Congest-price plan best: gov
A CONGESTION pricing plan — not a millionaires’ tax — is the best and most realistic way to fund a proposed $19 billion, five-year plan to repair the subway system, Gov. Cuomo said Thursday.
Following an unrelated event on Long Island, Cuomo dismissed calls by Mayor de Blasio, state Sen. Michael Gianaris (DQueens) and others to pay for the subway improvements by imposing a new tax on millionaires.
New York already has the second-highest tax on millionaires in the country, behind only California, Cuomo said.
The push to hike taxes on the wealthy has been raised frequently but rejected by both houses of the Legislature, he noted.
“Straphangers deserve a real plan and a real solution and not more political slogans,” Cuomo said. “So I think it’s basically congestion pricing, a surcharge on cars, normalization of the tolls on the outer bridge crossings.”
Cynthia Nixon, who is challenging Cuomo from the left in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, released her own plan Thursday to fix the subways.
Nixon would enact a $5.26 fee for cars to enter and exit a congestion pricing zone in the busiest parts of Manhattan.
She would also use portions of the money raised from a “polluter fee” on fossil fuel companies she is backing as well some of a millionaires’ tax.
“For eight years, straphangers have been neglected and ignored by the current administration. And that alone should be enough to disqualify Andrew Cuomo for a third term,” Nixon said. “New Yorkers deserve better than to be stuck in a perpetual signal delay. We need to start moving forward. We need bold leadership and immediate action from our next governor.”
Cuomo previously created a panel that recommended a congestion pricing plan that would have required motorists in the busiest parts of Manhattan to pay as much as $11.52 a trip as well as additional surcharges on for-hire cars and taxi trips.
Cuomo never publicly backed the congestion pricing proposal, which was not included in the final state budget enacted in March. The budget did include new fees on Uber, Lyft and taxis.
Without a feasible alternative, Cuomo said, the only way to pay for the work would be to raise fares and tolls, which he said he opposes.