When Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York brought congestion pricing to a screeching halt in June, many speculated that the decision was politically motivated.
Ms. Hochul had pledged to do everything in her power to support Democrats in November, particularly in key House races in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island, where the party lost ground in the 2022 midterms, and where the tolling plan was particularly toxic.
The governor insisted that economics, not politics, was behind her decision. Even so, with congestion pricing off the table, New York was one of the few states where Democrats gained House seats.
But now Ms. Hochul’s decision on Thursday to reinstate the plan, even at a deeply discounted price, may have brought some risk to another election: her own, in 2026.
Emboldened by their electoral victories, Republicans pledged to do whatever was necessary to stop the plan, while suburban Democrats on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley dismissed the toll reduction — to $9 for most drivers, from $15 — as insufficient.
Even some progressive Democrats who favor congestion pricing regard the new plan with some skepticism, noting the questionable math behind the promise that New York will still get 100 percent of the financial benefit from the program, even though it will be charging only 60 percent of the original toll to start.
And while the move did earn the approval of key constituencies — chief among them New York City’s business and real estate communities, as well as labor, good-government groups and Mayor Eric Adams — it also set in motion a series of new and renewed challenges in the courts as well as from the incoming president, Donald J. Trump.
At least nine lawsuits have been filed over congestion pricing, including one from a fellow Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey.
Perhaps most ominous is the opposition of Mr. Trump, who called the tolling scheme “the most regressive tax known to womankind” and warned that it would make it “virtually impossible” for New York to recover economically from the coronavirus pandemic.
Both Ms. Hochul and Mr. Trump have been largely optimistic about their ability to work together to improve the lives of New Yorkers. But the tolling plan — which Ms. Hochul said would go into effect by early January and generate $500 million a year to support the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s capital infrastructure spending plan — has quickly emerged as a flashpoint.
“She supposedly had a very nice conversation with President Trump, when she indicated he wanted to help fix and beautify our transit system,” Representative Nicole Malliotakis, Republican of Staten Island, a vocal opponent of the plan, said. “Why poke him in the eye trying to jam this through right before he takes office?”
Other Republican opponents include Representative Mike Lawler, who is actively considering challenging Ms. Hochul in the governor’s race. In recent days, Mr. Lawler, whose district includes Rockland County and the northern part of Westchester County, began a full attack on congestion pricing.
He held a news conference at the foot of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Staten Island and Brooklyn; wrote a letter urging Mr. Trump to take action; and accused Ms. Hochul of trying to “pick the pockets of New Yorkers to bail out the corrupt M.T.A.’s waste, fraud and abuse.”
Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive who is largely expected to seek higher office or a Trump administration position, called his own news conference on Thursday to denounce the revived congestion pricing program.
“The governor has a tin ear to the issues that are important to people who live in this state,” Mr. Blakeman said in an interview. “It’s a tax on hardworking families, it’s a tax on students, it’s a tax on first responders.”
But in her announcement on Thursday, the governor said that she saw congestion pricing as the only way to save the city’s subway system.
“We have to do this,” Ms. Hochul said. “It’s economically essential that we have this lifeblood of New York City fully functioning, not just for the next couple years but for decades to come.”
Democrats spent more than a decade crafting the original congestion pricing scheme, which many see as their best hope for funding the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and addressing the gridlock that has come to serve as a metaphor for New Yorkers’ frustrations.
Over those years, countless hours have been spent studying, debating and planning for the program, initially authorized under former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
When Ms. Hochul paused the program in June, she said that the planned $15 toll was simply too high for working New Yorkers to bear, a decision that frustrated both supporters and opponents.
“Traffic is part of what contributes to the sense that the quality of life in the city is diminishing,” said Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, which has been a key proponent of the plan. She cheered Ms. Hochul for having the courage to carry out the unpopular policy.
“Every city where congestion pricing has been put in place, the public opposed it until they experienced it,” she said. “You have to appreciate how much time you are saving, how much safer and more pleasant the streets and subways are, that buses can move rapidly, et cetera.”
It’s a gamble that Ms. Hochul has barely enough political capital to make. A Siena poll in August found that just a third of New Yorkers had a favorable view of the governor. One of the few topics that polled less favorably than she did was congestion pricing itself.
Republicans have already begun to use the issue to make their case that Democrats are not reliable on economic issues — an argument that may be particularly potent outside New York City, where voters have consistently told pollsters that the high cost of living was a top concern.
Some have already called on Mr. Trump to stop the program. But they also hope to use the issue as a wedge to drive cracks deeper still into Democrats’ coalition ahead of 2026.
Others see in Ms. Hochul’s announcement a promise kept.
Andrew Gounardes, a Democrat, was elected to the State Senate in 2019 to represent a largely working-class district in South Brooklyn, in part on his pledge to get congestion pricing done.
“There wasn’t a single accessible subway station anywhere in my district,” he recalled. He secured promises for improvements — including an elevator at the 18th Avenue station of the D train, which serves Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst and other neighborhoods. But when congestion pricing was put on hold, so was the elevator project.
Mr. Gounardes hopes that Ms. Hochul’s decision will allow Democrats to salvage some of the trust that had been lost with transit riders.
“If you lead with the benefits we’re going to get from this, that it will help the vast majority of commuters — that’s a winning argument,” he said. “We’ve lost the ability to do that for the last six months.”
Mayor Adams said on Friday that he “strongly supports” the governor’s decision to reinstate congestion pricing, saying that the city must address traffic and pollution. In a radio interview with 94.7 The Block, the mayor disagreed that her decision will cost the governor her re-election, saying that Ms. Hochul was helping move the city forward.
Even so, many Democrats worry that Mr. Trump has every intention to make good on his threats to kill or undermine congestion pricing by any means necessary, and they lament Ms. Hochul’s decision to pause it in the first place.
State Senator Liz Krueger, who represents the Upper East Side and chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said that considerable angst could have been avoided had the plan proceeded in June as planned.
“It would have been up and running quite a while before this election was decided,” she said, adding of Mr. Trump: “I’m just not sure he would have noticed that much.”
The post Despite Lowering Toll to $9, Hochul May Find a Higher Political Cost appeared first on New York Times.