In a country where the car is still king, New York had stirred hope that an ambitious policy prioritizing mass transit was possible.
But that optimism unraveled this month, when Gov. Kathy Hochul abruptly halted a congestion pricing tolling program that promised to take thousands of cars a day off the streets of Midtown and Lower Manhattan while generating billions for critical repairs and improvements to the subways, buses and two commuter railroads.
The governor’s decision came amid a fierce outcry from opponents, including many drivers from the boroughs and suburbs outside Manhattan. In doing so, she punched a $15 billion hole in the capital budget of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, leaving long-planned work on the subway in limbo.
The last-minute decision to call off congestion pricing, which was decades in the making, has turned what was supposed to be a major win for mass transit into a cautionary tale. It has also renewed conversations among city and transportation leaders and experts about the future of transit systems around the country and how to pay for them.
“I’m trying to hold out a little bit of faith,” said Jarred Johnson, the executive director for TransitMatters, an advocacy group in Boston, where the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s budget deficit is expected to surpass $800 million over the next five years. “Certainly, New York City will be a huge setback.”
Congestion pricing has helped reduce traffic and fund public transportation in other parts of the world, including London and Stockholm, but it has never gotten far in this country. Several major American cities, including Washington and San Francisco, had explored the option or experimented with modest versions before the pandemic largely disrupted those efforts.
In 2019, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority began studying a plan to charge drivers up to $6.50 to enter a downtown zone, and released a study the following year, but the agency paused its efforts in 2022 when the pandemic caused a sharp drop-off in traffic and transit use and hurt the local economy. The agency said it was currently analyzing post-pandemic travel and commuting patterns.
Los Angeles has also been studying the merits of congestion pricing since 2019, but those efforts were similarly interrupted by the pandemic before officials revisited the idea three years later. The goal of the program, they said, is to reduce congestion, clean the air and reinvest in transportation improvements; unlike in New York, there isn’t a mandate to raise a minimum amount of money.
The Council of the District of Columbia set aside almost $500,000 in 2019 for a study on how congestion pricing could work, but despite calls from Council members, the local transportation department has not released the results. A department spokesman said that while it was improving bus and bike lanes and encouraging walking to reduce congestion, “imposing a congestion tax would harm our collective recovery” from the pandemic.
But in recent months, as New York forged ahead with congestion pricing, there were glimmers that it was once again back in the mix for many cities as traffic rebounded along with concerns over the health and environmental impacts of polluting vehicle emissions.
In Chicago, Alderman Andre Vasquez filed a resolution last month calling for a hearing in the City Council to explore solutions to traffic congestion and pollution, including congestion pricing. Chicago already has a so-called congestion fee, which charges ride-share vehicles traveling within a certain zone, similar to one in New York.
Boston city councilors have also looked at congestion pricing again, and Mayor Michelle Wu said on a public radio show that “it was a big shock” to read about New York’s reversal. Still, Mayor Wu did not rule out the option for Boston. “I think all tools should be on the table, including congestion pricing,” she said.
Many transportation experts and advocates said that they had hoped that New York would serve as a compelling test case for congestion pricing in this country. It seemed the ideal place with its traffic-choked streets and reliance on mass transit. But now, some worry that the takeaway will be, if it can’t work in New York, why would other cities even bother trying?
“Kathy Hochul didn’t just kill congestion pricing in New York, she killed it across the country for a long time,” said Philip Plotch, the lead researcher for the Eno Center for Transportation, a think tank in Washington, and a manager for policy and planning at the M.T.A. from 1992 to 2005.
Ms. Hochul said she was halting the program because she feared that tolls would deter people from driving into New York City at a time when its economic recovery from the pandemic was still fragile. But critics have argued that the governor actually did it to win political favor for Democrats during a critical election year by capitulating to drivers in suburban districts where congestion pricing has been unpopular.
Experts who study the city’s economy said Ms. Hochul’s reasoning was shortsighted and did not take into account the many advantages that congestion pricing could bring, including more foot traffic from more reliable transit.
Her decision could buttress doubts about the benefits elsewhere, transit experts said.
The bipartisan board of the San Diego Association of Governments last year rejected a proposal to put in place a “road user charge,” after fierce criticism driven primarily by Republicans who said drivers couldn’t afford to pay the fees. Similar to the push for the program in New York, supporters sold it as a way to discourage driving while raising billions for projects like new rail lines, rapid bus services and free public transit.
“With a policy this controversial, it is always helpful if someone else goes first,” said Michael Manville, an urban planning professor who specializes in congestion pricing at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Being able to say, ‘These guys did it and it worked out,’ seems like a small thing, but it’s much, much better than saying, ‘We’re going to stick our necks out over this untested policy.’”
The push for congestion pricing in New York and elsewhere has underscored the precarious finances of many transit systems, which are scrambling to find new revenue sources after steep ridership losses during the pandemic, said Donald F. Kettl, a former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and a columnist for Governing.
The federal government provided $69.5 billion in relief funds for transportation systems during the Covid-19 pandemic. But that emergency money is running out, and many rail and bus systems are facing layoffs and cutbacks. New York City had been spared because state leaders last year made the biggest and most permanent contribution in recent memory to pay for it.
The larger issue, Mr. Kettl said, was how to find a way to finance strapped American transit systems, which are typically viewed as a public utility — and expected to be supported by riders who pay for how much they use it, like gas or water — though in reality these systems, including New York’s, cannot support themselves on fares alone and have to be bailed out with public funds.
Paul P. Skoutelas, president and chief executive of the American Public Transportation Association, said that transit systems in this country had been historically underfunded by government, which has long prioritized roads and infrastructure for cars. “Public transportation has been a distant stepchild to the highway investments that we’ve made as a country,” he said.
Without the congestion pricing money, M.T.A. leaders said they would have to delay or scale back projects that will improve service, reliability and accessibility for millions of riders and set back ambitious climate goals.
Proponents of the program have not given up on it in New York. They have held protests, called lawmakers and intend to go to court to fight the delay.
“It’s not dead,” said Hayley Richardson, a spokeswoman for TransitCenter, an advocacy foundation for urban mass transit. “If congestion pricing happens next year instead of this year, it’s still a great climate and transit policy.”
