Aww those poor millionaires 
I know. I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about them. 
As somebody who lives south of 59th Street I’m looking forward to seeing the change in the amount of cars in the city.
My understanding is central London is much more pleasant now and the residents are very happy since congestion pricing has been established for a while. Who gives a f**k what the bridge and tunnel crowd think. TAKE THE TRAIN.
From a public-relations perspective, is it challenging to tell folks from NJ that there are viable transit alternatives? No doubt Connecticut, Long Island and upstate NY have functional railroads, but I do feel bad for the governor of NJ. There’s really nothing he can do against NJ Transit’s slumlord of a host railroad (Amtrak) except issue sternly worded press releases.
I was actually in central London a couple months ago and was absolutely amazed by how few cars there were. Didn’t realize that was due to congestion tax. Would be lovely if lower Manhattan was like that
People I know in NJ who don’t have good access to a train take the bus. This should increase ticket prices for a bus, but can’t imagine it’s by much when you consider cost for each ride is essentially split by each rider
Buses are exempt
It has been “indefinitely postponed” ( a euphemism for “cancelled”).
Good. The region isn’t ready for this. Way prices are at the moment.
They should be focusing on limiting bureaucracy at every level in the MTA (A ton of it!)… and drive costs down that way. Along with when it comes to housing ala taxes for the city long term.
I am no expert (lawyer but not my area of expertise) but I have to imagine a few things have to be sorted out such as whether the Governor can unilaterally postpone something that has been enacted in law by the legislature as well as lawsuits by bondholders who have already made purchases based on the assumption that congestion pricing would be implemented.
On top of that, the Governor has proposed to increase the payroll tax in the city to make up this gap. But even a half percent increase would probably be more than the tolls most drivers would have incurred.
And that does not even take into the account the hundreds of millions of dollars already spent on toll infrastructure that is now useless.
A total mess indeed.
All those tolls on trucks… it will just be passed down to the consumer. The long term impact, in the worlds most expensive city, is even more price increases on every level and further turning the city into a gate-community… and that is not good.
Creation of housing, refining of internal processes (the very ones that skyrocket MTA projects… its how something goes from 1 billion to 5 billion without even a shovel in the ground)… will be key.
Something like this can wait. A lot more fish to fry than to penalize the non-rich.
Just in my opinion.
From Hochul herself:
Do you think that a 36 dollar toll split 1000 ways is going to really increase the price of goods that much?
What about time spent in traffic (time is money) or possible health implications (I hear it is very expensive to get health care). These externalities are never talked about.
As for gated community, Manhattan has been one for over a decade between the high prices and the concentration of tourists. Even hanging out wise most people my age go to Brooklyn and not Manhattan.
OK Governor, now go find the money to make the MTA whole. So much for being a transit favoring leader.