congestion pricing in nyc is dead – for now, at least – and despite my love of trains and despite other transit advocates’ rage, I can’t even be mad.

You might’ve heard that New York governor Kathy Hochul reversed course on congestion pricing – the Midtown tolls will not, in fact, go live on June 30th. And this, despite record traffic across MTA’s tolled bridges and tunnels and NYC subway ridership plateauing at around 70% of pre-COVID levels.

While many transit advocates are understandably upset, my initial reaction was more muted – somewhat disappointed, mostly not surprised.

I’ll explain.

Funds collected from the congestion toll would’ve helped fund transit, sure. But this is an MTA whose overspending is the stuff of legend – indeed, an MTA that botched the rollout of revamped LIRR service post-Grand Central Madison, an MTA that refuses to run more off-peak service on its commuter rails despite increasing off-peak ridership, an MTA that now runs many NYC subway lines every 12 minutes off-peak (easily the worst levels of regularly-scheduled service in decades), and an MTA that has, in many ways, squandered the public trust.

Given this, the (temporary?) death of congestion pricing was no surprise to me. A lot of politicos – Hochul included – talk a good game when it comes to improving transit, but hardly deliver. To be honest, I’m mostly jaded with the state of transit in NY. Don’t get me wrong – I still love trains, and I still ride the rails (and my bike!) on a regular basis. But I’ve lost a lot of interest in advocacy – even to the point where I’ve considered nuking NYTIP – because it’s clear that the powers-that-be either don’t care or actually desire to make transit worse.

(And don’t get me started on the pathological aversion to bikes.)

But hey, at least there’s $5 billion for highway widening. Here’s more of what New York has to look forward to:

[Fig. 1] The more things change, the more they stay the same?