NYC congestion pricing debacle is already slamming average Joes — thanks, Gov. Hochul!

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s about to get a lesson in the law of unintended consequences as her “congestion pricing” toll disaster unfolds. 

The scheme squeezes average New Yorkers hard with a $9 toll to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.

Which means that hordes of commuters looking to dodge the toll will simply head uptown, park and then head below 60th — so areas just north of the zone will get slammed with traffic as cars trawl blocks looking for spots. 

Consider the Upper East Side: Parking is already hard enough there, as the areas’s many hospitals put an unavoidable squeeze on spots.

Now the new toll will supercharge that. 

In other words, expect congestion — the very thing that the plan is nominally meant to avoid.

Except that to anyone capable of basic reasoning, it was clear from the get-go that the toll wouldn’t lower congestion but merely move it around (a fact admitted in the fine print of the MTA’s own analyses). 

And the already-hefty toll, set to rise first to $12 and then a wallet-emptying $15 within six years, will harm even New Yorkers who don’t drive, because businesses are already passing on the cost to their customers.

Like phone and data service provider CompuVoip, which has added a congestion surcharge to clients in the toll zone. 

Or LI-based outfit Dream Events & Decor, which will be collecting surcharges from its catering and party customers in Manhattan. 

Or Brooklyn’s Mechanical East, now adding toll surcharges for all work orders in its AC/ventilation biz. 

Again, anyone capable of 3rd-grade math could have seen this coming.

It’s yet another hit to the wallets of average New Yorkers already punished by inflation on top of the sky-high cost of living here (a longer-term fruit of equally stupid progressive policies). 

Gov. Hochul couldn’t be prouder: She called it a “win” for commuters. 

And so the left launches yet another argument with reality, with the little guy once more the victim.