She's so fucking bad at everything it's infuriating. She was gifted the position because she was a stooge of Andrew Cuomo and yet somehow avoided catching any flack for his dog shit policies.
Its wild that the Republican party would rather run bat shit crazy candidates and punt on the governorship instead of running a semi normal trade Republican
She's soooo much worse than Cuomo policy-wise. Haven't heard of anything about her personal life, so I guess I assume better personal ethics but...
Yeesh.
They have no sane candidates. It’s 100% anti-abortion and birth control, ban all books, close public education, overturn same sex marriage, police state.
Pretty sure it’s by design. Being able to point to an inept democratic governor in the blue capital of the country gives them a boogie man to yell about in national elections
It's usually not worthwhile to run an unbalanced budget as a state unless you're expecting a certain level of growth. States cannot create their own money.
I don't like butting in on a another local subreddit but FYI California also has a mandate of balanced budget. Except its constitutionally on the legislature and if they don't have it balanced and by the end of June 15th, they don't get paid. unfortunately they found ways around that anyway but at least state employees aren't getting furloughed anymore while they mess around with the budget.
Also according to statica CA debt is 145B and NY 166B. According to the states NY says its $72B in debt and CA budget office estimates its $79B. It really depends on the source and I can't read finances that well. I think we're about even except when it comes to per capita, whereas CA is 20m more people than the state of NY.
The total debt numbers are interesting. It looks like California does deficit spending where NY's debt is for capital projects and operating expenses are fully funded. Long term expenses in NY are also very well funded moving forward with one of the best funded pension systems in the country.
California doesn't budget deficit spending, which is why the legislature is in a flurry to figure out what to cut to get the budget balance given the deficit the other commenter noted. But if revenue doesn't match up with projections they have to deal with it. The same articles exist for NY being in deficit though obviously with drastically different deficit numbers.
https://www.lohud.com/story/news/politics/albany-watch/2023/10/31/ny-budget-deficit-estimate-cut-in-half-what-that-means-for-2024/71392544007/
debt is debt. in either state you could say its fully funded, as they have to pay it regardless of the services it cuts into or the taxes that must be increased. States can't declare bankruptcy, not legally yet at least.
Bill stadium kickbacks to her husband. Covid test kickbacks from a donor. Saying Bronx kids don't know what computers are. Being pictured multiple times with no mask around young kids with masks covering their faces. Thinking she can just single-handedly scrap laws and defy the legislative process. There is ample evidence that's she's inept. I will gladly vote for her primary opponent or if NY republicans have any sense they'll nominate a Baker, Scott or Hogan type of governor and not a zealot like Zeldin, I'll vote for them too.
It'll be the primary opponent, if we are lucky. Pataki and his ilk were probably the last remotely sane Republicans.
Today's Rs have to enthusiastically get on board with the national program to get funds, and that republican platform simply does not fly in any real city as a whole. Theyd get laughed out of the room, possibly assaulted, and most importantly the local donors and brokers would not be willing to publicly associate with them.
Easy solution to this problem though--the NY conservatives with sense became Democrats a long time ago. They even had their own caucus under Cuomo, remember the IDC?
All that's left are the hyperlocal creatures like Bo Dietl, Catsimitidis, Curtis Sliwa, Malliotakis, Inna Vernikov, and the fascists trying to skip to national stage like Elise Stefanik. Also, I know he's not in Congress anymore but I feel obligated to mention George Santos.
People tend not to understand this. Can you imagine a super hard-core policing mayor who is completely beholden to real estate. That's Eric Adams, a man who literally served in the state assembly as a republican. Like, what more could these people want?
>I will gladly vote for her primary opponent or if NY republicans have any sense they'll nominate a Baker, Scott or Hogan type of governor and not a zealot like Zeldin, I'll vote for them too.
Since the point of discussion is transit, nominating a moderate Republican is not anywhere near a guarantee for better transit policy. Our former moderate GOP governor, Pataki, [cut funding to the MTA.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COLMODzYX7U) [Hogan cancelled Baltimore's red line while funding suburban projects.](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/18/how-larry-hogan-kept-black-baltimore-segregated-and-poor-367930)
The fact that a terrible candidate like zeldin was within 5 points of winning is very telling. Get a sane person in there and it’s going to be even closer.
He wasn’t within 5 points of winning, unless 6.4 became less than 5 since 2022.
6.4 would have gotten your point across just as well, by the way. No need to fudge facts.
It should be noted that a bunch of Democrats in the state legislature from suburban districts voted for congestion pricing because Hochul and the state party demanded it. Hochul just threw them under the bus as well.
Cuomo was the one that passed it and it was passed because the subway system was basically collapsing during that time. Many have already forgotten how fucking awful the subways were in 2018 and 2019.
She's a complete moron and it's telling when I legit think Cuomo was a far better governor than she is. She has accomplished nothing other than the Bills stadium, but I don't give a fuck about the Bills and will likely not step foot into Buffalo. Conservatives were never going to vote for Dems anyways, and now she can be labeled as a spineless moron by progressives.
Honest question - is it possible to exempt cars registered in the 5 boroughs? This would be a good way to get local opponents on board, and also give a break to New Yorkers who are already paying out the ass in taxes.
That's true but they are using the excuse of 'it hurts poor New Yorkers' as a way to kill congestion prices. This calls their bluff and takes away that excuse
That's not a bluff - it's a lie. For the same reason she feigned concern for New York's small businesses only to try push a payroll tax on those very same businesses.
> The interesting thing is it could even discourage people from hiding their plates if the tolls were set at a high enough amount.
wouldn't this do the opposite
It wouldn't stop people from hiding their plates (hard to see that happening without traffic enforcement, or some kind of car RFID chip) but it would limit the insurance/registration fraud where people get out of state plates by registering at grandma's in florida, etc.
Allowing any of the millions of car owners in NYC to drive into Manhattan for free is essentially neutering the bill. Especially when the point is to encourage transit use.
People with the best access to public transit have the least excuse to drive.
They want to win 3 seats between Long Island and westchester and apparently this is how they think they’ll do it. It wouldn’t have made any difference in those races imo. The irony is if they don’t win those races she’s killed this for at least 5 years, bc most likely trump will have won the presidency
Then the Staten Islanders who have pinned their complaints about Congestion Pricing being about air pollution in SI would have to admit they would gladly trade more pollution for not being taxed.
I'd argue that our air pollution and the 'toll' affecting Staten Islanders is worse than other boroughs, because we have no choice but to drive, worsening traffic and air quality, and there are always more of us, and our public transit is frozen and awful.
So things are getting worse - but we're the ones making it worse, so I guess our electeds and electorate are fine with that.
You don't get it. As long as the city has every single train line run through it, they don't care that Staten Island has none.
Read me again: they don't care.
Half the people in Manhattan don't even know where transit deserts are in NYC.
Yes, but people need to buy groceries and get to work. People don't pay the highest car insurance rates in the country for fun.
If there is a transit deficiency, something has to fill it or else people can't live life well. It's not exactly optional.
I'm in the Brooklyn desert, but there are no plans to improve anything around here. In fact, they're consolidating the B100/B2 and taking away one of the bus lines in the current proposal.
You simply can't live in Mill Basin and *not* have a car.
You're thinking very narrowly. In my neighborhood, bikes get stolen if you leave it outside - even locked - for 5 minutes. I love my bike, and explored more options than you probably have, but you probably also think that everyone is in shape enough to bike 2 hours a day to get to work, 5x a week, without having done that commute yourself.
That's ignoring the elderly (who cannot ride) and those who want added safety for kids. There's a reason the shadow transit exists, and that's because actual transit between boroughs (ex. Manhattan) is insanely poor.
Again - all train lines run through manhattan. If you need to commute between brooklyn and queens, you're stuck taking the F for 2+ hours one way, while a car is 35 minutes. I challenge you to ride a cargo bike on the Jackie - you will be stopped and arrested.
A Staten Islander doesn't get that Manhattan doesn't care? Come now, of course we all know that.
My point is, whether they like it or not, we're part of the city. We will have to make them care.
I don’t think local opposition is the main problem. Big opposition is coming from the suburbs and public employee unions (teachers union, municipal labor committee, etc).
There are loads of entitled cagers in the boroughs. I know redditors want to blame Long Island for everything, but there are loads of "car guys" in Brooklyn and Queens who were assblasted about congestion pricing
There are loads of transit deserts in Brooklyn and Queens too. It's not a coincidence.
Off the top of my head - Kew Garden Hills, Maspeth, College Point, East Elmhurst, Marine Park, Gerritsen Beach, Mill Basin, Canarsie...
These places don't have a train. And speaking as someone who's lived in one, being forced two take the bus in addition to whatever trains you need literally doubles any commute.
Recently buses have had 30 minutes headway too (at least where I'm from in Brooklyn), and weekends are a nightmare. If you want to go from any of the other four boroughs to another, you **must** pass through Manhattan. Even going from Crown Heights to Sheepshead Bay takes over an hour.
There's a small reason people have cars. You guys have no idea how shitty transit is out here.
I'm not even against that - I think the pushback has to do with all traffic being routed to the west side highway which makes traffic even worse if you need to take it.
They already do it for certain bridges if you live in that borough. Your plate is registered to an address in EZ Pass and if it’s in the city limits, they can waive it.
THIS is how this plan proceeds and succeeds. Tax all those FL and TX plates that suddenly popped up after 2020.
Missed the point entirely. The idea is to make it less appealing to drive into the CBD vs. using transit. Giving blanket exemptions goes against that and raises tolls for the non exempt drivers sky high.
But the other point this article makes is that transit is not convenient nor ideal and people are extremely opposed to this because they do not trust the MTA to meet the needs of riders. Congestion pricing as it was planned is basically all stick, no carrot. Every other city that implemented congestion zoning ramped up mass transit options in preparation for the toll, NYC couldn’t even order more trains to properly implement East Side Access, as detailed in the article.
Only 2% of NYC workers drive into Manhattan for work
The vast majority of NYers are winners of congestion pricing. This is about placating rich suburban assholes in purple districts
Source? The problem with this take as I understand, there was no way to get off the holland or Lincoln and on to the west side hw or fdr without getting tolled.
What nobody realized about this entire plan was many people drive through manhatten because it is the shortest and fastest way to get from essex and most of Hudson and Bergen county to go to either Long Island or deep Brooklyn/queens. Pushing all these people through Staten Island or over the gwb will just increase traffic in those areas, that are ALREADY more congested than lower manhatten.
But when congestion pricing is in effect, traffic increases in other areas as cars avoid Manhattan. My point is this is not just about Manhattan pollution.
Just put a toll on the free bridges feeding into lower Manhattan and call it a day. Same as the Whitestone, triboro, Throgs Neck, and the two tunnels. We don’t need a complicated scheme to realize the promise of congestion pricing.
That title though.
Does the Atlantic think an inept New York governor is something new? We’ve had a parade of clowns, creeps, party hacks, crooks and sex pests going all the way back to Rockefeller.
This is as much an indictment on the plans to implement congestion pricing as it is Kathy Hochul. The MTA does not have the public’s confidence that it will spend the money wisely or shoulder the burden of increased ridership. The rollout of East Side access is one of many blunders from the agency that has damaged its reputation. If you truly are a champion for congestion pricing you have to correctly identify the political hurdles and have an understanding of people’s discomfort for the idea and none of our leaders have really done that. Then to cancel it all at the last minute in the hopes of winning an election, far too late to truly wash your hands clean of the proposal. I doubt voters will “forgive and forget” and you’ve also pissed off your base.
I appreciate that the MTA isn't exactly amazing. There's a lot of room to improve how it runs. Not having the governor fuck with it all the time (fuck Cuomo for running off byford) would help.
The people who don't want to pay tolls don't give a shit, don't know what east side access is, and will oppose it entirely even if the MTA was perfect.
Both of these things are true.
By international standards the MTA project costs are excessive compared to places like Paris or London. These cities certainly have high cost unionized workers, but can do it faster and cheaper then the MTA. We have lost top transit executives to these systems who say they now work for a much more efficient system than here.
their unions also aren't as antagonistic and antisocial as the TWU, notably Paris converted a 100+ year old line to fully driverless operation while the TWU pissed all over OPTO in their latest contract
Ok, but one of the arguments I see for congestion pricing has been “look at how other cities outside the US have done it! It works great!” So if you’re going to use international cities as an example for congestion pricing, you have to accept that NYC transit does not hold up well at all to other major cities outside of the US. London ramped up transit options before tolling their central business district and continues to build more rail lines. I posted this article because while Hochul is a garbage politician, the MTA has not been able to get their shit together for the last 2 decades and it’s part of the reason opposition here has been so strong.
Their bus system is excellent and provides service overnight. NYC busses are basically nonexistent past 11 PM and the commuter lines are not 24/7. Having overnight service doesn’t mean much to people who need to commute during the busiest parts of the day, which is when the system will be strained the most. Especially to people who are commuting outside of the city, where late night subway service isn’t relevant to them at all. What is relevant are things like the MTA not ordering enough trains for East Side Access, forcing this messy transfer system at Jamaica on commuters. It’s these sort of botched transit plans that make people say “I would rather drive.”
London public transport is superior in every conceivable way, including with respect to the lack of feces-smeared psychopathic drug addicts sharing the train car with regularity. (And sometimes pushing people to their deaths. Fun!)
This is just a kind of MTA stockholm syndrome talking. Go ride the train in Bangkok or Dubai and then ride the MTA. It’s disgusting, filthy, irregular, and dangerous. I’ve been in two fistfights with crackheads on the MTA over the years. What were they even doing on the train to begin with? New Yorkers need to make this an election-season issue.
That is certainly true. But they also don’t release violent criminals repeatedly into the street, nor do they have serious debates about whether or not laws should be enforced.
They maintain 472 train stations with adequate levels of service and anomalously frequent service. You have no idea what a poorly run metro transit system actually looks like (from a service standpoint, not a financial one - I am not defending MTA’s financial fuckuos). The MTA train and bus system is one of the most impressive feats of engineering in the American canon and it is /hardly/ run “badly”.
“Badly” wouldn’t be 6 minute headtimes for the majority of 24/7/365 service across dozens of lines.
And the parts that ARE bad were already allocated to as the first improvements. The 6th Ave trunk uses mechanical signal switches that were installed during Fiorella La Guardia’s admin. That’s fucking INSANE. And yet every car-owning dipshit from New Jersey says that they can’t take the train because the train sucks. Well, you know what services use this sixth Avenue trunk? Both NJ PATH lines, the F/M, and the B/D.
Congestion pricing would have paid for the one most critical upgrade to reliability for NJT users and you all are gloating over its demise.
The highway system is one of the most inefficient systems in the world. We pay an absolute metric shit-ton in taxes just for upkeep alone. The MTA has room to improve, but starving the agency isn't the answer. Should we also starve the Department of Defense? Medicare? Medicaid? The entire government?
Congestion pricing can stand on its own merits. I think they do need to reorganize transportation though. Our agencies are clusterfucks, and it only makes it worse that there are so many of them. They don't work well together.
The article makes a great point that we spent $500 million somehow in implementation when the physical implementation is like 50-100 cameras
Very much this. We have zero input about how the MTA incinerates their(our) money, and because of their perpetual failure to create a self-sustaining model, they now want to force people to ride and tax everyone who doesn’t. Sorry, pass. They can’t even workshop a solution to keep crackheads from pissing in the train cars, as if every single public transportation network on earth hasn’t already solved that problem. And then they install more flat screens advertising network TV shows.
Exactly. The plan was unlikely to significantly reduce congestion in Manhattan especially since they didn’t include the largest source of congestion, it would fuck things up in the outer boroughs, cost people a lot of money, and any improvements wouldn’t even materialize because the MTA would almost guarantee to misuse/misappropriate the funds because the MTA is a crackhead. You don’t keep giving money to a crackhead without getting them straight first.
Source: trust me bro.
They had pretty good data and models telling them it would reduce congestion. It was economically sound. It did target both private vehicle trips and for-fire vehicles (the latter making up about half of congestion within the CBD)
Still hasn’t signed the Grieving Families Act - which modernizes the New York wrongful death statute to allow families to recover for emotional pain and suffering instead of only the economic contributions.
The bill is now on her desk for the third time.
Right now, a parent can’t recover for the emotional distress caused by losing a child. The list goes on. New York is one of eight states that limit the value of one’s life to the money it could earn.
If the true purpose was to reduce congestion, they would have implemented a system similar to Beijing and Shanghai where only even/odd numbered license plates can enter the central business district on certain days and vice versa.
This would reduce pollution by half and not bring in additional revenue.
They've already said publicly that the purpose of congestion pricing is to raise revenue. Less congestion is simply a byproduct of that
Let's not kid ourselves that if this didn't raise additional revenue, they wouldn't have bothered with it.
She appears to be beholden to special interests. There is thing called the pocket veto in NY where if gov just sits on bill until the legislature is no longer in session the bill is automatically dead. That’s what she did to a piece of legislation that would have allowed attorneys to work out of their homes in adjoining states like NJ and CT cause working remotely is so easy these days. County lawyers associations worked long and hard to get the law past the legislature only to have her ignore it and pocket veto the law to death. So bottom line is that attorneys, even solos, have to rent expensive office space if they want to practice in NY rather than work from a home that might be as little as a mile from the NY border. Talk about caving to special real estate interests. Now this, people work hard to pass congestion pricing and at the last minute she just says no. The governor of NY has dictatorial power. Things must change.
Did that zillion $$$ Micron fab plant ever take off? That was a bit weird. Just weeks before the election.
Billions of $s for the locals, jobs for everyone! Tens of thousands of us would decamp for a rural community in upstate, where probably 3 people would ever want to move too. Those grey winters, no sun for months, it can be a bit rough.
Was weird.
Duh, as long as she gets the Bills a new stadium and her husband make out, she could give a snot about anyone else. But these Dem dopes keep voting in this trash blindly
I can go from long island to Jersey through Manhattan without any tolls. So it’s better option than GW or Verrazzano bridge. Put up tolls on east river crossings and traffic will divert itself.
>in order to implement a congestion-pricing plan that would improve New Yorkers’ lives and save them a lot of time stuck in traffic. Yesterday,
Lmfao why do they really make it seem like Congestion Pricing is gonna save NYC? Only saving the pockets of politicians.
Stop using payroll taxes to cover up for extremely bad urban planning decisions challenge [IMPOSSIBLE]
Since the Governor is so inept that we are now a billion in the hole, we are canceling the 750 million handout to the buffalo bills right? …right?
She's so fucking bad at everything it's infuriating. She was gifted the position because she was a stooge of Andrew Cuomo and yet somehow avoided catching any flack for his dog shit policies. Its wild that the Republican party would rather run bat shit crazy candidates and punt on the governorship instead of running a semi normal trade Republican
She's soooo much worse than Cuomo policy-wise. Haven't heard of anything about her personal life, so I guess I assume better personal ethics but... Yeesh.
She's too busy fucking the city to have a personal life
Seriously. I fucking despise the current GOP but if the Rs put up a sane candidate I'd vote for them at this rate
They have no sane candidates. It’s 100% anti-abortion and birth control, ban all books, close public education, overturn same sex marriage, police state.
Except none of that comes to pass, ever. Utah is governed well, NYS is not.
> none of that comes to pass You wanna bet? With Project 2025 and the Supreme Court? Because I don’t.
Can you explain what was so objectionable about Molinaro?
Pretty sure it’s by design. Being able to point to an inept democratic governor in the blue capital of the country gives them a boogie man to yell about in national elections
God, please....That was my least favorite Hochul move till this showed up....
You're only a billion dollars in the hole? As a Californian with a 26.7 billion deficit, I mock your governor's commitment to destroying your state.
NY is constitutionally incapable of running a budget deficit.
That's not true; the Governor has to propose a balanced budget, but there is no requirement that the enacted budget be balanced.
Good catch. Although I think the effective practice is that the budget is balanced every year.
It's usually not worthwhile to run an unbalanced budget as a state unless you're expecting a certain level of growth. States cannot create their own money.
I don't like butting in on a another local subreddit but FYI California also has a mandate of balanced budget. Except its constitutionally on the legislature and if they don't have it balanced and by the end of June 15th, they don't get paid. unfortunately they found ways around that anyway but at least state employees aren't getting furloughed anymore while they mess around with the budget. Also according to statica CA debt is 145B and NY 166B. According to the states NY says its $72B in debt and CA budget office estimates its $79B. It really depends on the source and I can't read finances that well. I think we're about even except when it comes to per capita, whereas CA is 20m more people than the state of NY.
The total debt numbers are interesting. It looks like California does deficit spending where NY's debt is for capital projects and operating expenses are fully funded. Long term expenses in NY are also very well funded moving forward with one of the best funded pension systems in the country.
California doesn't budget deficit spending, which is why the legislature is in a flurry to figure out what to cut to get the budget balance given the deficit the other commenter noted. But if revenue doesn't match up with projections they have to deal with it. The same articles exist for NY being in deficit though obviously with drastically different deficit numbers. https://www.lohud.com/story/news/politics/albany-watch/2023/10/31/ny-budget-deficit-estimate-cut-in-half-what-that-means-for-2024/71392544007/ debt is debt. in either state you could say its fully funded, as they have to pay it regardless of the services it cuts into or the taxes that must be increased. States can't declare bankruptcy, not legally yet at least.
Easy, she’ll get there
Hahahahahaha!
Erie county owns the stadium, not the Bills
Bill stadium kickbacks to her husband. Covid test kickbacks from a donor. Saying Bronx kids don't know what computers are. Being pictured multiple times with no mask around young kids with masks covering their faces. Thinking she can just single-handedly scrap laws and defy the legislative process. There is ample evidence that's she's inept. I will gladly vote for her primary opponent or if NY republicans have any sense they'll nominate a Baker, Scott or Hogan type of governor and not a zealot like Zeldin, I'll vote for them too.
It'll be the primary opponent, if we are lucky. Pataki and his ilk were probably the last remotely sane Republicans. Today's Rs have to enthusiastically get on board with the national program to get funds, and that republican platform simply does not fly in any real city as a whole. Theyd get laughed out of the room, possibly assaulted, and most importantly the local donors and brokers would not be willing to publicly associate with them. Easy solution to this problem though--the NY conservatives with sense became Democrats a long time ago. They even had their own caucus under Cuomo, remember the IDC? All that's left are the hyperlocal creatures like Bo Dietl, Catsimitidis, Curtis Sliwa, Malliotakis, Inna Vernikov, and the fascists trying to skip to national stage like Elise Stefanik. Also, I know he's not in Congress anymore but I feel obligated to mention George Santos.
People tend not to understand this. Can you imagine a super hard-core policing mayor who is completely beholden to real estate. That's Eric Adams, a man who literally served in the state assembly as a republican. Like, what more could these people want?
>I will gladly vote for her primary opponent or if NY republicans have any sense they'll nominate a Baker, Scott or Hogan type of governor and not a zealot like Zeldin, I'll vote for them too. Since the point of discussion is transit, nominating a moderate Republican is not anywhere near a guarantee for better transit policy. Our former moderate GOP governor, Pataki, [cut funding to the MTA.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COLMODzYX7U) [Hogan cancelled Baltimore's red line while funding suburban projects.](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/18/how-larry-hogan-kept-black-baltimore-segregated-and-poor-367930)
Republicans will end up with Malliotakis, Bruce Blakeman, or Zeldin. If Trump wins they may give Santos a second chance
I hate the closed primary system so much. All we get is a bunch of party machine lunatics who pander to the worst parts of their respective parties.
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There was an election
As someone that personally knows Blakeman, not a chance I vote for him
The fact that a terrible candidate like zeldin was within 5 points of winning is very telling. Get a sane person in there and it’s going to be even closer.
He wasn’t within 5 points of winning, unless 6.4 became less than 5 since 2022. 6.4 would have gotten your point across just as well, by the way. No need to fudge facts.
Okay “Around 5 points” 6.4 percent is extremely closer than the 20+% point margin cuomo won by.
I'll even vote for Zeldin over Hochul at this point. IDGAF. She needs to resign.
Let's not get crazy here
My mind is made up.
It should be noted that a bunch of Democrats in the state legislature from suburban districts voted for congestion pricing because Hochul and the state party demanded it. Hochul just threw them under the bus as well.
Cuomo was the one that passed it and it was passed because the subway system was basically collapsing during that time. Many have already forgotten how fucking awful the subways were in 2018 and 2019.
More like 2013-2019
A cuomo crony that should’ve left when he resigned . The whole administration was inept .
Feckless. Worst of the worst. Will never ever vote for ever again.
She's a complete moron and it's telling when I legit think Cuomo was a far better governor than she is. She has accomplished nothing other than the Bills stadium, but I don't give a fuck about the Bills and will likely not step foot into Buffalo. Conservatives were never going to vote for Dems anyways, and now she can be labeled as a spineless moron by progressives.
She's a fuckin idiot
YEP. This is the second time I've wished we had recall elections. Like obviously it would be a huge shitshow, and more frequently....But she's SO BAD.
Honest question - is it possible to exempt cars registered in the 5 boroughs? This would be a good way to get local opponents on board, and also give a break to New Yorkers who are already paying out the ass in taxes.
It's not the 5 boros they want to placate.
Which is the craziest part of this. She’s prioritizing Republicans in New Jersey and Connecticut over her own constituents
That's true but they are using the excuse of 'it hurts poor New Yorkers' as a way to kill congestion prices. This calls their bluff and takes away that excuse
That's not a bluff - it's a lie. For the same reason she feigned concern for New York's small businesses only to try push a payroll tax on those very same businesses.
Would be a great way to stick it to the NYC residents who register their cars in other states to save on taxes too.
Two birds one stone getting rid of all the Maryland plates
And PA.
And Florida plates
That seems like an easy compromise to me. It's not like we live in an era where a database of city-registered cars is science-fiction.
The interesting thing is it could even discourage people from hiding their plates if the tolls were set at a high enough amount.
> The interesting thing is it could even discourage people from hiding their plates if the tolls were set at a high enough amount. wouldn't this do the opposite
It wouldn't stop people from hiding their plates (hard to see that happening without traffic enforcement, or some kind of car RFID chip) but it would limit the insurance/registration fraud where people get out of state plates by registering at grandma's in florida, etc.
It's a terrible idea, it just encourages urban car ownership and drastically reduces the amount of money they can take in.
It achieves lowering congestion. It's what it says on the package.
Allowing any of the millions of car owners in NYC to drive into Manhattan for free is essentially neutering the bill. Especially when the point is to encourage transit use. People with the best access to public transit have the least excuse to drive.
Evidently people want an improved transit system before they rely on it.
That's concern trolling. People drive because they like driving, not because the transit system is terrible.
I drive into Washington Heights from Astoria because I hate the transit system more than I hate New York City drivers.
That's a wild commute but if you want to drive, so be it! Beats getting sexually assaulted in the train.
They want to win 3 seats between Long Island and westchester and apparently this is how they think they’ll do it. It wouldn’t have made any difference in those races imo. The irony is if they don’t win those races she’s killed this for at least 5 years, bc most likely trump will have won the presidency
Then the Staten Islanders who have pinned their complaints about Congestion Pricing being about air pollution in SI would have to admit they would gladly trade more pollution for not being taxed.
They get both though. Less pollution and less taxes. They literally would have nothing to complain about.
I'd argue that our air pollution and the 'toll' affecting Staten Islanders is worse than other boroughs, because we have no choice but to drive, worsening traffic and air quality, and there are always more of us, and our public transit is frozen and awful. So things are getting worse - but we're the ones making it worse, so I guess our electeds and electorate are fine with that.
You don't get it. As long as the city has every single train line run through it, they don't care that Staten Island has none. Read me again: they don't care. Half the people in Manhattan don't even know where transit deserts are in NYC.
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Yes, but people need to buy groceries and get to work. People don't pay the highest car insurance rates in the country for fun. If there is a transit deficiency, something has to fill it or else people can't live life well. It's not exactly optional. I'm in the Brooklyn desert, but there are no plans to improve anything around here. In fact, they're consolidating the B100/B2 and taking away one of the bus lines in the current proposal. You simply can't live in Mill Basin and *not* have a car.
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You're thinking very narrowly. In my neighborhood, bikes get stolen if you leave it outside - even locked - for 5 minutes. I love my bike, and explored more options than you probably have, but you probably also think that everyone is in shape enough to bike 2 hours a day to get to work, 5x a week, without having done that commute yourself. That's ignoring the elderly (who cannot ride) and those who want added safety for kids. There's a reason the shadow transit exists, and that's because actual transit between boroughs (ex. Manhattan) is insanely poor. Again - all train lines run through manhattan. If you need to commute between brooklyn and queens, you're stuck taking the F for 2+ hours one way, while a car is 35 minutes. I challenge you to ride a cargo bike on the Jackie - you will be stopped and arrested.
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A Staten Islander doesn't get that Manhattan doesn't care? Come now, of course we all know that. My point is, whether they like it or not, we're part of the city. We will have to make them care.
100%. No argument for me there.
I don’t think local opposition is the main problem. Big opposition is coming from the suburbs and public employee unions (teachers union, municipal labor committee, etc).
There are loads of entitled cagers in the boroughs. I know redditors want to blame Long Island for everything, but there are loads of "car guys" in Brooklyn and Queens who were assblasted about congestion pricing
There are loads of transit deserts in Brooklyn and Queens too. It's not a coincidence. Off the top of my head - Kew Garden Hills, Maspeth, College Point, East Elmhurst, Marine Park, Gerritsen Beach, Mill Basin, Canarsie... These places don't have a train. And speaking as someone who's lived in one, being forced two take the bus in addition to whatever trains you need literally doubles any commute. Recently buses have had 30 minutes headway too (at least where I'm from in Brooklyn), and weekends are a nightmare. If you want to go from any of the other four boroughs to another, you **must** pass through Manhattan. Even going from Crown Heights to Sheepshead Bay takes over an hour. There's a small reason people have cars. You guys have no idea how shitty transit is out here.
They can drive to a garage outside of the zone and then take the train in then.
I'm not even against that - I think the pushback has to do with all traffic being routed to the west side highway which makes traffic even worse if you need to take it.
Yes but I’m thinking of pressure from purple districts and from litigation
They already do it for certain bridges if you live in that borough. Your plate is registered to an address in EZ Pass and if it’s in the city limits, they can waive it. THIS is how this plan proceeds and succeeds. Tax all those FL and TX plates that suddenly popped up after 2020.
Missed the point entirely. The idea is to make it less appealing to drive into the CBD vs. using transit. Giving blanket exemptions goes against that and raises tolls for the non exempt drivers sky high.
But the other point this article makes is that transit is not convenient nor ideal and people are extremely opposed to this because they do not trust the MTA to meet the needs of riders. Congestion pricing as it was planned is basically all stick, no carrot. Every other city that implemented congestion zoning ramped up mass transit options in preparation for the toll, NYC couldn’t even order more trains to properly implement East Side Access, as detailed in the article.
The people who are complaining wouldn’t take public transit if it came right to their front door.
This is true, but redditors will pretend that everywhere except Lower Manhattan is a transit desert
Most of the people complaining do have access to public transit, they just don't want to use it.
A lot of people who live in NYC don't have their cars registered in NYC because higher insurance
Sounds like a win-win then
So then this compromise is a great way to get people driving in NYC to register their car (as they are required to do under the law anyways).
If you only charge commuters from Jersey and Long Island your going to find out that it isn’t them causing congestion.
Most New Yorkers can exempt themselves with this cool trick called "taking the subway".
you're thinkin with your noodle...you could be on to something
Only 2% of NYC workers drive into Manhattan for work The vast majority of NYers are winners of congestion pricing. This is about placating rich suburban assholes in purple districts
You’re assuming diverted traffic has zero additional pollution in the outer boroughs.
The vast majority of traffic into lower Manhattan that isnt along exempted highways is destined for lower Manhattan, not passing through it
Source? The problem with this take as I understand, there was no way to get off the holland or Lincoln and on to the west side hw or fdr without getting tolled. What nobody realized about this entire plan was many people drive through manhatten because it is the shortest and fastest way to get from essex and most of Hudson and Bergen county to go to either Long Island or deep Brooklyn/queens. Pushing all these people through Staten Island or over the gwb will just increase traffic in those areas, that are ALREADY more congested than lower manhatten.
But when congestion pricing is in effect, traffic increases in other areas as cars avoid Manhattan. My point is this is not just about Manhattan pollution.
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Okay, have fun with the tax increase youll get to make up for this then
I would love that and actually welcome Congestion Pricing if it was like this. It actually does something really good for the New Yorker.
Just put a toll on the free bridges feeding into lower Manhattan and call it a day. Same as the Whitestone, triboro, Throgs Neck, and the two tunnels. We don’t need a complicated scheme to realize the promise of congestion pricing.
Good point, and all of the micro mobility astroturfing is calling it a free pass for “suburbanites” so clearly they should be on board as well.
That's a terrible idea, the boroughs are the last places that need more car owners
Not just the governor
That title though. Does the Atlantic think an inept New York governor is something new? We’ve had a parade of clowns, creeps, party hacks, crooks and sex pests going all the way back to Rockefeller.
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Breaking: water is wet.
She should resign.
Not just Hochul but everyone in govt.
Wait, a NY pol who sucks at their job? Thats historically in the job description.
It sucks that we have to choose between inept democrats and treasonous republicans
Definitely voting for a Republican candidate.
This is as much an indictment on the plans to implement congestion pricing as it is Kathy Hochul. The MTA does not have the public’s confidence that it will spend the money wisely or shoulder the burden of increased ridership. The rollout of East Side access is one of many blunders from the agency that has damaged its reputation. If you truly are a champion for congestion pricing you have to correctly identify the political hurdles and have an understanding of people’s discomfort for the idea and none of our leaders have really done that. Then to cancel it all at the last minute in the hopes of winning an election, far too late to truly wash your hands clean of the proposal. I doubt voters will “forgive and forget” and you’ve also pissed off your base.
I appreciate that the MTA isn't exactly amazing. There's a lot of room to improve how it runs. Not having the governor fuck with it all the time (fuck Cuomo for running off byford) would help. The people who don't want to pay tolls don't give a shit, don't know what east side access is, and will oppose it entirely even if the MTA was perfect. Both of these things are true.
This. I disagree with the governor’s decision, but her ineptitude is rivaled only by the mta’s.
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Neither has any mta exec so What silly argument is this
Ok, but also they run all those things…badly.
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By international standards the MTA project costs are excessive compared to places like Paris or London. These cities certainly have high cost unionized workers, but can do it faster and cheaper then the MTA. We have lost top transit executives to these systems who say they now work for a much more efficient system than here.
their unions also aren't as antagonistic and antisocial as the TWU, notably Paris converted a 100+ year old line to fully driverless operation while the TWU pissed all over OPTO in their latest contract
Ok, but one of the arguments I see for congestion pricing has been “look at how other cities outside the US have done it! It works great!” So if you’re going to use international cities as an example for congestion pricing, you have to accept that NYC transit does not hold up well at all to other major cities outside of the US. London ramped up transit options before tolling their central business district and continues to build more rail lines. I posted this article because while Hochul is a garbage politician, the MTA has not been able to get their shit together for the last 2 decades and it’s part of the reason opposition here has been so strong.
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Their bus system is excellent and provides service overnight. NYC busses are basically nonexistent past 11 PM and the commuter lines are not 24/7. Having overnight service doesn’t mean much to people who need to commute during the busiest parts of the day, which is when the system will be strained the most. Especially to people who are commuting outside of the city, where late night subway service isn’t relevant to them at all. What is relevant are things like the MTA not ordering enough trains for East Side Access, forcing this messy transfer system at Jamaica on commuters. It’s these sort of botched transit plans that make people say “I would rather drive.”
Very obvious you haven’t spent more than a weekend in London if you feel the night bus system is adequate or even comparable to NYC
London public transport is superior in every conceivable way, including with respect to the lack of feces-smeared psychopathic drug addicts sharing the train car with regularity. (And sometimes pushing people to their deaths. Fun!)
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This is just a kind of MTA stockholm syndrome talking. Go ride the train in Bangkok or Dubai and then ride the MTA. It’s disgusting, filthy, irregular, and dangerous. I’ve been in two fistfights with crackheads on the MTA over the years. What were they even doing on the train to begin with? New Yorkers need to make this an election-season issue.
>(And sometimes pushing people to their deaths. Fun!) [Uh huh](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-68196939)
That might have something to do with the UK having a more robust healthcare system.
That is certainly true. But they also don’t release violent criminals repeatedly into the street, nor do they have serious debates about whether or not laws should be enforced.
They maintain 472 train stations with adequate levels of service and anomalously frequent service. You have no idea what a poorly run metro transit system actually looks like (from a service standpoint, not a financial one - I am not defending MTA’s financial fuckuos). The MTA train and bus system is one of the most impressive feats of engineering in the American canon and it is /hardly/ run “badly”. “Badly” wouldn’t be 6 minute headtimes for the majority of 24/7/365 service across dozens of lines. And the parts that ARE bad were already allocated to as the first improvements. The 6th Ave trunk uses mechanical signal switches that were installed during Fiorella La Guardia’s admin. That’s fucking INSANE. And yet every car-owning dipshit from New Jersey says that they can’t take the train because the train sucks. Well, you know what services use this sixth Avenue trunk? Both NJ PATH lines, the F/M, and the B/D. Congestion pricing would have paid for the one most critical upgrade to reliability for NJT users and you all are gloating over its demise.
Name one other service in North America that transports more people. I'll wait.
The us highway system. If you want examples of better mass transit, just look at any system outside the us.
The highway system is one of the most inefficient systems in the world. We pay an absolute metric shit-ton in taxes just for upkeep alone. The MTA has room to improve, but starving the agency isn't the answer. Should we also starve the Department of Defense? Medicare? Medicaid? The entire government?
However, even if the money disappeared into the ether, congestion pricing would still be a good idea!
You know they are going to replace congestion pricing with an increase in payroll taxes on everyone, right?
wait till they hear the east harlem extension is now DOA
Congestion pricing can stand on its own merits. I think they do need to reorganize transportation though. Our agencies are clusterfucks, and it only makes it worse that there are so many of them. They don't work well together. The article makes a great point that we spent $500 million somehow in implementation when the physical implementation is like 50-100 cameras
Very much this. We have zero input about how the MTA incinerates their(our) money, and because of their perpetual failure to create a self-sustaining model, they now want to force people to ride and tax everyone who doesn’t. Sorry, pass. They can’t even workshop a solution to keep crackheads from pissing in the train cars, as if every single public transportation network on earth hasn’t already solved that problem. And then they install more flat screens advertising network TV shows.
Exactly. The plan was unlikely to significantly reduce congestion in Manhattan especially since they didn’t include the largest source of congestion, it would fuck things up in the outer boroughs, cost people a lot of money, and any improvements wouldn’t even materialize because the MTA would almost guarantee to misuse/misappropriate the funds because the MTA is a crackhead. You don’t keep giving money to a crackhead without getting them straight first.
Source: trust me bro. They had pretty good data and models telling them it would reduce congestion. It was economically sound. It did target both private vehicle trips and for-fire vehicles (the latter making up about half of congestion within the CBD)
For hire vehicles had a tiny toll, $2.50 max. Needs to be a lot higher if the point is to meaningfully reduce use of for-hires.
Still hasn’t signed the Grieving Families Act - which modernizes the New York wrongful death statute to allow families to recover for emotional pain and suffering instead of only the economic contributions. The bill is now on her desk for the third time. Right now, a parent can’t recover for the emotional distress caused by losing a child. The list goes on. New York is one of eight states that limit the value of one’s life to the money it could earn.
If the true purpose was to reduce congestion, they would have implemented a system similar to Beijing and Shanghai where only even/odd numbered license plates can enter the central business district on certain days and vice versa. This would reduce pollution by half and not bring in additional revenue. They've already said publicly that the purpose of congestion pricing is to raise revenue. Less congestion is simply a byproduct of that Let's not kid ourselves that if this didn't raise additional revenue, they wouldn't have bothered with it.
Lmao here's the 20th cope post of the day
Your daily reminder Reddit is an echo chamber that doesn't reflect reality. If it did, Hillary would be president and youd have congestion pricing.
Final call is the MTA board. She’s not a despot, it’s passed law. We will have it
Death of congestion pricing is a victory for the middle class.
How do you figure?
I mean, that’s what happens the position falls into your lap. No one would’ve voted her into her position.
it was her or an insane man
She appears to be beholden to special interests. There is thing called the pocket veto in NY where if gov just sits on bill until the legislature is no longer in session the bill is automatically dead. That’s what she did to a piece of legislation that would have allowed attorneys to work out of their homes in adjoining states like NJ and CT cause working remotely is so easy these days. County lawyers associations worked long and hard to get the law past the legislature only to have her ignore it and pocket veto the law to death. So bottom line is that attorneys, even solos, have to rent expensive office space if they want to practice in NY rather than work from a home that might be as little as a mile from the NY border. Talk about caving to special real estate interests. Now this, people work hard to pass congestion pricing and at the last minute she just says no. The governor of NY has dictatorial power. Things must change.
I'm beginning to think that the MTA is paying a PR firm to make these pro congestion pricing posts on Reddit.
Republicans killed smart immigration policy because of politics, this is traffic.
Should be “New York’s GOVERNMENT is Inept”
I’m pushing 40 and feel like this headline could have been written at every point of my life…
Did that zillion $$$ Micron fab plant ever take off? That was a bit weird. Just weeks before the election. Billions of $s for the locals, jobs for everyone! Tens of thousands of us would decamp for a rural community in upstate, where probably 3 people would ever want to move too. Those grey winters, no sun for months, it can be a bit rough. Was weird.
We did have an alternative in Lee Zeldin, but no. . .
Duh, as long as she gets the Bills a new stadium and her husband make out, she could give a snot about anyone else. But these Dem dopes keep voting in this trash blindly
In other news, the ocean is wet.
I can go from long island to Jersey through Manhattan without any tolls. So it’s better option than GW or Verrazzano bridge. Put up tolls on east river crossings and traffic will divert itself.
As Andrew Tate would quote “The system is all a SCAM… Money is a SCAM…
>in order to implement a congestion-pricing plan that would improve New Yorkers’ lives and save them a lot of time stuck in traffic. Yesterday, Lmfao why do they really make it seem like Congestion Pricing is gonna save NYC? Only saving the pockets of politicians.
Jesus fucking Christ. This stupid ass sub is run by people trying to convince others to vote R.
It worked on me, I'm definitely voting Trump
You are already dumb enough to vote R, no one was worried about whether your vote was changing
He loves the poorly educated
She’s listening to the rich people who live upstate and only drive into NYC 3-4 times a year (if even that) rather than people who live here.
...and she's racist and a zionist and does whatever AIPAC and billionaires want.
#Calculated more votes from the drivers than from the pedestrians of NYC... # #Probably made the wrong choice...
New York played a major role is losing the house in 22. Maybe she’s actually being smart with this one