New York City was on the cusp of (finally) implementing a congestion pricing program when Governor Kathy Hochul announced earlier this month that it would be “indefinitely delayed.” NY State Sen. Liz Krueger and Evergreen Action’s Justin Balik, both with deep history in New York’s congestion pricing drama, discuss Hochul’s mysterious and possibly illegal move, the apocalyptic budget implications, and what might happen next.
Messaging tip: Advocates should be sure to refer to DECONGESTION pricing, not “congestion pricing.” It’s a fee that promotes (quite successfully) decongestion. We have seen how effective the campaign against estate taxes became when the rich newspaper families all started calling it “death taxes.” I know David is well aware of the risks of constant fixation on messaging over actual policy, but this small tweak is easy and effective — people who oppose DECONGESTION pricing are opposing decongestion in NYC (and by extension everywhere else that will follow once proven in NYC).
Have lived in the Bronx and Manhattan my entire almost-60 years, never owned a car.
Grew up in newly-opened Co-op City, the largest lower middle class development in the world, hoping that one day they would extend the subway a mile to serve 50k people, while President Ford told the city to drop dead (for budget reasons).
Now I live near 100 year old Delancey station, one of the 50 busiest, and it seems unlikely we'll get elevators. I can walk the half mile to the station, but if the weather's bad, or not feeling well, there's a bus at least 4x/hour. Traffic from the highway and river crossings make timing unreliable, and if you must be somewhere on time you cushion a lot of time on what should be a five minute hop. Congestion does hurt us.
It's bad enough that politicians earn points based on hurting the largest city in the country (or anyplace else, for that matter). The spite involved in delaying Gateway, let alone actively destroying gov't programs, is terrible.
ESCR East Side Coastal Resiliency, adding 10 feet depth of fill to protect downtown and my neighborhood, went thru similar twists. Hundreds of hours of meetings and comments, leading to compromise and a decision. Then, without the reasoning ever being clear, were told, No, we're going to do it some other way. Very frustrating for all.
Sorry to ramble
May I suggest Pedestrian Observations dot com , a site that analyzes the many ways the U.S. does transit in needlessly expensive & complex ways.
Many thanks to David for continuing to pull in experts who help to explain these very complex issues.
One problem with these interviews is that Dave only gets part of the story, no matter how good his questions and how honest his interlocutor. For this story, I can supply a bit of the rest.
No white New York politician is going to rag the cops if she can help it. And cops are a large part of the opposition to congestion pricing. They don't have to pay for parking--they park wherever they want, knowing that no parking agent would dare ticket a cop's car. Cops live in Rockland, Nassau, and Suffolk, all of which are up for grabs in the House of Representatives. (Staten Island is firmly Republican. I think that cops also live in Queens, but I'm not certain.)
The rest of the opposition to congestion pricing, I think, comes from richies in Westchester, NJ, and CT. At least that explains why every Jersey pol has come out against congestion pricing.
I still think that Hochul is incredibly stupid, even taking November into account. I remember Chris Christie fighting an increase in the gas tax for years. When it finally came through, there wasn't a whimper. Voters are taxophobic, but not nearly as much as politicians think they are.
This conversation was so satisfying for me. I lived in Brooklyn and Queens and Jersey City for close to 30 years before moving about 1.5 hours up the Hudson. In all this time, I have never had a car, but I work in Manhattan and have experienced how bad the traffic actually is, how difficult it is to get anywhere by car. The congestion and pollution from hundreds of idling cars caused higher rates of asthma in my JC neighborhood, which was near the Holland Tunnel and regularly experienced overspill from traffic backups. Hochul's decision was utterly infuriating, and I feel that way even though I live upstate now and will likely have to buy a car eventually.
Clearly something beyond the diner guy conversation went on here. I guess she or some aides are over-thinking some swing voter, commuter, suburbanite opinion thing as mentioned. Perhaps looking at the supposed backlash against greens in the EU. I'm sure there are right/reactionary media types and politicians ready to find "victims" of decongestion pricing once it starts. That's when the non-reactionary "leaders" need to have the "courage of their convictions," and speak loudly, repeatedly and convincingly, making the points your guests did. If they just crater like Hochul they are not leaders, and keep getting "owned" by the right.
I was raised in the 'burbs of NJ; Dad rode trains to Manhattan five days/week, I spent a year in Queens and took the subways or buses into work, and I've done a bit of driving and biking in Manhattan. The last time I took a cab in midtown it was absurdly slow, and I understand it's worse now.
It shouldn't be that hard to explain that tolling the cars to improve the huge and amazing but ancient transit system will reduce traffic by shifting some to transit. To tell you the truth, $1B per year doesn't actually sound like that much. Transit isn't cheap to run, and neither are most cars and trucks and road systems.
Sounds like she just vetoed [sort of] another tax. People who work in the Boroughs and live elsewhere will have to come to those places 5 days/week whether it costs $1 or $20 a day. This so-called "congestion pricing" will just make their lives that much harder and won't prevent much congestion.
The congestion pricing is only into Manhattan, and only downtown Manhattan, so all people who "work in the Boroughs and live elsewhere" would not necessarily be affected.
And people make changes based on incentives all the time. I don't know which "elsehwere" you'd be referring to that didn't have access to park and ride options. People just like driving to work, alone, in their cars, because they like it, but if we disincentivize it, some people will decide not to do it anymore, and it will even make things better for those who chose to continue to drive, or do not have a choice.
And you have to know that most people who "work in the Boroughs" don't fucking drive to get there.
Guests had answers for you, starting at the 35 minute mark.
~1.3M people come into the Manhattan zone via public transit, ~143K drive their cars, and the average salary of people driving in to the zone is $108k/year, which does not at all represent "poverty-level" wages. That is, they can afford it if they choose to do so.
Also, and this may be a nitpick, but all the people who drive may not necessarily "have to" come into the city five days a week. Telecommuting/work from home options abound these days, so some percentage could telework a day a week and skip the drive if the didn't want to use public transit.
Lastly, the decongestion program will take 1 in 5 cars off the road, which absolutely will "prevent much congestion".
Messaging tip: Advocates should be sure to refer to DECONGESTION pricing, not “congestion pricing.” It’s a fee that promotes (quite successfully) decongestion. We have seen how effective the campaign against estate taxes became when the rich newspaper families all started calling it “death taxes.” I know David is well aware of the risks of constant fixation on messaging over actual policy, but this small tweak is easy and effective — people who oppose DECONGESTION pricing are opposing decongestion in NYC (and by extension everywhere else that will follow once proven in NYC).
Have lived in the Bronx and Manhattan my entire almost-60 years, never owned a car.
Grew up in newly-opened Co-op City, the largest lower middle class development in the world, hoping that one day they would extend the subway a mile to serve 50k people, while President Ford told the city to drop dead (for budget reasons).
Now I live near 100 year old Delancey station, one of the 50 busiest, and it seems unlikely we'll get elevators. I can walk the half mile to the station, but if the weather's bad, or not feeling well, there's a bus at least 4x/hour. Traffic from the highway and river crossings make timing unreliable, and if you must be somewhere on time you cushion a lot of time on what should be a five minute hop. Congestion does hurt us.
It's bad enough that politicians earn points based on hurting the largest city in the country (or anyplace else, for that matter). The spite involved in delaying Gateway, let alone actively destroying gov't programs, is terrible.
ESCR East Side Coastal Resiliency, adding 10 feet depth of fill to protect downtown and my neighborhood, went thru similar twists. Hundreds of hours of meetings and comments, leading to compromise and a decision. Then, without the reasoning ever being clear, were told, No, we're going to do it some other way. Very frustrating for all.
Sorry to ramble
May I suggest Pedestrian Observations dot com , a site that analyzes the many ways the U.S. does transit in needlessly expensive & complex ways.
Many thanks to David for continuing to pull in experts who help to explain these very complex issues.
One problem with these interviews is that Dave only gets part of the story, no matter how good his questions and how honest his interlocutor. For this story, I can supply a bit of the rest.
No white New York politician is going to rag the cops if she can help it. And cops are a large part of the opposition to congestion pricing. They don't have to pay for parking--they park wherever they want, knowing that no parking agent would dare ticket a cop's car. Cops live in Rockland, Nassau, and Suffolk, all of which are up for grabs in the House of Representatives. (Staten Island is firmly Republican. I think that cops also live in Queens, but I'm not certain.)
The rest of the opposition to congestion pricing, I think, comes from richies in Westchester, NJ, and CT. At least that explains why every Jersey pol has come out against congestion pricing.
I still think that Hochul is incredibly stupid, even taking November into account. I remember Chris Christie fighting an increase in the gas tax for years. When it finally came through, there wasn't a whimper. Voters are taxophobic, but not nearly as much as politicians think they are.
This conversation was so satisfying for me. I lived in Brooklyn and Queens and Jersey City for close to 30 years before moving about 1.5 hours up the Hudson. In all this time, I have never had a car, but I work in Manhattan and have experienced how bad the traffic actually is, how difficult it is to get anywhere by car. The congestion and pollution from hundreds of idling cars caused higher rates of asthma in my JC neighborhood, which was near the Holland Tunnel and regularly experienced overspill from traffic backups. Hochul's decision was utterly infuriating, and I feel that way even though I live upstate now and will likely have to buy a car eventually.
Considering that this was a pro-climate initiative and a tax, are we sure there was no blackmail or death threats involved? Just wondering...
Clearly something beyond the diner guy conversation went on here. I guess she or some aides are over-thinking some swing voter, commuter, suburbanite opinion thing as mentioned. Perhaps looking at the supposed backlash against greens in the EU. I'm sure there are right/reactionary media types and politicians ready to find "victims" of decongestion pricing once it starts. That's when the non-reactionary "leaders" need to have the "courage of their convictions," and speak loudly, repeatedly and convincingly, making the points your guests did. If they just crater like Hochul they are not leaders, and keep getting "owned" by the right.
I was raised in the 'burbs of NJ; Dad rode trains to Manhattan five days/week, I spent a year in Queens and took the subways or buses into work, and I've done a bit of driving and biking in Manhattan. The last time I took a cab in midtown it was absurdly slow, and I understand it's worse now.
It shouldn't be that hard to explain that tolling the cars to improve the huge and amazing but ancient transit system will reduce traffic by shifting some to transit. To tell you the truth, $1B per year doesn't actually sound like that much. Transit isn't cheap to run, and neither are most cars and trucks and road systems.
Sounds like she just vetoed [sort of] another tax. People who work in the Boroughs and live elsewhere will have to come to those places 5 days/week whether it costs $1 or $20 a day. This so-called "congestion pricing" will just make their lives that much harder and won't prevent much congestion.
Because NYC is different from all the places where decongestion pricing is working very well, right?
The congestion pricing is only into Manhattan, and only downtown Manhattan, so all people who "work in the Boroughs and live elsewhere" would not necessarily be affected.
And people make changes based on incentives all the time. I don't know which "elsehwere" you'd be referring to that didn't have access to park and ride options. People just like driving to work, alone, in their cars, because they like it, but if we disincentivize it, some people will decide not to do it anymore, and it will even make things better for those who chose to continue to drive, or do not have a choice.
And you have to know that most people who "work in the Boroughs" don't fucking drive to get there.
Guests had answers for you, starting at the 35 minute mark.
~1.3M people come into the Manhattan zone via public transit, ~143K drive their cars, and the average salary of people driving in to the zone is $108k/year, which does not at all represent "poverty-level" wages. That is, they can afford it if they choose to do so.
Also, and this may be a nitpick, but all the people who drive may not necessarily "have to" come into the city five days a week. Telecommuting/work from home options abound these days, so some percentage could telework a day a week and skip the drive if the didn't want to use public transit.
Lastly, the decongestion program will take 1 in 5 cars off the road, which absolutely will "prevent much congestion".