New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy, asked President Trump on Monday to re-examine New York’s congestion pricing program, which is charging drivers $9 to enter Manhattan’s central business district and which his state had unsuccessfully sued to block.
Mr. Trump has already declared his distaste for congestion pricing. He called the plan, which New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, rushed to implement right after he won the election, “the most regressive tax known to womankind,” and warned that it would “put New York City at a disadvantage over competing cities and states, and businesses will flee.”
In a letter on Monday, Governor Murphy reminded Mr. Trump, on his first day in office, of his comments, adding, “I welcome any opportunity to work with you and your administration where we can find common ground. One area where I believe our priorities align is congestion pricing.” Echoing some of Mr. Trump’s language, he declared New York’s plan “a disaster for working- and middle-class New Jersey commuters and residents.”
New York’s congestion pricing program, the first of its kind in the nation, was decades in the making and withstood lawsuits, including from New Jersey officials who argued that it was an unfair tax on residents and would also increase traffic and pollution in their state. The toll charges most drivers to enter Manhattan’s central business district, below 60th Street, from morning until night.
The policy is intended to speed traffic, including buses, on Manhattan’s monumentally clogged arteries and to raise $15 billion for badly needed upgrades to New York’s subways, buses and commuter rails. Preliminary data from the first week indicated that fewer drivers were entering the core of Manhattan.
Last June, Ms. Hochul, under pressure from officials and voters in the New York counties outside the city, stopped a steeper toll regime that would have charged drivers $15. (Mr. Trump had vowed to “TERMINATE” that version “in my FIRST WEEK back in Office!!!”)
After Mr. Trump was elected, she raced to put the cheaper version in place, knowing she might have a harder time doing so once he was running the country.
In his letter, Governor Murphy wrote that New Jersey planned to amend a pending lawsuit against federal transportation agencies that helped pave the way for congestion pricing. He also requested that New York’s congestion pricing scheme “receive the close look it deserved but did not receive from the federal government last year.”
Mr. Murphy is battling the Trump administration on some fronts. Last week, he said that the state would stockpile abortion drugs to get around any additional limits on access by the Trump administration. But he said at the time that he “would never back away from partnering with the Trump administration” when doing so aligned with New Jersey’s priorities.
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