Hochul Pushes for Congestion Pricing Delay in Last-Minute Reversal

Gov. Kathy Hochul is quietly maneuvering to delay a plan to toll drivers entering Manhattan’s central business district, just weeks before it is slated to go into effect, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

The first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan, which has been decades in the making, is slated to start June 30. Drivers using E-ZPass will pay as much as $15 to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.

But even as Ms. Hochul believes that congestion pricing is good environmental policy, she has concerns that the timing was less than ideal, according to a person familiar with her thinking. The governor feared that it might deter commuters from returning to the central business district, which has yet to fully recover from the pandemic.

Ms. Hochul’s gambit, if successful, could also help her fellow Democrats in the House who might otherwise face angry voters in an election year. But it would be a devastating blow to advocates and organizers who have worked for more than a decade to bring this change to New York City.

It is not clear whether Ms. Hochul’s still-formative plan to delay congestion pricing and replace it with another revenue stream would gain the needed approval of the New York State Legislature, which passed the plan years ago.

The tolling scheme was designed to reduce traffic congestion in Manhattan and produce $1 billion a year in revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the region’s subways, buses and two of its commuter rail systems. That revenue, in turn, would fund the system’s vast capital construction needs.