Adams on Board with Hochul’s Renewed Congestion Pricing Push

Mayor Eric Adams said he supports the move by Governor Kathy Hochul to “unpause” congestion pricing but is leaning toward a lower price point than the original $15. He did not address whether he would push Hochul to give a price break to car owners who live inside the zone.

He did see he supported a break for “first responders” and other “working class people.”

“I’m with the governor on congestion pricing,” Adams said at his weekly press conference on Nov. 12 at City Hall. “She has been a real partner, she understands and she heard the citizens of the city. I think it was $15 and there may be different changes in that.

“We have to deal with the environment. We have to deal with congestion,” said Adams, citing two big reasons that supporters want it enacted to cut emissions with fewer cars entering the city.

The London plan which was an early role model for the New York City plan gives car owners who live within the district a 90 percent discount. In New York City, the original plan was going to have those in zone residents pay full price which was scheduled to be $15 per vehicle in peak hours.

Adams did not address whether he supported a discount for people living within the zone. But when asked if supported a discount for teachers, cops and firefighters who live outside the zone but work inside it, he said he was supportive of a discount. The Uniformed Firefighters Association and the United Federation of Teachers were among the most vocal opponents of congestion pricing in its original formulation.

“We don’t want this congestion pricing to hurt working class people, particularly our transit employees, our first responders, and that’s part of the ongoing conversation to do just that,” Adams said.

But ultimately, Adams said it is engtirely Hochul’s call. “Congestion pricing is tied to raising money for the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, so the final decision will rest with Hochul.

She was said to have paused the plan in June shortly before it was scheduled to go into effect because Democratic leaders felt it would hurt their chances of flipping seats on Long Island and in the suburbs north of the city in the Hudson Valley. Despite the rightward shift across the state, Democrats flipped several seats, including Lauren Gillen defeating first term Republican Anthony Esposito in Nassau County.

But now the worry is that with Donald Trump set to return to the White House on Jan. 20, the congestion pricing plan could be scuttled entirely because he is on record opposing it. The conventional wisdom is that it would tougher to halt the plan if it was already in effect.

Adams acknowledged it’s a thorny issue. “There are some New Yorkers who support congestion pricing. There’s some New Yorkers who don’t: 8.3 million people, 35 million opinions. Welcome to New York City.”

But at this stage, with Adams battling a four count federal corruption indictment, he is going along with whatever plan Hochul comes up with on congestion pricing. “She will make the final decision, and I support her decision because she’s doing what’s best for the city,” he said.