By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-21 19:45:58 | Updated at 2025-03-22 21:55:53
1 day ago
Gov. Kathy Hochul took a victory lap over congestion pricing Friday, claiming New Yorkers are better off for it — even as she considers hitting the city with more taxes to prop up the embattled MTA.
Dozens of congestion pricing supporters, including Hochul, defiantly gathered near Union Square on the day President Trump’s administration had set — before pushing it off — as a deadline to kill the lower Manhattan toll program.
Hochul awkwardly joined in the crowd’s chant of “traffic is down, business is up” before singing the praises of $9 tolls for not only reducing gridlock and cleaning up the air, but also ultimately raising $15 billion for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s massive capital plan to revamp the city’s transit system.
“We’re still on that journey, and the more people who get a chance to see the benefits — just walk around and talk to people ask if their lives are more enriched, whether they have more time with their families, if they’re a commuter,” she said. “Whether or not they’re finally realizing that we have the world-class public transit system, but we need to keep it world-class by raising the revenues to invest in it as well.
“So, today’s an important day, the cameras are staying on.”
Left unsaid during Hochul’s rally — which ended with her taking a non-rush hour bus ride across town to Chelsea — was the fact that congestion pricing won’t be the last hit on New York City taxpayers, if the governor has her way.
The governor has long been considering hiking the payroll mobility tax to help pay for the MTA’s record $68.4 billion, five-year capital plan.
A source familiar with ongoing state budget negotiations told The Post that the payroll tax has come up in the talks.
It is part of a range of options lawmakers are considering to ding city businesses to help pay for the MTA’s 2025-29 capital plan, the source said.
Big Apple businesses with payrolls larger than $437,500 currently must pay 0.6% of that for the tax. Certain businesses in all 12 counties served by the MTA are hit by the tax.
But the hike being considered by Hochul would only apply to employers with big payrolls in New York City, Gothamist first reported.
The proposal, sources suggested to The Post, would subject businesses with payrolls in the range of $10-$15 million with the tax on the belief that the revenue would be enough to cover roughly $2 billion for the MTA.
Business groups have flatly rejected any tax increase on businesses to help fund the MTA’s capital plan.
“More taxes on private-sector businesses cannot be the solution to addressing the MTA’s ongoing budget issues,” Heather Mulligan, president and CEO of The Business Council of New York State wrote in a statement Friday.
“The businesses that have chosen to stay have to balance their own budgets while facing routine rate, fee, and tax hikes from a state government that regularly increases spending year after year. New York’s high tax, spend big approach has gone on for too long leading to unaffordability for residents, consumers, and businesses,” Mulligan said. “This is why people are leaving, and no one in Albany seems to want to address the issue.”
The talks over increasing taxes to raise money for the MTA comes amid growing uncertainty about whether the feds under the Trump administration will help fund the transit agency.
MTA bigs this week threatened another “Summer of Hell” for public transit if City Council members don’t pony up an expected $4 billion for the capital plan.
It came as US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy twice this week threatened to pull federal funding for the MTA — first over transit safety, then for failing to comply with the congestion pricing deadline that he extended by 30 days on Thursday.
Despite the bitter back-and-forth between Hochul and the Republican administration, there could be a wider deal for New York in the works that may involve congestion pricing, sources said Thursday.
Hochul and Trump, between public squabbles, have carried on face-to-face talks for a potential agreement including a revamp of Penn Station and the president’s demands to restart dead pipeline projects running through the Empire State.
Hochul, as she finished her celebratory bus ride Friday, signaled that the fight over congestion pricing isn’t over.
“No, I’m not spiking the football,” she said. “This is an important milestone to talk about how excited we are.”
