Congestion pricing is dead, again

Plus: Where to bike in and around NYC this summer [On The Way - from WNYC and Gothamist]( Gothamist relies on your support to make local news available to all. Not yet a member? [Consider donating and join today.]( Inside today's newsletter: A new way to complain about dirty subway stations; BQE repairs are done, for now; where to bike in and around NYC this summer Congestion pricing is dead, again By [Stephen Nessen]( and [Clayton Guse]( Congestion pricing is effectively dead, [struck down by Gov. Kathy Hochul]( on Wednesday in a move that ends the decades-long dream of reining in Manhattan’s gridlock by tolling drivers who enter Midtown and below. With her decision, Hochul becomes the latest powerful New York politician to balk at imposing the toll on drivers. Sam Schwartz, the prominent traffic analyst better known as “Gridlock Sam,” has had a front row seat to multiple administrations bowing to pressure over congestion pricing. He was involved in the first failed plan in the 1970s – and played a key role in the latest incarnation, which Hochul just abandoned. “I’m feeling betrayed,” said Schwartz, 76. “She turns a 180 and really screws the public. This is certainly no profile in courage.” Early incarnations of congestion pricing get trashed Back in 1971, Mayor John Lindsay weighed banning cars entirely from a stretch of Manhattan dubbed “the red zone.” Only taxis and buses would have been allowed in. Signs were even manufactured and posted on the streets, though they were covered, Schwartz recalled in a recent interview with [NY1 reporter Errol Louis](. The unveiling of the red zone was to coincide with Earth Day, but two weeks prior Lindsay got cold feet amid intense pressure from unions representing hotel workers and drivers, Schwartz said. But Lindsay wasn’t ignoring traffic altogether. He launched a study of a plan to force drivers to pay to cross the East and Harlem River bridges into Manhattan. He said the measure was necessary to comply with the Clean Air Act passed by Congress in 1970. When Mayor Abe Beame took office three years later, he sought to stop the tolling plan. Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit over Beame’s decision — and won. “It was the law of the land, nothing could stop it,” Schwartz said, recalling a familiar sense of hope that New York might actually do something to address traffic. But then Congress passed an amendment in 1980 to the Clean Air Act, which was pushed by New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman. The change allowed for the city to be in compliance with the law, without having to reduce traffic through the planned tolls. With that, the city dropped the push altogether. [first image]( Don Pollard/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul Bloomberg falls short Manhattan gridlock grew worse over the following decades. Meanwhile, the MTA kept [accumulating debt to pay for subway projects](. So then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg brought the idea of congestion pricing back from the dead, and in 2008 gathered political support for the program. The idea, which should sound familiar, was to toll motorists in Manhattan’s central business district and send the money to the MTA. But then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who wielded immense power in Albany, said it “did not have anywhere near a majority of the Democratic conference.” Silver never brought the measure to a vote in Albany. “I think the mayor didn’t play ball…with Shelly Silver,” explained Schwartz. “And so he never kissed the ring.” Hochul follows suit On Wednesday, Hochul once again put the idea on the shelf, saying implementing congestion pricing “risks too many unintended consequences.” That sounded familiar to Schwartz. “For 50 years I’ve been hearing, ‘Now is not the right time,’” said Schwartz. “Well, now is the time — and it may be now or never.” What New York is reading this week - Gov. Hochul’s order to put congestion pricing on ice threatens $15 billion in funding for transit construction projects, raising the possibility that the subway system could fall into a state of disrepair. [Read more](. - The governor said she was motivated by economics — not politics — when she abruptly pulled the plug on the tolling program. Hardly anybody in Albany believes that. [Read more](. - We polled our Instagram followers asking whether they agreed with the decision to halt congestion pricing and the results were close — of the nearly 1,500 people who voted, 43% said the tolls should be halted and 57% said they should be implemented. - Is your subway station gross? MTA group station managers will now be holding office hours twice a month to hear your complaints. [Read more](. - The city’s Department of Transportation is selling popular street signs in limited quantities every month, declaring “sign drops are the new sneaker drops.” [Read more](. - All the construction planned for the triple-cantilevered section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway this year has been completed — but eventually the city still needs to move forward with a rehabilitation of the dilapidated roadway. [Read more](. - With summer unofficially underway, we put together a guide to where to bike in — and outside of — New York City. [Read more](. - In case you prefer to keep both feet on the ground, we also put together a guide to running in the city. [Read more](. Curious commuter “Why isn't there a subway connecting the Bronx to Queens?” - Cali, Brooklyn Answer: The Bronx and Queens are visible from each other’s shores — but there’s no good way to travel between the two without driving over the Triboro Bridge. While there’s no subway between the boroughs, there is a train that rolls between them — it just doesn’t stop in either. Amtrak trains heading in or out of Penn Station roll right past Queens en route to the Hell Gate Bridge before heading through the Bronx and into New England. In the late 1990s, the MTA planned to solve that problem. The agency’s East Side Access program initially called for a station in Sunnyside where trains would stop en route to what is now Grand Central Madison. But the Sunnyside plan was cut from the long-delayed, over budget project as a cost-saving measure. That station was intended to also serve Metro-North trains on the MTA’s Penn Access project, which is currently in the works and seeks to bring four new commuter railroad stations to the Bronx. The project will bring Metro-North service to Penn Station — and trains on the route will stop in the Bronx, but will roll right through Queens without stopping. Have a question for us? [Use this form]( to submit yours and we may answer it in a future newsletter! Curious Commuter questions are exclusive for On The Way newsletter subscribers. Did a friend forward this to you? [Sign up for free here]( to start asking your questions. This week in NYC transit history Justin Lane/Shutterstock Two years ago this week, on June 9, 2022, MTA chair Janno Lieber [blamed federal officials under President Biden for slow-walking their approval of the MTA’s congestion pricing plan](. During a meeting he griped “we are still struggling with the federal government’s 425 comments” on the agency’s environmental review of the tolls. Congestion pricing was approved by lawmakers more than three years before that comment — but the slow approval process didn’t matter much after Wednesday, when Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered the MTA to halt the program. 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