Hochul abruptly pauses congestion pricing days before launch
The governor halted the program just weeks before it was set to begin, stunning transit advocates and throwing MTA finances into doubt.
Governor Kathy Hochul abruptly halted New York's congestion pricing program this June, just weeks before it was due to launch, in a stunning reversal that blindsided transit advocates, threw the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's finances into disarray and reignited a fierce political fight.
In a sudden announcement, Hochul said she was pausing the tolling scheme indefinitely, citing concerns about the cost to working- and middle-class New Yorkers and the fragility of the city's economic recovery. The decision came after years of planning and only days before drivers were to begin paying the $15 toll.
The move stunned supporters who had fought for the program for years, and it left a roughly billion-dollar annual hole in the funding the MTA had been counting on to modernise the subway and other systems, jeopardising a long list of capital projects.
Transit and environmental advocates reacted with fury, accusing the governor of caving to political pressure in an election year and abandoning a plan with clear benefits for traffic, air quality and the transit system. Opponents of the toll, by contrast, welcomed the reprieve.
The pause threw the future of congestion pricing into doubt and set off months of uncertainty and legal and political manoeuvring over whether, when and at what price the program might eventually proceed, leaving the city's transit ambitions once again in limbo.