Hochuls congestion-pricing fails reveal incompetence or a long con

If congestion pricing, now less than two months away from its new January start date, ever dies for good, it will have been tortured to death — by Gov.Kathy Hochul.Hochul’s botch of the toll to drive into core Manhattan is so epic, you must wonder: Is she this bad at politics, or is she doing it on purpose?Last Thursday, five months after her June “pause” on congestion pricing weeks before it was set to start, Hochul unpaused the toll.She now wants to start collecting cash from drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street on Jan.

5.She’s made superficially good changes: The $15 toll car toll is now $9, and the 9 p.m.to 5 a.m.

overnight toll is $2.25, not $3.75.But this concession to concern about the insane cost of living that is helping to drive people from the state has pleased no one.The toll will phase in to the full $15 over six years.And the governor hasn’t proffered an antidote to the poison pills that may yet doom congestion pricing.First, she still plans to charge New Jersey drivers a toll.Yes, including an interstate credit, she’s lowered the Jersey toll from $10 to $6 since the June plan.But: New Jersey drivers already pay a hefty toll to enter Manhattan — and much of the money goes toward subsidizing mass transit along the same route.The E-ZPass toll to come through Jersey tunnels to the West Side is $13.38 — $2 extra during rush hours.

This peak-hour surcharge is already a form of ..

.congestion pricing.These Jersey tolls collect an annual surplus, above the cost of maintaining the tunnels, of $100 million — money that pays for PATH and bus transit to Manhattan.In other words, Jersey drivers are already doing their part, and more, to fund subways and buses to New York City.It thus makes no sense to levy an extra charge — especially since, for 103 years, all bi-state transportation decisions have been made by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, not by New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority...