Hochul Suspends Congestion Pricing
New York Governor Kathy Hochul just announced that she’s putting congestion pricing on pause. The plan had gone through years of political and regulatory hell and finally passed the state legislature earlier this year, to go into effect on June 30th, in 25 days. There was some political criticism of it, and lawsuits by New Jersey, but all the expectations were that it would go into effect on schedule. Today, without prior warning, Hochul announced that she’s looking to pause the program, and then confirmed it was on hold. The future of the program is uncertain; activists across the region are mobilizing for a last-ditch effort, as are suppliers like Alstom. The future of the required $1 billion a year in congestion pricing revenue is uncertain as well, and Hochul floated a plan to instead raise taxes on businesses, which is not at all popular and very unlikely to happen.
So last-minute is the announcement that, as Clayton Guse points out, the MTA has already contracted with a firm to provide the digital and physical infrastructure for toll collection, for $507 million. If congestion pricing is canceled as the governor plans, the contract will need to be rescinded, cementing the MTA’s reputation as a nightmare client that nobody should want to work with unless they get paid in advance and with a risk premium. Much of the hardware is already in place, hardly a sign of long-term commitment not to enact congestion pricing.
Area advocates are generally livid. As it is, there are questions about whether it’s even legal for Hochul to do so – technically, only the MTA board can decide this. But then the governor appoints the MTA board, and the appointments are political. Eric is even asking about federal funding for Second Avenue Subway, since the MTA is relying on congestion pricing for its future capital plans.
The one local activist I know who opposes congestion pricing says “I wish” and “they’ll restart it the day after November elections.” If it’s a play for low-trust voters who drive and think the additional revenue for the MTA, by law at least $1 billion a year, will all be wasted, it’s not helping. The political analysts I’m seeing from within the transit advocacy community are portraying it as an unforced error, making Hochul look incompetent and waffling, rather than boldly blocking something that’s adverse to key groups of voters.
The issue here isn’t exactly that if Hochul sticks to her plan to cancel congestion pricing, there will not be congestion pricing in New York. Paris and Berlin don’t have congestion pricing either. In Paris, Anne Hidalgo is open about her antipathy to market-based solutions like congestion pricing, and prefers to reduce car traffic through taking away space from cars to give to public transportation, pedestrians, and cyclists. People who don’t like it are free to vote for more liberal (in the European sense) candidates. In Berlin, similarly, the Greens support congestion pricing (“City-Maut”), but the other parties on the left do not, and certainly not the pro-car parties on the right. If the Greens got more votes and had a stronger bargaining position in coalition negotiations, it might happen, and anyone who cares in either direction knows how to vote on this matter. In New York, there has never been such a political campaign. Rather, the machinations that led Hochul to do this, which people are speculating involve suburban representatives who feel politically vulnerable, have been entirely behind the scenes. There’s no transparency, and no commitment to providing people who are not political insiders with consistent policy that they can use to make personal, social, or business plans around.
Everything right now is speculation, precisely because there’s neither transparency nor certainty in state-level governance. Greg Shill is talking about this in the context of suburban members of the informal coalition of Democratic voters; but then it has to be informal, because were it formal, suburban politicians could have demanded and gotten disproportionately suburb-favoring public transit investments. Ben Kabak is saying that it was House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries who pressed Hochul for this; Jeffries himself said he supports the pause for further study (there was a 4,000 page study already).
The chaos of this process is what plays to the impression that the state can’t govern itself; Indignity mentions it alongside basic governance problems in the city and the state. This is how the governor is convincing anti-congestion pricing cynics that it will be back in November and pro-congestion pricing ones that it’s dead, the exact opposite of what she should be doing. Indecision is not popular with voters, and if Hochul doesn’t understand that, it makes it easy to understand why she won New York in 2022 by only 6.4%, a state that in a neutral environment like 2022 the Democrats usually win by 20%.
But it’s not about Hochul personally. Hochul is a piece of paper with “Democrat” written on it; the question is what process led to her elevation for governor, an office with dictatorial powers over policy as long as state agencies like the MTA are involved. This needs to be understood as the usual democratic deficit. Hochul acts like this because this signals to insiders that they are valued, as the only people capable of interpreting whatever is going on in state politics (or city politics – mayoral machinations are if anything worse). Transparency democratizes information, and what Hochul is doing right now does the exact opposite, in a game where everyone wins except the voters and the great majority of interests who are not political insiders.
Pedestrian Observations 
What a shameful decision. Cynical, nonsensical on its face, and destructive to public trust in government and institutions.
Kathy Hochul did this for POLITICAL REASONS – to help her DEMOCROOKED friends which are in FREE FALL in the polls, and are in danger of being DEFEATED on November 5, 2020 which may happen as well. Pure and simple, because the MTA is a very wasteful State agency since its inception in 1965 to defang Robert Moses. Now almost 60 years later and all the money spent, with very little to show for it as well.
So DEMOCROOKS — BEWARE !!!
I mean as much as I love Pigouvian taxation being a proud Londoner, this and the troubles with Carbon taxes globally actually suggest that explicit taxation focusing on negative externalities has an inferior record of success compared to a positive externality infrastructure provision based strategies. Mostly because spending money on infrastracture is easier than imposing new types of taxation.
That said the real thing that’s coming is that Petrol/Gasoline taxation is facing long-term decline and collapse in face of the EV revolution. Furthermore the so-called “Neoliberal”* anti-tax consensus among 1st world nations is facing its end on the triple crisis of rising interest rates, rearmament costs and Elderly welfare. Fiscal necessity may yet make impossible changes possible.
*Which is a silly name its Boomer Conservative and its much more about cashing in lower interest rates and peace-dividends than it ever was cutting welfare states. But that narrative is inconvenient.
Very TRUE statement pal !!! However, Congestion Pricing was “postponed” because the Democrooks are running scared of the voter backlash that will result if its implemented before election day.
After what happened in the last House of Reps election in New York state, a bit of caution is merited.
Speaking of the House races — in yesterdays (June 5) primary election in New Jerseys 10th Congressional district, incumbent Donald Payne Jr was the winner of the Democratic primary.. Donald Payne Jr. died on April 24th. In this district, the winner of the Democratic primary is the de facto winner of the general election.
Congestion pricing is needed but this plan was/is a poor one. Fix it – do not kill it. Done right it could be win/win as those paying will receive value of trips as others are drawn off the roads by better options.
-there should be no charge late nights when there is no congestion – this was a tax not a fee. The fee was too high.
-this should have funded new lines to relieve congestion and not to cover regular operations, maintenance, routing replacements and upgrades.
The nighttime fee was 1/4 of the daytime. Not a huge burden at all.
There would have been new lines in Harlem, Queens, and Brooklyn.
Do those new lines provide at least 50% of their benefits to people living in the 3rd, 4th, 17th and 19th congressional districts for the House of Representatives?
It was actually passed by the legislature back in 2019, making this even more egregious IMO. I see what Alon is saying about Hochul being a complete void of a person with no real characteristics, a generic corporate Democrat. That’s probably true. But it belies the intense antipathy I now feel towards a politician I was previously just contemptuous of.
‘Congestion pricing’ presently looks like nothing more than a tax increase to pay for higher MTA salaries/pensions/benefits. Prudent financials is not a hallmark of NY government or the MTA. Hochul acted because she saw a public relations freight train headed towards her (obviously, the Nash equilibrium had not been reached, since Hochul changed her strategy).
Even if the money was burned congestion pricing would still be good. We need to take what’s available now rather than wait for the perfect plan.
Congestion Pricing:
Good political decision but obviously frustrating for the city. Shame it wasn’t cancelled earlier on in the process and/or a more sensible date was picked for the charge to take affect – i.e not 6 months before a presidential election.
Hakeem Jeffries in the house is obviously right to have pushed for this to make it easier for the Democratic Party to win the house in November.
Clearly the most sensible thing was probably for the suburban services to be improved ahead of the congestion tax coming into effect. London and Singapore both have much better suburban services than New York does. Probably in the New York case at least half the money raised from the congestion charge should have been spent on improving suburban services.
Having a payroll tax or a business tax in the city to pay for the second avenue subway sounds much more of a sensible way to pay for it.
Long Islanders only have themselves (well, their politicians) to blame for poor service. Especially in the 3rd district- the Port Washington line was supposed to have more service but it would have required turning a parking lot into yard space, and was blocked.
Drivers get a disproportionate amount of infrastructure provided to them in the city, using taxes that NYCers also pay, and suburbanites already get rail services even more heavily subsidized than the subway. Their highways used to be tax-paying properties, and now pollute the air NYC residents breathe. A tax on New York City alone is perverse, not to mention terrible for the environment in general. And Alon makes a good point- voter’s opinion of Hochul is likely baked in, and waffling does not look good. No reason to think this is going to work in her or the Democrats’ favor.
Surely a more creative solution for storing trains could have been found than doing something unpopular like reducing the size of the car park. Couldn’t the trains be stored somewhere else or in the platforms as well as the yard space?
And it looks like most of the swing congressional districts are further out the city – and that subway lines wouldn’t help their residents. Perhaps the money should have been spent on serious off peak service on the New York commuter railway lines.
Worth adding here that the Queens portion of the 3rd district would have benefited from reduced LIRR fares. Certainly suburban service should be improved regardless. That’s also within Hochul’s power, but she chose to tank congestion pricing instead.
Storing trains at platforms is an operational nightmare for both train and track maintenance.
For routine train cleaning and maintenance, workers and equipment have to be brought to trains rather than vice versa. This reduces maintenance productivity and increases costs. In turn, track inspection and maintenance isn’t possible without clearing the track to make room for MoW equipment, which also reduces maintenance productivity and increases costs.
Station parking also increases the risks of vandalism, or at least increases the costs of protecting against vandalism. A central yard is cheaper/easier to defend and patrol than a group of stations.
Yard space is essential for rail transport. If it’s not available due to NIMBYs going BANANAs, then the problem is the NIMBYs and the governments that choose to listen to them, not a lack of imagination on behalf of operating agencies. The solution is less local democracy.
The first Oxford-Marylebone train of the day is stored in the platform. It is fine and better than upsetting the neighbours.
Plus a bigger car park allows you to sell more train tickets which brings in more revenue.
With regards to Hochul not supporting other rail projects out of the city, well perhaps no one has suggested it to her?
The first thing anybody ought to consider is arithmetic.
Storing a car (a “compact” hah hah hah hah hah US car), used by ONE commuter, at a US train station, consumes about 61m^2 of space (a one-way aisle serving two adjoining 45° parking rowsis about 15.7m wide for two parking bays plus aisle; 3.9m high per “compact” angled bay.)
Two train parking tracks plus access space plus fencing etc fit comfortably in 15.7m. Neglecting turnouts and connecting space for back-of-the-envelope simplicity, the space to stable 2x150m trains would store 76 cars. 76 single occupant vehicles, stored all day, for a grand total of 76 rail passengers.
The idea that 76 solo drivers mattering for anything is totally risible. (Also, my god, the construction and overhead costs of anything at all connected to this. What’s a squllion billion zillion divided by 76?)
My opinions about (ie white hot hatred of) grotesque levels of American Olde Tyme Commuter Railroad inefficiency and overhead and overbuilding and feather-bedding are no secret, but you’re simoply unable to think at all if you think that a loss of a hundred parking spaces matters in the slightest to anything. If you can even measure the loss of 100 riders/day as a “loss” it probably means the entire station should be erased from the map.
If the car park isn’t completely empty already and you plan to run more trains then locals will worry about it and object – even if each parking space takes up 61sqm.
And honestly as per Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Washington_station) it sounds like the existing parking was pretty full.
There were many issues with the plan. A) You are forcing commuters onto a dirty, crime ridden, homeless housing, smelly, poorly run system. Maintain the subways to a modest level of decency first. B) The way the system was engineered every commuter merely passing through Manhattan from the West side of the Hudson would be forced to use the GW Bridge to avoid a toll. If you used the Lincoln or Holland Tunnel to access West Street you would be charged on top of the toll. The GW will be constantly grid-locked. C) The MTA can not manage the subway system. Throwing money at them is burning cash. Although some commenters think this is okay.
The Holland and Lincoln Tunnels are already gridlocked. And the subway smells fine.
The subway does to be fair look worse than the London or Paris systems, and much worse than for example Singapore’s MRT.
Manhattan is one of the very few places where a congestion charge wouldn’t be a regressive tax that clears the roads of the lower middle-class and poor to make way for the upper middle- and parasite classes. A congestion charge would have impacted those already wealthy enough to afford Manhattan driving costs. In an era when wealth only flows upwards, it is not surprising that a tax effectively on the upper middle class would turn out to be very politically fragile.
Beyond Manhattan, in cities without effective public transport, congestion charges will have horrible impacts on socioeconomic equity. Congestion charges clear the roads, but at the expense of making the driving poor worse off by taking significant portions of their income and/or by forcing them to accept sub-optimum jobs away from the city core.
The failure of the Manhattan congestion would be a good thing primarily as it would discourage cities that lack alternatives to driving from pursuing similar policies.
The fondness for congestion charges (and, for that matter, road removal) on behalf of many urbanists does not say good things about the movement’s regard for socioeconomic equity. Reducing car trips should not, as many urbanists seemingly argue, be seen as an overriding goal to be pursued without regard to overall access to mobility and quality of life.
The improvements to bus speeds would certainly be helpful even in rail-less cities.
I’m not sure why road removal is supposed to be bad for equality?
Reducing car trips is a worthy goal. Driving is bad for the global poor, who are already disproportionately suffering from global warming, before we even get into its effect on the first-world poor. Obviously good transit is something that should be pursued too but I question whether better mobility in the US is worth the heat deaths, flooding, etc elsewhere.
By necessity, the lower middle class drives.
Housing served by effective public transport is a very expensive luxury that’s only available to the beneficiaries of above-average generational wealth. Transit-oriented developments and walkable communities are wealthy areas. Everyone else is required to live in lower-cost outlying areas that lack the density and/or political power to support usable public transport service.
Curtailing access to road infrastructure in non-residential areas effectively restricts access to those who are wealthy enough to live within transit/bike/walk distance of their destinations, with obvious implications for access to employment and other opportunities. This is especially true in cities (such as Vancouver) where traffic calming measures, while purported to reduce car traffic, also make bus service slower and less reliable.
There’s a reason why wealthy, deeply NIMBY, urban residential areas are frequently so fond of bike lanes — and it has nothing to do with environmentalism or reducing congestion.
As long as housing served by effective public transport commands a significant price premium, restricting road mobility is nothing more than another form of economic segregation.
(I fixed the comment placement.)
City center jobs are even more of a luxury. In the US, there are a handful of metro areas where transit commuters outearn solo drivers, but it’s never by much, and it’s always mediated by transit mostly serving city center jobs, not by residential geography (and in New York the median incomes of the two groups are the same). Working- and lower middle-class drivers don’t drive to city center very much.
That’s certainly … a take.
The only question I still have pertains to the part George Soros plays in the global bike lane road-access-restriction conspiracy.
It’s naive to summarily write off allegations that some anti-car advocates work in bad faith.
I’ve seen the same people argue for bike lanes and traffic calming in their own neighborhoods while fighting against bus priority measures on major roads. It’s clear these people are using greenwashed policy tools to keep non-locals out of their neighborhoods rather than advocating for a less car-centric approach to transportation overall.
Can you give examples? In Berlin what I’m seeing is that the pro-bike lane, pro-traffic calming groups also support dedicated bus/tram lanes and expansion of trams (and oppose U-Bahn construction to other neighborhoods but it’s not “keep non-locals out”).
Ooooh, naïve! One of my favourite blog comment words! Just behind “nuance“.
So, sure, the naïve bike lane cabal is working, hand in glove, with the cosmopolitan hegemony, to achieve a bad faith destruction of the honest working man. Trans-national elites simply do not appreciate local nuance, do they?
It is hard to even imagine a more poltically powerful, insidious, power-behind-the-throne, nefarious, globe-spanning force than “anti-car advocates”, is it not? Behold the carnage they have inflicted upon the globe!
The main issue isn’t that the congestion charge hurts the wealthy (which it actually doesn’t as $15 is irrelevant to the US rich – that is the cost of one banana right?).
The issue is that it hurts the people living in House and state swing districts and brings pretty much all its benefits to people living in safe House and state swing districts.
New York is also safe enough at a state level that even if this gains you 10k votes in the swing districts and costs you 100k votes in the city that it is still worth it electorally as a trade off.
The big difference in Britain is that if Worcester Woman was going to London for the day she would go on the train, whereas Poughkeepsie man would drive.
Poughkeepsie man takes the train too. The modal split for people commuting to the congestion zone in New York is high; suburbanites drive anywhere except Manhattan.
Poughkeepsie man doesn’t work in the city. He will only go into the city for leisure.
And in Britain if you live in Worcester and go to London to the museums or to the theatre you would probably go on the train. From Poughkeepsie for leisure you would probably drive.
So who is using the trains? Which run express from before the crack of dawn to mid evening.
Commuters are using the trains, probably more so than into London.
I simply don’t think they are getting the same level of leisure travel the London services get so the overall percentage of the population who live in those towns who use the train is low.
Also difficult to improve the commuter services beyond increasing their speed which isn’t great – but the frequency at peak is certainly very respectable.
you wrote
The commuters are kayaking in from across the river? They are bicycling up from Tarrytown?
and that he drives in for leisure – when you wrote
He doesn’t work there and he drives in when he’s visiting. Just who is using the trains? Somebody is using the trains or the MTA would stop running them.
Do the New York commuter railways have a problem with overcrowded trains on the weekend?
I had lunch today across the parking lot from the Poughkeepsie train station. The station has a multistory parking garage, and it is full (the only parking available is on side streets, specifically Rinaldi Boulevard). One of today’s lunch friends of mine used to daily commute from Poughkeepsie to the World Trade Center, until having to flee down lots of stairs on 9/11. The trains (both Hudson Line and Amtrak) are busy 7 days a week. The parking is both by permit and daily. The number of permits is restricted to ensure that spots are available. Weekend parking at most lots on the Hudson Line north of Yonkers is free (Laz is the management company. Some train lots are owned/run by the towns and have more restrictions).
Are there commuter trains full and standing on the weekend into New York?
What does how crowded they are have to do with who is using them. Suburbanites have car free friends and relatives. they are allowed to use the trains to visit the bucolic splendor of suburbia, too. And they allow people who don’t have friends or relatives along the line to use it. I suspect the only people using this are hiking enthusiasts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manitou_station
Very likely car free ones because people with cars would drive to the trail. Unless it’s a long weekend, alternate-side will be “off” on Monday and they don’t want to lose the “good” parking space…
Awful, cowardly decision. Sets back NY and honestly the whole country. We’ll have to fix transpo funding – the gas tax won’t last forever as EVs roll out. Sadly, looks like other states and cities will now have to lead where New Yorkers had hoped to.
You are right about the dictatorial element of this. If this is allowed to stand, it proves New York is more autocracy than democracy.