Congestion Pricing Goes Down (For Now)

Thank Arrogance, Political Ignorance And Incoherent Messaging From Supporters

Gov. Kathy Hochul announces a delay in the implementation of Congestion Pricing in Manhattan.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul abruptly and unilaterally postponed, potentially indefinitely, the implementation of the Congestion Pricing program in Manhattan, sending political shockwaves through her state.

Like the plans implemented in London, Paris, and Singapore, congestion pricing would toll anyone driving below 60th Street in Manhattan and was due to take effect at the end of the month. The plan aims to reduce car travel in the core of Manhattan, lower emissions, and raise money for the often cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The agency would use the money for upgrades, maintenance, and other capital projects.

Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg first devised the plan in 2007, but it was approved incrats won control of both houses and 2019 after Demo only received s of the state legislature. The pandemic, which decimated Manhattan's economy for a time, further delayed it. 

Despite the support from transit and environmental activists and progressive voters, Congestion Pricing has always faced significant opposition from residents of the outer boroughs. It has never been popular, with polls showing huge opposition as early as 2007. These communities, often needing more direct subway service, have expressed concerns regarding the probable impact on their daily lives and transportation options. 

Up until Wednesday, it seemed that Congestion Pricing was a done deal. It got its June 30 launch date, the infrastructure was installed, and even the signs explaining the system were put up and covered until the end of the month. It felt as if nothing would stop it, and opponents became resigned to its reality. Then came Hochul.

Supporters of Congestion Pricing are livid at the governor and have promised to fight her decision in court and seek electoral retribution should she decide to run again in 2026. While the reactionary response is understandable, supporters can't lose sight of the fact that with this issue, as many other progressives have pushed in recent years, there has been a backlash they were not expecting or were even cognizant of. 

A recent Siena poll showed close to two-thirds of New York voters opposed the plan, including a majority of Democrats and over 70 percent of voters in New York's suburbs, where several House seats are in play this year. Politics is likely behind Hochul's decision. Supporters were not ready to deal with the plan's unpopularity. They did not believe the plan was unpopular and didn't care what opponents had to say. 

Much like with bail reform, defunding the police, or eliminating standardized testing for specialty schools, progressive supporters of Congestion Pricing failed to engage opponents because they failed to recognize how politically powerful the opposition could be. 

Anyone with a basic understanding of New York politics could predict the backlash, but progressives did not proactively fight it. Instead, they relied on the certainty of the program's implementation. It was utterly predictable. Things have changed however since Congestion Pricing first passed in Albany in 2019.

At that time, New York City had just endured a cascading series of breakdowns of the subway system. We also lived in a time of cheaper costs and historically low crime. Today, you are asking New Yorkers to pay more money at a time of high inflation and, in the wake of several years of rising crime in the subways, to fund an agency that is perhaps more unpopular than Hamas. The MTA is notorious for being terrible with money and regularly demanding a bailout from the state or fare hikes. 

The thing about congestion pricing is that only some believe the MTA would not squander the money. After all, they can't even build three stops of a subway line that was already partially built with the tens of billions they've already been given. The most significant expansion projects we've seen in the last 20 years, the Second Avenue Subway and the 7-train extension to Hudson Yards and East Side Access, have been over budget and took an eternity to build. They've become textbook evidence of government incompetence. As Josh Barro points out, projects like East Side Access becoming a running joke made raising costs on regular people to fund the agency an unpopular prospect. Is any supporter of congestion pricing surprised that most New Yorkers don't believe that the $15 they'll pay to drive to Manhattan will give them better transit service? Are people surprised that New Yorkers think the MTA will waste money?

One of the camera installed to register the tolls that will no longer go into effect on June 30.

The congestion pricing debate also highlighted a long-running political dynamic in New York City: the feeling that outer-borough neighborhoods have that they are afterthoughts in a Manhattan-centric city. That dynamic dates back to the mayoralty of Upper East Sider John Lindsay in the 1960s and showed itself during the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations as well. Today, progressives are seen as the heirs to the John Lindsay legacy – elitist liberals from posh inner-city neighborhoods who come across as patronizing to the working class and middle class in the outer boroughs. That mountain of mistrust is made worse when progressives admit their plan isn’t so much to raise money for transit but to eventually get people completely out of cars, which have long been symbols of success for many working class Americans.

There has been little to no outreach and focus on benefits to transit-starved communities in the outer boroughs, which allowed that conspiracy to fester. During the city’s decline in the 1960s-1980s, plans to expand the subway to Southern Brooklyn, Eastern Queens, and East Bronx were spiked. Residents in these mostly suburban areas worried the subway would bring the crime and disorder they allege it delivered to inner-city neighborhoods. That brought rise to so-called “two-fare zones,” communities where residents had to take a bus to a subway and pay two fares before the MetroCard allowed for free transfers in the 1990s. When I was a kid in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a saying, “Where the subway goes, crime goes.” There was also a racist element to it: the idea that where the subway goes, people of color go, and people of color moving into your neighborhood drops property values and breeds crime. For decades, “two-fare zones” were commonly used as code for “safe, white neighborhood.” 

That’s no longer the case in most of these communities. They are no longer primarily white areas but increasingly diverse and prime for development. The dynamics that made extending subways impossible decades ago no longer exist. An excellent example of this is the positive response Gov. Hochul’s endorsement of the Triboro RX line got in white conservative neighborhoods like Middle Village. 

But no one supporting Congestion Pricing is talking about a Utica Avenue subway line, an extension of the F train to Bellerose, a 7-train extension to College Point, or a Third Avenue subway in the Bronx. Triboro RX was the only major expansion project anyone talked about, and it came mainly from the same woman who killed Congestion Pricing yesterday. Further, progressives often arrogantly mock the type of transit options that are popular in these communities, like ferries and express buses.

Most of the money raised by Congestion Pricing will go to upgrades to the current system, which is fine because it’s needed. Still, that will not win over support among Boomers and Gen Xers in the transit-starved neighborhoods who must take two buses to even get to a subway. It only exacerbates the outer borough vs. Manhattan dynamic that has killed decades of progressive policies. Residents in Bayside, Fresh Meadows, and Marine Park will ask why they should foot the bill for an elevator in Bushwick or SoHo that they’ll never use. Advocates will call them stupid and evil before even engaging with them.

Progressives assume that demographic is a dying breed. That was true a decade ago when the regressive forces in the city were primarily Boomers waiting out the clock before they could retire in Florida. Much of the opposition today is coming from people who have zero intention of leaving the city unless forced and are not white and aging. Labor unions opposed the plan and not just conservative-leaning ones like the police union. Teachers and Municipal Workers fought it. Many of the plan’s staunchest opponents, like Assembly members Kenny Burgos and Yudelka Tapia of the Bronx, Assemblyman Clyde Vanel and Councilwoman Natansha Williams of Queens and State Sen. Monica Martinez of Long Island are people of color who represent minority-majority districts. As much as progressive want to spin this as a “working class diverse constituency vs. elite” battle, it’s far from that. They’re the ones out of touch here. Somehow, the left found itself in opposition to some of the most potent forces in liberal politics – again – because they are unable to fathom anyone who is working class and a person of color disagreeing with them about anything. 

I still think Congestion Pricing will happen at some point, probably after the election, unless Trump wins and uses the federal government to stop it, but this is just the latest policy that has fallen victim to the progressives’ patronizing and incompetent public relations strategy – if you can call it that.