Congestion Pricing Delayed

[R10 2952]

https://ny.curbed.com/2020/7/15/21324020/congestion-pricing-delayed-mta-cars-slow-new-york-city

Honestly, with the current crisis going on in NY, across America and the rest of the world, the congestion-pricing initiative might be dead on arrival at this point.

 

[BreeddekalbL]

should have been voted in a referendum this election and implemented 2 years from now if referendum passed

[R10 2952]

Personally, I was never for congestion pricing as a "solution" to transit's funding problems.

The State Lottery was supposed to solve funding problems for education.  It didn't.  The School Construction Authority was supposed to solve corruption problems in the construction bidding process for schools.  It didn't.  The toll system implemented by the TBTA under Robert Moses was supposed to be a temporary way of paying off the bonds that financed construction of said bridges and tunnels.  It became permanent.  There's a pattern in this state when it comes to misleading the public on questionable funding initiatives, and it didn't start yesterday.

Under normal (pre-coronavirus) circumstances, congestion pricing would have left the drivers from outside of Manhattan pissed, Manhattanites wondering why others are so pissed at them, and the transit system even more crowded because, well, new subway lines don't just materialize overnight.  And the MTA would still be too broke to build them anyway because the politicians would inevitably use congestion pricing as a cash cow to skim and divert the money elsewhere.

If the folks in the State House and City Hall were really interested in improving transit's finances, they would have simply found ways to pony up the money from already existing revenue sources.  All the millions they rake in from charging state and municipal income tax, all the tax breaks given to developers and corporations, but there's no money for public transportation? Utter bullshit.