Opinion | New Yorkers are faced with a terrifying question after Gov. Hochul's costly gambit

New Yorkers are currently contemplating a terrifying question: What if the subways and buses, which for years have been wracked with service delays, overcrowding and faulty heat or cooling systems, somehow get even slower, less reliable and less accessible? It’s a very real concern, given Gov. Kathy Hochul's sudden decision Wednesday to halt the city’s congestion pricing plan, which was set to go into effect later this month.

The plan to administer an additional $15 toll for vehicles entering certain parts of Manhattan during peak driving hours would’ve generated revenue to allow the MTA to make sorely needed updates across its systems, while reducing traffic and reducing the environmental destruction wrought by cars.

The uproar was immediate. “I’ve gotten more telephone calls, emails, texts & voicemails in support of congestion pricing than any other other issue — ever — during my decade in the NYS Senate (that even includes hatred from anti-vaxxers),” state Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Democrat, tweeted Friday morning.

And of course, the people at the MTA who spent five years preparing for this moment were most stunned of all. “It’s a s--- f------ day,” a department insider told Curbed. “It’s crazy, it’s political amateurism, it’s one of the most astonishing things I’ve ever seen.”

It felt particularly galling given that the main opponents of congestion pricing have been Republicans, and it seemed like Hochul was yet again trying to toe the line. But it turns out that at least one fellow New York Democrat, U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, was given a heads up before Hochul’s announcement, and he was supportive.

“To the extent immediate implementation of congestion pricing is being reconsidered, Leader Jeffries supports a temporary pause of limited duration to better understand the financial impact on working-class New Yorkers,” his spokesperson said Wednesday. Those financial impacts, it should be noted, have been analyzed for years.

Hochul’s move was reportedly made out of fear over this year’s congressional elections. It’s essential to remember that Democrats lost control of the House in 2022 because of a number of surprising losses in New York that were a direct result of Hochul’s too-close race with Republican Lee Zeldin. The Long Island election denier and former congressman successfully made crime the central issue of that year’s gubernatorial race and Hochul struggled to counter his bad faith attacks. Zeldin’s strong showing benefited the federal races on the ballot and even helped bring us Congressman George Santos.

Congestion pricing has been a hot topic in Washington before: Last summer, former NYPD officer and current Long Island Rep. Anthony D’Esposito introduced a resolution condemning the planned tolls. Yet despite Hochul seemingly caving to pressure from (mostly) Republicans, it doesn’t seem to have made a lick of difference.

“I don’t think it matters if they [Democrats] win or lose,” D’Esposito said in a radio interview Friday. “I think the day after Election Day, Kathy Hochul will be right back to screwing hard-working New Yorkers and people who are traveling into the city.”

The impact of Hochul’s decision will surely reach beyond the city’s boundaries: New York was set to be the first U.S. city to implement congestion pricing, but it would not have been the first in the world. When Stockholm implemented a similar program in 2006, the city saw an immediate 20% drop in traffic. They also saw reductions in childhood asthma cases and a decrease in pollution. London and Paris, too, have congestion pricing. But thanks to Hochul’s decision to abandon it here, she may have doomed the idea — and the potential for positive impact — for the entire country. And with the state of Texas asking residents Friday to avoid using cars due to dangerous levels of ozone, it’s urgently needed stateside.

Shortly after hearing Hochul’s announcement, I had a thought: Could this have something to do with the NYPD? After all, the cops and their unions have been against congestion pricing from the beginning. Then I read a brief statement from Patrick Hendry, the president of the police union, released Wednesday addressing Hochul’s sudden change of plans — and there’s a lot to unpack.

“The governor made the right call here,” Hendry wrote. “The congestion tax is not only a burden on police officers and other essential commuters — it’s bad for public safety. The NYPD is already severely understaffed and struggling to recruit and retain police officers, who can find better pay and benefits in almost any other police department. Forcing cops to dig deeper into their pockets just to report for duty will send even more of them running for the exits. A congestion tax would mean even fewer cops on the streets. New Yorkers can’t afford that.”

Fewer cops on the streets? Don’t threaten us with a good time, officer.

Aside from that veiled threat, Hendry reveals a pretty fundamental problem in the city’s policing by referring to cops as “commuters.” He reminded us how many of them don’t treat the people of this city as neighbors and the streets as their home because they’re literally not. A 2022 study found that of the more than 6,800 driving commuters to a busy section of lower Manhattan, 40% of them were “protective service occupations, a category including NYPD officers.” At the time, workers in that category made up just 2.5% of city jobs overall.

But ultimately it comes down to congestion pricing being a net good for everyone who lives and works in the city.

“Congestion pricing isn’t just about funding the MTA,” Doug Gordon, a Brooklyn-based bike advocate and expert and co-host of “The War on Cars” podcast, told me Friday. “It’s also about reducing congestion. The goal is right there in the name. Even if state Democrats could miraculously come up with an alternate funding source to the tune of $1 billion per year, without some sort of toll on drivers who enter Manhattan, the city will remain clogged with traffic, screwing over bus riders, pedestrians, cyclists and even drivers. No one benefits from gridlocked streets.”

“No matter how you slice it,” Gordon said, “this is the most disastrous decision by any state-level Democrat I can recall.”

We may have to wait until November to see if Hochul’s costly gambit paid off. But even if New York Democrats win, New Yorkers — and their environment, health and safety — still lose.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com