New York officials have shelved a controversial $15 toll for motorists entering parts of the Manhattan borough of New York City during high traffic hours, just weeks before it was set to begin.
Under the proposed plan, most commercial and passenger vehicles driving into Manhattan’s central business district, specifically the blocks south of 60th Street, would have to pay a daily $15 toll during peak hours. Truck drivers would be charged anywhere from $24 to $36, depending on their truck’s size.
The tolling plan was originally scheduled to go into effect on June 30. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) expected the plan to bring in a revenue of $1 billion each year to fund its public transportation systems.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who advocated in favor of congestion pricing, on Wednesday admitted that circumstances today are different from 5 years ago when it was first proposed as the answer to improving traffic, air quality, and public transit.
“After careful consideration, I have come to the difficult decision that implementing the planned congestion pricing system risks too many unintended consequences for New Yorkers at this time,” the Democrat governor said. “For that reason, I have directed the MTA to indefinitely pause the program.”
“Let’s be real: a $15 charge may not mean a lot to someone who has the means, but it can break the budget of a working- or middle-class household. It puts the squeeze on the very people who make this City go: the teachers, first responders, small business workers, bodega owners,” she added. “I cannot add another burden to working- and middle-class New Yorkers.”
In the meantime, the governor said she will look into the options of using the state reserves or implementing a tax on city businesses to fill the MTA funding gap left by halting congestion pricing. But those options would need the state Legislature’s approval.
Some New Yorkers Unhappy
The news sparked frustration among public transit activists, who criticized the governor’s decision as a betrayal of New Yorkers relying on public transportation to go about the business of their daily lives.
“The next time your train is late, your bus is trapped in traffic, your subway station is still missing an elevator, you know who to blame: Governor Kathy Hochul,” Elizabeth Adams of Transportation Alternatives, a New York City-based nonprofit advocacy group, said in a news release. “Transit riders are the majority of New Yorkers … and today Kathy Hochul sided with powerful special interests instead.”
For New York’s commercial truck drivers, however, the decision comes as a much needed relief from their financial burdens.
The Trucking Association of New York (TANY), a trade group that sued the city to stop the new tolls, said the trucking industry is already being “squeezed from all sides.”
“High tax rates, unreasonable liability standards, emerging congestion pricing fees, labor shortages, and misguided if well-intentioned sustainability initiatives are placing undue burdens on the more than 100,000 trucking companies that are based in New York,” TANY President Kendra Hems said in response to Wednesday’s announcement.
Across the Hudson River, some lawmakers in New Jersey celebrated the announcement.
In recent years, New Jersey lawmakers have filed legal challenges against the plan, arguing that it failed to consider how changing traffic patterns might negatively affect the Garden State’s communities in terms of the economy, the environment, and more.
“After a five year fight, New York appears to have done right by hardworking Jersey families and backed off their outrageous Congestion Tax,” said U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), whose congressional district covers Fort Lee, a city in northern New Jersey connected to the New York City metropolis by the busy George Washington Bridge.
A staunch opponent of the proposed congestion plan, Mr. Gottheimer has long expressed concerns that the new tolls would subject Fort Lee to more traffic and air pollution, because more drivers would be pushed to go through George Washington Bridge in order to avoid the Midtown Manhattan tolling zone.
“The Congestion Tax would have caused more traffic and cancer-causing pollution for families in northern Jersey and the outer boroughs,” the congressman said in a statement issued Wednesday. “Today, Jersey families, their wallets, and the environment won big.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, whose administration filed a federal lawsuit against what he called an “unfair and unjust” plan on behalf of Manhattan commuters living in his state, also welcomed the decision.
“Although we have had a difference of opinion with our colleagues in New York on congestion pricing implementation, we have always had a shared vision for growing our regional economy, investing in infrastructure, protecting our environment, and creating good-paying jobs on both sides of the Hudson River,” he said on Wednesday. “We fully embrace the notion that the success of Manhattan is inextricably linked to the prosperity of the entire Tri-State Area.”
From The Epoch Times