the New York State legislature needs is more bills ... that pander to special interests," said Rachael Fauss, senior policy advisor for Reinvent Albany. "The congestion pricing program's current exemptions and discounts were the product of months of public input, and seek to do the most good for the most people. If the legislature tries to exempt more people, they will just drive up the costs of repairing the transit system for everyone else, and wreck this nation-leading program as it is just getting off the ground."

But as Mayor Adams is so fond of saying, even Ray Charles can see what's going on in Albany. Just before the end of last year, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins rejected the MTA's next big renovation plan on the grounds that $33 billion of its funding remained unidentified.

The plan was supposed to start on Jan. 1, so the two pols' decision to blow it up at the last minute was clearly a bargaining ploy. What do Heastie and Stewart-Cousins want? Neither has called us back, but it stands to reason that they want something. And since Gov. Hochul is the Fred Bannister of pandering, it doesn't take a calculator to add up the math here: She wants the $33 billion to shore up a crumbling subway system and the members of the legislature want to be able to look like they're standing up for our heroes/hard-working taxi drivers/Orange County voters/city employees/etc when, in fact, the exemptions they seek will ultimately benefit a tiny few.

The legislative session begins next week. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, congestion pricing still obsessed the media (and by "media," we mean "New York Post):

• Given that the Post is already on the warpath against any effort to raise the missing $33 billion for essential subway repairs, it's likely Gov. Hochul will cave earlier than expected.
• The Post gave op-ed space to Rep. Mike "Enema" Lawler, while we allowed MTA CEO Janno Lieber to respond to the lawmaker's rectal taunt. The Post did, too. As did the Daily News, finally getting into the congestion pricing story.
• The Post also discovered the map of congestion pricing and didn't like it.
• The Post celebrated the mayor of Boca Raton — that's in Florida — for mocking our congestion toll. (Yeah, let's put a pin in that one the next time the Post condemns an out-of-towner for telling us how to do things in Noo Yawk.)
• amNY did another explainer for confused drivers.
• Gothamist offered a great idea: New Jersey should implement its own congestion pricing.
• I was on Inside Edition!
• And here's a good thread from Michael Ostrovsky:

In other news:

• amNY swallowed whole DOT's press release about an alleged crackdown on covered plates. We gave you the real story.