NYC MTA Congestion Pricing Effects on NYCT, NJT, MNRR, and LIRR

eolesen wrote: ↑Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:00 pm She knows where her bread is buttered. Statewide outside of NYC and I believe Westchester, she lost to Zelden by 4-6%. NYC tipped her in the other direction by "only" 200,000 votes, which given Mayor Adams' performance to date and other factors aren't guaranteed to stay in the same bucket come 2024 or 2026.

Everyone: After review I decided to check information from the NYS 2022 Governor Election...
The total vote was - Kathy Hochul 3,030,712; Lee Zeldin 2,703,401

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_New_Yor ... l_election

After looking at vote totals for all 62 NYS Counties (The 5 NYC Boroughs coexist as separate counties)
Hochul Won: Albany, Columbia, Erie, Monroe, Onondaga, Schenectady, Tompkins, Ulster and Westchester...
(9 Counties + 4 NYC Boroughs = 13 counties total)...This includes the four largest Upstate NY Cities:
Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany (NYS Capitol)...
4 Boroughs of the City of New York (in percentages of the vote):
Bronx Borough/Bronx County: 77.5%
Kings County/Brooklyn Borough: 71.5%
New York County/Manhattan Borough: 82.2%
Queens County/Queens Borough: 63%

The New York City plurality was more than enough to counter Lee Zeldin winning 49 counties including the NYC
Borough of Staten Island/Richmond County along with both Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island...

For more NYS Governor 2022 Election numbers see:
www.politico.com/2022-election/results/ ... de-offices

I realize that I am treading a fine line in this subject but after reading misinformation on the 2022 NYS Election
the correct vote totals and percentages must be mentioned...MACTRAXX

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Mon Jul 01, 2024 7:31 am It's long and I haven't read it yet.

But given it appears in The Journal, it should have some in depth reporting as to how an initiative to charge for the use of a scarce and irreplaceable resource - street capacity in Midtown and Lower Manhattan - got torpedoed at the eleventh hour:

Fair Use:

NEW YORK—Patrons at the Comfort Diner in Midtown Manhattan recently encountered an unexpected person working the tables: Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Rather than take orders, she went booth to booth seeking opinions about the city’s first-in-the-nation plans for congestion pricing—a $15 toll on vehicles entering the core of Manhattan.

Nobody realized at the time that the Democratic governor was heading toward a blockbuster announcement: she was about to scrap the program after years of planning and hundreds of millions of dollars spent. In one of the most consequential decisions in decades for America’s most prominent city, Hochul soon said she was indefinitely pausing congestion pricing—less than a month before it was set to take effect on Sunday, June 30.

The abrupt reversal, which some attribute to Hochul’s reluctance to impose a new fee in an election year, leaves metro New York grappling with a historic missed opportunity and fiscal mess. There is no relief in sight for the city’s traffic congestion, which is the worst in the world, according to data published last week.

Kathy doesn't face the voters until '26, and voters have short memories. Let's be honest, NY is "Deep Blue" and should the Democrats come looking for a new standard bearer before the Convention, it will likely be from a Purple must win state - and that means Gretchen or Josh (Gov. Shapiro; PA). So she will be "stuck" with her decision.

As I noted earlier, the Escalade's passenger from 880 Fifth to 40 Wall could care less about the $15; I'll bet emergency vehicles could care a lot.

GBN and Everyone - This WSJ Article from July 1 *IS* Paywalled...
At least there is a fair use overview available for the RR.Net record...

Manhattan (South) Congestion Pricing is indefinitely POSTPONED and has NOT been CANCELLED...

Remember the difference in definitions - POSTPONED means DELAYED - in this case INDEFINITELY.
Congestion Pricing has NOT been CANCELLED at this time by the MTA...MACTRAXX

Probably postponement will end shortly after November elections.?

We're starting to hear that a compromise might be in the works. Implementing the tolls at a lower price than $15. My suggestion would to be cut it in half. Charge $7.50 and hopefully that would be a deal everyone could live with.

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Sat Jul 06, 2024 12:13 am

eolesen wrote: ↑Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:00 pm She knows where her bread is buttered. Statewide outside of NYC and I believe Westchester, she lost to Zelden by 4-6%. NYC tipped her in the other direction by "only" 200,000 votes, which given Mayor Adams' performance to date and other factors aren't guaranteed to stay in the same bucket come 2024 or 2026.

Everyone: After review I decided to check information from the NYS 2022 Governor Election...
The total vote was - Kathy Hochul 3,030,712; Lee Zeldin 2,703,401

<snip>
I realize that I am treading a fine line in this subject but after reading misinformation on the 2022 NYS Election
the correct vote totals and percentages must be mentioned...MACTRAXX

Thanks for your "correct vote totals and percentages" which over-proved my point... You can label it misinformation, but I prefer the term "electoral math"....

Hochul's actual win margin was 163,657 votes, which is 50%+1 of the difference between what each candidate got. I rounded it up to 200K, but we can go super granular if that's what you really want to do.

Move those 163,657 votes out of her column and into Zelden's, and he would have won.

It might be safe to say 163.7K votes wouldn't change over congestion pricing, but she's probably not taking any chances right now.

If they're talking about cutting the toll in half "out of fairness" then it becomes even more obvious that the scheme was a greed-grab in the first place.

I suggested cutting the toll in half in my post. I haven't heard from any official source or the media what the actual lower toll amount might be.

At the least, off-peak, overnight and resident discounts should be offered, not a "one size fits all" rate.

I think that is where this dilemma is heading, Mr. R36. I somewhere read that the collections will be administered by EZ-Pass, and if that be the case, any reduced rate offered to certain motorists can readily be recorded.

To close on a sour note; will the "angle merchants" find a way to defeat collection? Of course they will.

If the toll is cut in half but other revenue is brought in to cover for the loss, then it is not a "greed-grab" but legitimate need.

R36 Combine Coach wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 7:41 pm At the least, off-peak, overnight and resident discounts should be offered, not a "one size fits all" rate.

There was no toll overnight to begin with. It boggles the mind how many people seemed to have no idea about this.

I will say, the board's rolling over was not something I was delighted about, but answered my question of what authority Hocul had to pause this. Apparently none, she just counted on the board following her demands.

AAAAAAand in come the lawsuits:

https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/07/25/cong ... ts-hochul/

A pair of lawsuits filed Thursday aim to put congestion pricing back on track after Gov. Kathy Hochul derailed the Manhattan vehicle-tolling plan last month, weeks before it was to take effect.

The cases, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court by transit advocates and a civic association, are the first that seek to overturn what court papers describe as Hochul’s “quite literally, lawless” about face on the Central Business District Tolling Program that became law in 2019 — and which was supposed to start on June 30...

“If we want New York to remain … enjoyable, economically viable, we need to be able to move,” said Layla Law-Gisiko, president of the City Club of New York, a 132-year-old organization that filed one of the lawsuits. “We can’t continue to choke on vehicular traffic and we can’t continue to disinvest from our public transportation systems.”

In its court papers, the City Club calls Hochul’s order to the MTA to “indefinitely pause” congestion pricing a “180-degree reversal” on the tolling program that the governor once championed. It accuses her of violating the Traffic Mobility Act, the 2019 state law that mandated the congestion pricing program, following similar tolling efforts in London, Stockholm and Singapore....

A second case — brought by Riders Alliance, the Sierra Club and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance — charges Hochul, the state Transportation Department and the MTA of violating the state’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the 2021 Green Amendment that guarantees a right to a clean environment in the state constitution.

I think this article appearing in The Times yesterday, provides a good "where we are and where will we go" overview of the Subway's condition and the impact that this loss of the revenue source will have

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/nyre ... =url-share

Fair Use:

Seven years ago, after a series of subway failures so severe that a stretch of 2017 came to be known as the Summer of Hell, New York officials came up with a plan to make sure a crisis like that would never happen again.

Through a tolling program known as congestion pricing, they would raise enough money to restore the system to competency. This would ward off the kind of meltdowns that had left passengers stranded without service, trapped them in dark, hot cars and injured them in derailments.

Now, with congestion pricing on hold, experts warn that a return to hell is inevitable.

The tolling program would have generated $15 billion to fund critical infrastructure upgrades such as fixing century-old tunnels and crumbling tracks. Just weeks before officials were to begin collecting tolls in June, Gov. Kathy Hochul canceled the plan. In doing so, climate change and engineering experts say that she left the continent’s biggest transportation network teetering on the brink of another crisis.

NYT site won't let you read the article unless you subscribe.

How ironic. A story about tolling wants you to pay the toll.

Give this a try;

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/nyre ... =url-share

Subscribers get ten articles per month; no carryovers.