Could Congestion Pricing Come Back and Cost Less?

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. James Barron is off this week. Today we’ll look at efforts to persuade Gov. Kathy Hochul to approve a modified version of New York’s decades-in-the-making congestion pricing plan, one month after she halted it. The program was supposed to have gone into effect on Sunday, when the governor was raising eyebrows by wearing an M.T.A. T-shirt to the New York City Pride March.

Credit…Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Gov. Kathy Hochul shocked many New Yorkers — and pleased some in the suburbs — when she pulled the plug on congestion pricing on June 5.

Hochul paused the plan indefinitely because she said it could hurt the economy, but her last-minute decision blew a multibillion-dollar hole in the budget of the state’s long-suffering Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Last week, staff members at the authority outlined cuts in capital programs that totaled $16.5 billion, including the suspension of plans to upgrade crumbling signal systems, to expand the Second Avenue subway and to make more stations accessible to passengers with disabilities.

Now some lawmakers are trying to persuade the governor to resurrect the plan, which would charge motorists for driving in Manhattan below 60th Street, by lowering the proposed $15 toll.