Killing congestion pricing was a good call for NY and NJ. We need a better plan

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to indefinitely delay congestion pricing was a welcome and necessary step to prevent significant financial and economic hardship on both sides of the Hudson.

It’s critical that we don’t let this reprieve go to waste. We must use this time to reevaluate the initial proposal and come up with a mechanism that truly achieves — in a fair and equitable manner — the stated goals of reducing traffic, combatting pollution, and generating funds for public transit. 

We need a better congestion pricing plan

To be clear, simply kicking the can down the road by delaying a bad plan until political and economic circumstances change is not a solution and it does nothing to address the negative impact the current plan would have on consumers and businesses.

Few better understand street congestion than the truck drivers who deliver nearly 90% of all goods in New York City to businesses and homes across the five boroughs. The ubiquitous nature of trucks, and their role as the foundation of the city’s economy, ties the industry’s financial wellbeing to that of all consumers.

Our industry should have been front and center in the discussion leading up to New York’s congestion pricing plan. Sadly, our input fell on deaf ears, which led to an unfair — and we believe, unconstitutional — tolling proposal that would have disproportionately impacted trucks, and by extension, their customers and consumers.

Our legal challenge to the now-delayed congestion pricing plan still stands, and we are troubled by the MTA CEO’s pledge to continue to fight our lawsuit and others even as the proposal’s fate — at least in the governor’s eyes — is sealed.

Under that plan, trucks would be charged $24 or $36 per trip into the congestion zone below 60th Street in Manhattan, depending on their size, for delivering essential goods that keep the economy humming. By contrast, passenger vehicles — who by and large have alternative options via rail, bus or subway — would have been charged $15 once a day.

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We need a pricing framework that is more flexible

A closer look shows how misguided this pricing framework truly is. The truth is that this was a pre-pandemic method to generate revenue for the long-cash-strapped MTA masquerading as an effort to combat climate change. Desperate for new revenue, the MTA was in a bind. Its ill-guided answer was to target the one industry that cannot control its own traffic patterns and is therefore held hostage to any toll structure the authority might decide to impose.

Logistics companies make deliveries when businesses request them. And since most businesses function during peak business hours, that’s when most deliveries occur — to say nothing of the next-day at-home delivery that New Yorkers of all backgrounds now take for granted. They also must enter the zone as often as requested, making per-entry tolling schemes even more burdensome.

Not only must trucks enter the Manhattan business district during peak times, but they also have no alternative method of delivery. It is impossible to move heavy freight — or even basic consumer goods, for that matter – via the Metro North, Path, Long Island Railroad, or the D train. That is not a choice. It is just reality. And the MTA knows it.

The MTA also knows the original congestion pricing plan would not reduce traffic — only relocate it above 60th Street to neighborhoods like the South Bronx and Harlem, which share some of the highest rates of air pollution and related health impacts like asthma.

To be clear, the trucking industry is not opposed to the concept of congestion pricing and supports investment in public transportation. As such, we encourage the MTA to restructure the original congestion pricing plan or seek alternative methods of funding.

Exempting trucks from any future proposal is an obvious option, as is capping fees to once a day and implementing pricing parity with passenger vehicles. Any funding plan must be crafted under fair conditions that do not create a Hunger Games scenario, pitting one industry against another.

The process to date has been anything but fair. All we are seeking is an opportunity to be heard and improve a bad plan to the benefit of all New Yorkers, and we appreciate the governor’s actions that make this a possibility.

Kendra Hems is the president of The Trucking Association of New York.