New York City to move ahead with congestion pricing plan

New York City will adopt congestion pricing on certain roads in January, Governor Kathy Hochul announced, after an 11th-hour delay earlier this year cast the programme into doubt.

The revised plan features lower fees for vehicles entering designated zones of Manhattan. The original toll prices faced pushback from some commuters and businesses.

Hochul said the plan would “unclog our streets, reduce pollution and deliver better public transit for millions of New Yorkers.”

Starting 5 January, the city will be the first in the US to implement a congestion pricing programme. The plan, however, could face opposition from incoming president Donald Trump.

Congestion pricing will apply to vehicles travelling in Manhattan below 60th street, the heart of New York’s metropolitan center.

The programme is intended to generate funding for the beleagured Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which manages the city’s subways, buses, and other forms of public transit, while also easing New York’s interminable traffic.

After abruptly pausing the programme in June as it was about to go into effect, Hochul announced Thursday that the revised plan will reduce the daytime toll for cars to $9 from the previously planned $15.

Small trucks and non-commuter buses will pay $14.40 to enter Manhattan, while larger trucks and tourist buses will pay a $21.60 fee.

Riders Alliance, a public transit advocacy group that has backed congestion pricing, praised Hochul’s revival of the programme.

“We’ll continue to fight together to make sure the plan is implemented and funds the projects riders really need,” they wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Hochul’s plan would implement congestion pricing before one of its highest-profile critics, Donald Trump, is sworn in as US president in January.

“I have great respect for the Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, and look forward to working with her to Make New York and America Great Again. But I strongly disagree with the decision on the congestion tax,” Trump told the New York Post, a conservative tabloid, in an interivew on Wednesday.

Local Republicans have already asked him to intervene.

Congressman Mike Lawler, who represents a suburban district just north of New York City, asked Trump to commit to “ending this absurd congestion pricing cash grab once and for all”.

At a press conference Wednesday, Hochul said she planned to move ahead with the plan regardless of who was in power in Washington.

“I’m not driven by the calendar of when people are elected or not elected,” she said.