Time to hit the brakes
Yes, I OK’d congest pricing, but . . .
He advocated for congestion pricing and signed it into law as governor in 2019. But now Andrew Cuomo says he opposes the $15 charge for drivers entering lower Manhattan — and here, he explains why.
TODAY, politics is driven by the activist extremes and politicians fear the consequences. Unfortunately, this is a time of serious problems that require comprehensive solutions, none of which are easy and all will raise political opposition.
This dynamic is now evidenced by the handling of the migrant issue, crime, homelessness, as well as Ukraine and Israel. In New York, the same forces are at play in the current debate over congestion pricing.
Congestion pricing is a policy designed to incentivize people to use mass transit.
It is an important goal; we passed it in 2019 but implementation has been delayed until now. However, many things have changed since 2019 and while it is the right public policy, we must seriously consider if now is the right time to enact it.
New York City still hasn’t recovered from COVID; office occupancy is still at only 48.9%. For many, traveling to the city is no longer a necessity — and for some it is an unwelcome hardship.
What impact will an additional $15 entry surcharge have on New York City’s recovery in this moment — when the migrant crisis, crime, homelessness, quality of life and taxes are all pressing problems?
More important, the policy’s success hinges on people’s confidence that mass transit — which is still operating 29% below pre-pandemic ridership levels — is a safe alternative.
Crime underground
In the last few weeks, a subway conductor was slashed in the neck, vowing to never return underground. Days earlier, a 45-year old man was murdered on the D train in The Bronx.
We don’t want to go back to the “bad old days,” when the subways were truly dangerous. It is not a coincidence that crime has increased as police presence is at the lowest rate in a decade.
In 1992, David Dinkins became the city’s first black mayor and confronted the crime problem, partnering with Gov. Mario Cuomo to increase the police force by a whopping 50%. Mayor Dinkins and my father were true “progressives” and knew that working and poor New Yorkers bore the brunt of the crime epidemic and that increasing police would help decrease crime.
That simple logic is impolitic with today’s self-defined “progressives.” Cries to “defund, disband and disarm” the police are politically powerful, and many politicians are intimidated. While certainly police reform was and is necessary as evidenced by the George Floyd murder, the answer is not to abandon public safety.
Recently, the governor and the mayor announced additional personnel and the National Guard would be deployed to do “bag checks “on people entering the subway. The Guard is a tremendous state resource; during my administration I deployed them and State Police on occasion to help in the system — but the National Guard is not the answer: This is not a short-term problem, and it’s not about bag checks. Simply put, we need more NYPD keeping riders safe and a criminal-justice system that enforces the law.
In 2019, there was a spike in crime, and I had the MTA hire an additional 500 police officers without the cooperation of the city, which was “defunding the police.” Today, however, Mayor Adams appreciates the need for more police, and I am sure would be a willing partner.
Help mentally ill
For riders to feel safe, we also need to get dangerous mentally ill homeless people out of the system. There are laws that are already on the books, because we know that allowing a dangerous mentally ill person in the subway system jeopardizes the homeless individual as well as other riders.
This is not an academic exercise; we know it can be done because we did it: Every night during COVID, all the homeless were removed from the trains and the stations so we could apply powerful cleaning agents.
It just takes political will and effective management.
The people of New York know this is not the time to implement congestion pricing, but where are their local leaders passing resolutions condemning the policy? Or demanding a real independent impact study of today’s situation before it is put in place?
Or demanding to reduce the cost and phase it in so we can see how it goes? Or insisting the additional money be put in a lock box for more transit police? Or a lock box for new hardware to stop fare beaters and collect the hundreds of millions in lost revenue?
Where are the local candidates challenging the Assembly members and senators to make this an issue in the upcoming campaign?
Just think of the absurdity: The plan is for city taxpayers to pay for the MTA and for the migrant crisis! It’s outrageous. Then we wonder why we are losing population to Florida and other states.
I understand these are difficult political issues that politicians would rather avoid, but democracy dies in silence and it can kill New York City in the process.