Halting a Traffic Plan — and Trust
Terry H. Schwadron
June 7, 2024
After months of detailed review, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul decided at the last minute on Wednesday to halt the plan to charge drivers entering mid-town Manhattan as the central piece of an anti-traffic congestion project.
Despite her protestations, it read as an election-year attempt to keep voters from holding any ill will against Democratic congressmen and candidates from areas around New York City.
For the record, Hochul cited the $15 cost to motorists crossing 60th Street for Lower Manhattan as unduly harsh for many commuters and warned of an unwanted effect on the city’s economy.
Well, yeah. So has just about every other public voice in the region. It’s just that many saw it as necessary and desirable, and noted the productivity and economic effects of trying to run a city that moves at an average seven miles per hour.
But why now, just as the climate-traffic-gridlock measure was finally a few short weeks of kicking in? Couldn’t Hochul have stepped in earlier?
Indeed, the halt itself is a billion-dollar move, more or less, the estimate total that would have been collected in traffic congestion fees to go instead to mass transit to fix overtaxed subways and to cover its financial problems.
Suddenly, Hochul has a plan for a special business tax that can cover these shortfalls that would have to pass the state legislature, though it seems to be going nowhere in Albany circles. But how is that without effecting on the city economy? How is the not another victory for cars over mass transit?
The Trust Issue
The halt already is drawing more than its share of shouts and sighs, just from the opposite groups than had gotten exercised by the launch of the program.
Commuters from outer boroughs had been joined by state officials in New Jersey, truckers and taxi groups, and Donald Trump as critics of the congestion program. Now it is environmentalists and subway users worried about service cutbacks who may howl.
The congestion plan is a knock-off of a similar program in London, aimed at clearing traffic gridlock through the city, to the benefit of climate concerns and plain-old ability to get anywhere in Manhattan in a car in something less than several hours. Studies say congestion pricing can reduce air pollution and reduced rates of childhood asthma.
Sensors would find trucks and cars entering the congestion zone and start sending out bills like toll booths.
If it worked in New York, it would make it more difficult for other cities not to follow suit, of course.
Hochul suggests that the halt will be temporary but indefinite — adding to speculation that perhaps it might disappear after, say, November or the next legislative session.
Simply put, our government institutions at all levels are going through a stress test with citizens and voters who don’t believe that politicians are looking out for our interests. Like or hate this congestion program, undergoing yet another surprise reversal in policy at the last minute does not serve the trust of government well.
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