Kathy Hochul's Congestion Pricing Flip-Flop Fiasco
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this emergency episode, we discuss New York State Governor Kathy Hochul's 11th-hour decision to "indefinitely suspend" congestion pricing, the program that would have charged drivers to enter Manhattan below 60th Street. Her move, announced in a prerecorded video on Wednesday, June 5th, came mere weeks before congestion pricing was set to launch, jeopardizing what was set to be a major funding source for transit and a revolutionary plan to reduce traffic in a way never seen before in the United States.
Why did Hochul do this? Is it bad politics or atrociously bad politics? What does this mean for the future of the New York City subway system, commuter rail, accessibility, the environment, the economy and even democracy itself?
More importantly, we discuss what you can do if you live or work in the New York metropolitan area and want to see Hochul's flip flop reversed. We also discuss what effect this could have on cities across the U.S. that might be considering a congestion pricing program of their own.
WARNING: We swear a lot in this one.
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HELP SAVE CONGESTION PRICING:
Contact Governor Kathy Hochul and tell her to implement congestion pricing as planned: 1-518-474-8390
Local advocacy organizations have their own calls to action and can help you contact elected officials:
Tri-State Transportation Campaign
SHOW NOTES:
House Democrats pressured Hochul to tank congestion pricing. (Politico)
Noto a whole lotta teachers drive into Manhattan. (Hellgate NYC)
Read Aaron's take on Representative Hakeem Jeffries and congestion pricing from 2008. (Streetsblog)
Hear our original thoughts on congestion pricing back in episode 111 with Diana Lind.
This episode was recorded at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio by Josh Wilcox. It was edited by Doug Gordon.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is a special episode of The War on Cars. I'm Doug Gordon. I'm here as always with |
| 0:17.8 | Sarah Goodyear and Aaron Napaestek. And... |
| 0:20.3 | Maybe more like an emergency episode. |
| 0:22.6 | Yeah, Special sounds like it's going to be fun. |
| 0:24.6 | This is not going to be fun. |
| 0:25.6 | It might be fun to just vent, but we're not, we're not sharing fun news. |
| 0:29.2 | No. |
| 0:30.2 | Yeah, so as people probably heard, Governor Kathy Hockel, the governor of New York State, our fine state, |
| 0:36.4 | yesterday issued a video announcing that congestion pricing for New York City would no longer go forward. |
| 0:44.4 | It's kind of a stunning out-of-nowhere development. |
| 0:47.4 | Yeah, it was really shocking. |
| 0:49.9 | I mean, I don't get shocked easily. And this was, I just, I mean, we just saw the governor at an event here in Brooklyn. |
| 0:55.0 | You and I saw her not long ago and there she was standing saying all |
| 1:01.0 | sorts of great things and then she just comes out and just |
| 1:03.8 | pulls the rug out from all this. This is why I didn't show up to that event. Yeah that was |
| 1:07.3 | the Sammy's law which allowed New York City to finally control its own speed limits. |
| 1:13.5 | We are recording this on Thursday, the 6th. |
| 1:16.9 | We're gonna drop this on Friday the 7th. |
| 1:19.3 | It's a special episode we don't normally release on Fridays, but we had to talk about this. |
| 1:24.0 | Yesterday was and today and probably every day for the next little while. |
| 1:29.1 | Absolutely the most depressing and demoralizing day I've experienced as an advocate in all of the time I'm not exaggerating in all of the time that I've been doing this |
| 1:37.0 | if it makes you feel better I was talking to people today who've been involved in the stuff for 30 or 40 years and they said the same thing for even they've been involved for even longer. Yeah the only comfort I have is that I am not |
... |
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