New York Should Lead the Way on Congestion Pricing, Not Delay It

Eighteen days ago, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York stood before an audience of world economic leaders in Ireland and promised to transform mobility in New York City with a first-in-the-nation congestion-pricing system. The concept, she said, had stalled for 60 years because leaders feared a backlash from drivers set in their ways. But, she said, “if we’re serious about making cities more livable, we must get over that.”

It was a strong and forthright defense of an imaginative policy that would charge most drivers $15 for entering Manhattan’s densely crowded core. On Wednesday, however, Ms. Hochul abruptly disposed of her steadfast promise with a surprise announcement: She no longer believed congestion pricing was the right idea for the moment. She declared that she would “indefinitely pause” the program — scheduled to begin on June 30 — because she had become concerned it would hamper Manhattan’s economic recovery from the pandemic.

It was a flimsy excuse for a grievous misjudgment. In one stroke, Ms. Hochul had endangered a vital public policy that would have had huge benefits for New York’s environment and quality of life; threatened to dig a huge hole in the desperately needed capital budget of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; and set back the cause of reducing automobile use for cities across the country that have been hoping New York would create a landmark model.

What, really, had changed in the days after the governor’s economic speech? There had been no sudden setback in the city’s financial health; it was Ms. Hochul, in fact, who said in March that New York had already achieved a “full economic recovery from the pandemic.” What had changed, however, was the country’s political climate. Donald Trump had attacked the congestion plan, and multiple Democrats in competitive House races around the New York region had become worried that it would leave them vulnerable to attack. According to multiple reports, they prevailed on Ms. Hochul not to start the plan.

But there is still time to save the plan. Congestion pricing can’t be stopped without a formal vote of the M.T.A. board. Though most of its members are appointed by the governor or her suburban allies, they represent an independent agency and do not have to consent to her panicked political demand. The board members have a fiduciary responsibility to their agency. Postponing or killing the congestion program would mean an immediate loss of a projected $1 billion a year to the agency’s capital plan, meaning no money for a pollution-free electric bus fleet or the extension of the Second Avenue Subway to Harlem. It could also mark the end of a successful, painstaking campaign to modernize the subway system that helps power the largest city in the country.

The clearest indication of the hasty and ill-considered nature of this decision is that Ms. Hochul had no serious plan to replace that revenue. She initially proposed raising the payroll mobility tax on New York City businesses, which would be paid by their employees. But that was immediately shot down by state lawmakers, many of whom pointed out, rightly, that it was unfair to make city workers shoulder this burden while imposing no charge on suburban residents who also use M.T.A. rail and bus systems.

Her next idea was somehow to find $1 billion in the state’s general fund, and her aides spent Friday (expected to be the last day of the 2024 legislative session) trying to find support for this proposal. Lawmakers should firmly reject it. Even if the money could be scraped together, general-fund revenues are not the kind of secured funding stream needed to support the sale of bonds, which the M.T.A. needs to pay for those projects. Congestion pricing, however, would be a steady source of money, and if lawmakers hold the line and refuse to replace it, the state may have no choice but to return to the original system.

And that system, while not perfect, is a good one, studied and hashed out by more than one generation of planners, financial experts and engineers. Imposing a toll on drivers in a clogged city core has proved successful in cities like London, Stockholm and Singapore. In London, the system reduced congestion after it began by 30 percent and increased bus ridership by 33 percent, according to one report. In Stockholm, rates of childhood asthma fell by nearly 50 percent.

The dominant car culture in the United States has prevented similar experiments here, but in 2019, after a summer of mass transit breakdowns, the New York State Legislature passed a law creating a congestion-pricing system that would reduce the number of cars in the Manhattan core by 100,000 vehicles a day. Ideally, the system would have been modified to impose a toll based on how many miles cars are driven within the congestion zone, rather than tolling every vehicle the same upon entering, and there could have been more flexibility in the toll to ease it in during the early years.

Nonetheless, the fears and immediate opposition of suburban drivers around the city, as well as the State of New Jersey, were always overblown. In New York, a vast majority of commuters, 5.7 million people, ride the region’s subways, commuter rails or buses. Only 1.5 percent of commuters would have paid the toll. An overwhelming majority of people who come to Manhattan for work or pleasure would be unaffected, except in a positive way: With fewer cars, the roads would be safer for pedestrians, the subways would be substantially improved, and the air quality would be much better.

All of that progress is now at risk because Ms. Hochul lost her nerve at the last minute. As she said just a few weeks ago in Ireland, “making cities more livable starts with getting more cars off the roads, reducing pollution and making significant investments in our public transit systems.” There is still time for her to put those words into practice and reverse her misguided decision.

Source photograph by Gary D’Ercole, via Getty Images.

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