Gov. Hochul doubled down on her protection of New York’s congestion pricing toll Wednesday because the federal authorities seeks to kill this system.
“Public transit is facing an existential threat from Washington right now, whether it’s the overall funding or whether it is the attack on congestion pricing,” Hochul stated in an handle to the MTA’s board. “One thing we’ve established: New Yorkers do not back down.”
“I had an interesting trip to the White House,” Hochul stated of her Friday assembly with Trump, throughout which she tried to promote the avowed congestion pricing foe on the toll.
Hochul took a jab on the president’s reportedly quick consideration span, saying she requested her staff to arrange a presentation with “real simple terms” and “real nice pictures.”
“I did my very best,” she stated. “The fight’s not over.”
Trump tried to kill the toll final week, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring he was revoking a key authorization issued final 12 months by the Democratic Biden administration.
“Commuters using the highway system to enter New York City have already financed the construction and improvement of these highways through the payment of gas taxes and other taxes,” Duffy wrote, apparently railing in opposition to tolls of any type.
The MTA, which instantly sued the federal authorities over the order, has vowed to maintain the cameras on whereas it fights the order within the courts. The feds, in the meantime, have ordered the state to finish this system by March 21.
Hochul, who famously paused the visitors toll final summer time earlier than scrambling to get it in place earlier than the top of the Biden administration, gave a full-throated endorsement of this system Wednesday.
“There is a huge disconnect from the reality we know New Yorkers are facing and the perception of reality at the White House,” she stated. “I guarantee the president has never had to endure missing a child’s sporting event because he was stuck on a delayed train, never had to stand in a flooded subway station because we were not able to make the repairs, not sitting in traffic missing an important meeting.
“That is the reality of New Yorkers that we are solving for,” Hochul stated. “I know there’s a lot of power in that Oval Office. But I’ll put that power up against the power of 6 million pissed-off commuters in New York City.”
The congestion pricing program, which went into impact on Jan. 5, fees most drivers a $9 toll as soon as per day to drive on common streets (not highways) in Midtown and decrease Manhattan. Along with visitors discount, this system is charged with producing sufficient income to again $15 billion in bonds towards the MTA’s capital program.
The company reported on Monday that the toll had generated $48.7 million in gross income within the month of January — that means the MTA was on observe to lift its $500 million annual goal.
