Instead of Congestion Pricing, Senator Gillibrand Proposes ‘Creating Hubs Outside of the City Where People Can Leave Their Cars’

While some members of New York's Congressional delegation have publicly urged Governor Kathy Hochul to reverse her last-minute decision to kill the congestion pricing plan that was supposed to go into effect at the end of the month, raise $15 billion for the MTA, reduce gridlock, and improve air quality, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand made it clear that she is not one of those politicians. 

"I've heard from Staten Islanders that it's devastating for them because they don't have access to a subway," Gillibrand told WNYC's Brian Lehrer on Tuesday morning. "I've heard from a lot of first responders that they don't get to choose what time they go to work, and they don't get to choose what their hours are. And sometimes they need to be able to get to work fast, and they want to be able to use their vehicles, whether they're coming from Long Island or they're coming from anywhere in the state. I've also heard from a lot of critical workers, healthcare workers, nurses, people who have to be at hospitals at all hours."

Left unsaid: Nurses or first responders (or anyone!) driving into the congestion zone outside of rush hour would have paid $3.75, and not $15. (Also, the vast majority of New Yorkers who commute into Manhattan below 60th Street—90 percent—use mass transit to get there.) But these are the same justifications the governor herself made when she killed congestion pricing. 

Then Senator Gillibrand pitched her alternative to congestion pricing: "hubs" in the suburbs. 

If our goal is to really improve clean air, and clean water, writ large, for New York City, particularly from emissions, there are other ways, like creating hubs outside of the city where people can leave their cars and then fast rail or light rail into the city. That's something that's going to need a 10 year plan, a 20 year plan—something that's much more of a strategic plan for air quality.

One interpretation of these comments might conclude that Senator Gillibrand is referring to…a parking lot next to a commuter rail station, of which the Metro-North and the LIRR have plenty. (According to the MTA, there are already more than 100,000 parking spots next to their commuter rail lines, including 68,000 spaces along the LIRR, 41,271 on the Metro-North, and the four parking lots for Staten Island Rail commuters.)

But that would be a mistake, according to Gillibrand spokesperson Evan Lukaske, who told Hell Gate in an email that the senator was actually referring to transit-oriented development. 

"Regarding hubs, Senator Gillibrand supports increasing the ability of New Yorkers in surrounding communities to use mass transit to enter the City and strongly supports increasing funding for transit-oriented development, as does the MTA," Lukaske wrote. "These types of projects enable people to live, work, and leave their cars behind because they have access to rail."

(Governor Hochul also believed in taking bold measures to ensure that suburban communities increase their housing density along mass transit lines, until she abandoned that plan in the face of intense opposition from those same suburbs. Sound familiar?)

Gillibrand had another note for New York's congestion pricing plan: A carve-out for theatergoers. 

Other cities who've had congestion pricing have been able to do carve-outs. For example, London has one of the most known congestion pricing schemes, and they carved-out, for example, the theater district. It said during the time the theater is running, if you're going to that direction, you don't have to pay, because they want to make sure people are coming into London to go to the theater.

London's theater district is smack-dab in the middle of their congestion zone, which costs £15 to enter. Asked what Gillibrand meant by this, Lukaske pointed to several tweaks London made to their rush hours over the 21 years the program has been in existence, most recently in December of 2021, when the end of rush hour was reduced from 10 p.m. to 6 p.m. as a pandemic-era measure to encourage people to spend money in the central part of the city. That time still holds, though if you want to pay £22.50 to see Dominic West in a 2:30 p.m. matinee of "A View From the Bridge" you'll still need to pay the full congestion charge. 

Meanwhile, in New York City, the average Broadway ticket is more than $128. Danny Pearlstein, the policy and communications director at Riders Alliance, noted that New York City's congestion fee would have been a "rounding error on a night out."

"The bottom line is that congestion pricing will make it easier for more people to get to Broadway shows. The senator's odd comments this morning only underscore how Governor Hochul needs to flip the switch on for the sake of the city's and state's economy."

You can read Gillibrand's full remarks on congestion pricing below.

Lehrer: A listener texts, "Can the senator lean on the governor to pass congestion pricing?" So I guess the question I have to ask before the listener's question is, do you support the governor's pause on congestion pricing?

Gillibrand: This is a decision for the governor, and I think she was pretty clear that there were problems with the implementation of congestion pricing as it was proposed. I have heard from many constituents about their concerns. I've heard from Staten Islanders that it's devastating for them because they don't have access to a subway. I've heard from a lot of first responders that they don't get to choose what time they go to work, and they don't get to choose what their hours are. And sometimes they need to be able to get to work fast, and they want to be able to use their vehicles, whether they're coming from Long Island or they're coming from anywhere in the state. I've also heard from a lot of critical workers, healthcare workers, nurses, people who have to be at hospitals at all hours. 

So, you know, other cities who've had congestion pricing have been able to do carve-outs. For example, London has one of the most known congestion pricing schemes, and they carved out, for example, the theater district. It said during the time the theater is running, if you're going to that direction, you don't have to pay because they want to make sure people are coming into London to go to the theater. So there are ways, I'm hopeful that there could be carve-outs, maybe for first responders, maybe for critical workers, maybe for people who live on Staten Island. 

The other thing that I really hope that we talk about is, you know, if our goal is to really improve clean air and clean water, writ large, for New York City, particularly from emissions, there are other ways, like creating hubs outside of the city where people can leave their cars and then fast rail or light rail into the city. That's something that's going to need a 10 year plan, a 20 year plan, something that's much more of a strategic plan for air quality. Those are ideas that we should look at as well. So I think the governor, it's her decision. She's going to work through the challenges that she sees, and I will work on getting resources, because obviously mass transit needs resources. So hopefully if we flip the house, we will have the majority of the House and the Senate and together, Hakeem and Senator Schumer—Hakeem Jeffries, our then-to-be Speaker, and Leader Schumer can work together to fund the MTA in a more robust way. So this particular plan, as designed, could perhaps be changed or amended or made better.

Lehrer: Someone writes, "Carve outs for first responders, Staten Island nurses, theater goers"—you mentioned all of those. The person writes, "Who is left to pay?"

Gillibrand: Tourists, people who have a lot of wealth and just want to come into the city when they want to come into the city. You know, our city has to work for the people who live and work here, and it's very important that we preserve clean air for our kids. Some of the places that have the worst air quality, though, it's not Manhattan. For example, the Bronx has the highest, worst air quality because of the amount of highways that come through the Bronx, they have the highest asthma rate. And so when you're going to look more on a meta level about how do you preserve clean air? It's not just going to be about Lower Manhattan. It's not going to be about, you know, 60th Street and below. And so this design was made 20 years ago. This was a 20 years ago plan. The city has changed a lot. The challenges we have are bigger. If you ask businesses right now, particularly in Midtown, are you back up and running post-COVID? They will say, absolutely not, because the buildings, the commercial buildings, are 20 percent unoccupied, and so that is a huge reduction in revenue for all the corner stores, for all the coffee shops, for all the sandwich shops, the delis, and they're struggling. 

So I just think that. I just think it's probably for the governor, a much more complex decision than perhaps people see. And I support her decision making process and she will come up with the best solution, she thinks, for the city of the state.