If they lower the fee to 5 or 8 bucks or something, it won’t reduce congestion and that will doom it to failure not just here but everywhere. People will point to New York and say, “It didn’t even work there!”
On top of that, if they lower the toll they are 100% going to make up for the lost revenue with some sort of tax that only applies to New Yorkers, meaning we’ll see another massive wealth transfer from the city to the suburbs.
So that part... the one with the lost revenue and NYC-specific tax... makes no sense on many levels & should be vigorously opposed.
As far as the "lower the toll and the program fails at its goals" thing... well... I don't think Hochul will ever care.
Like, if congestion pricing is enacted and it fails to reduce congestion and everyone is mad about that, the situation we're in is that we have a governor unmoved by what we think and clearly sensitive to what people in the suburbs can tolerate. So it can only "fail" by not launching.
It is truly stupid logic but it is where we are at, and at this point from a "model program" perspective we probably need the scanners to come on more than we need it to be a good example of congestion reduction. Because then it at least proves it's not politically toxic.
All we need to prove is that you can have a zone toll and the predictions of doom to the CBD will not befall us. No other city is looking at, say, the MTA and wondering if novel capital sources will fix it or if one small zone in Manhattan can tame traffic. There are better examples than us.
My understanding is that they can't lower it below $9, legally. I don't want it to be $9, but if that's a absolute floor, that leaves a fair amount of room for a face-saving reduction to something like $12 without too much of a negative impact on the realized benefits
According to my state senator, who is quoted in the article, they can't go below $9 without resubmitting for federal review, which would be way worse than just calling back the legislature. Could be wrong about that, though.
Been trying to think of the least painful way to get the program to go and the idiot governor to save face is NY income tax credit on up to $xx of MTA EZ Pass charges. MTA will still get all of their money and Kathy can tide over mythical voters with an IOU instead of the inverse.
