Congestion taxes could return to New York City – Telemundo New York (47)

NEW YORK – The $15 fee for vehicles entering New York City’s busiest areas could be reinstated as the state’s Democratic governor considers the program a implemented before President-elect Donald Trump takes office and can block it.

In the days since Trump won, Gov. Kathy Hochul and her staff have been reaching out to state lawmakers to gauge support for resurrecting the plan, known as “congestion pricing,” with a lower price, a according to two people familiar with the process. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were revealing private conversations.

Hochul scrapped the plan to ease traffic congestion and pump billions of dollars into public transportation just weeks before it was set to launch this summer. All the expensive infrastructure, such as license plate readers, was already in place.

At the time, he said he was worried it would cost drivers too much money, but it was also widely seen as a political move to help Democrats in congressional races in the city’s suburbs. The tax would add to already high tolls to enter the city via some river routes, and Republicans were expected to use it as a cudgel in an election heavily focused on cost-of-living issues .

Some Democrats ended up doing that. But so did Trump, who has promised to end congestion pricing once he returns to the Oval Office in less than two months.

Hochul has long wanted the program to eventually be revived, but he previously offered no clear plan for that, or to generate the billions of dollars he was supposed to generate to shore up the city’s ailing public transit system. New York to help.

Now the governor has floated the idea of ​​lowering the fee from $15 to $9 for most people driving passenger vehicles into Manhattan. below 60th Street, according to the two. His office suggested that a new Internet sales tax or payroll tax could help make up for the money lost by lowering the tax, one of the people said.

A spokeswoman for Hochul declined to comment, referring to public comments the governor made last week when she said: “Discussions with the federal government are not new. We’ve had discussions – ongoing discussions – with the White House, the DOT, the Federal Highway. Administration, from June.”

A key question hanging over the process is whether the tax cuts would require the federal government to conduct a lengthy environmental review of the program, which could delay the process into the administration’s term. that comes in. The program, which state lawmakers approved in 2019, has been on hold for years pending a similar review during the first Trump administration.

The US Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

Laura Gillen, a Democrat who won last week’s close election for a House seat on Long Island, just outside the city, reacted with dismay to the news about congestion charges.

“We must permanently stop efforts to impose congestion charges, full stop. Long Island commuters can’t afford another toll,” Gillen wrote on social media site X after Politico New York first reported on the governor’s efforts to restart the toll program.

MTA board member Andrew Albert said he supported the return of the fare but was concerned that $9 would not be enough to achieve the policy’s goals.

“It doesn’t raise enough money, it doesn’t get enough cars off the streets or make the air clean enough,” he said.