New Post reporting reveals the widely hated congestion-pricing scheme isn’t delivering on its promises; Let’s hope President Donald Trump can soon make good on his promise to kill it.
The tech company TomTom reports traffic in the zone has dropped about 4% in the first third of the year, in contrast to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s claim of an 11% drop.
Plus, businesses tell The Post that they simply add congestion zone costs to all their invoices — thereby inflating everyone’s costs.
So much for Hochul’s talk about making New York more affordable.
But help may be on the way: Trump pulled federal approval of the gov’s tolls back in February; Hochul sued — and a federal judge blocked the move pending his final ruling, now expected within weeks.
For now, Hochul’s heinous charge on working-class drivers and small businesses of up to $21 a day remains in effect.
Yet Trump last month reiterated his vow, directing “Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to take a good, long look at terminating New York City Congestion Pricing.”
Perversely, MTA boss Janno Leiber brags that the tolls are key to balancing his agency’s balanced budgets — yet they bring in less than the nearly $1 billion the MTA is now losing to fare evasion.
Which means the working stiffs hit by “congestion pricing” are basically covering for the lowlives jumping the turnstiles.
Talk of congestion tolls long ago began as a push for trucks to do off-hour deliveries to avoid blocking traffic; instead, the scheme’s become a cash cow to cover for the huge revenue loss triggered by city district attorneys’ refusal to enforce the fare-beating laws.
As it happens, Leiber hates fare-beating, too; it’s not his fault the politicians would rather play motorists for suckers than uphold core quality-of-life laws.
Then again, he’ll be facing a fat hole in his budgets once the courts stop protecting the tolls — and other planned MTA revenues are at risk, too, in the all-too-likely event that the state’s casino revenues fail to match predictions.
Perhaps Hochul and the Legislature will then finally start looking for a non-despicable funding stream to keep the subways running.
The post NYC congestion tolls STILL just a cash grab — can Trump kill it soon? appeared first on New York Post.
