OPINION:
You get what you vote for. The Biden-Harris administration recently approved the New York governor’s $15 billion tax increase on drivers in the Big Apple. The “central business district tolling” program will take effect on Jan. 5, but residents may not take long to regret their 2020 vote for President Biden.
Many have already begun to see the light. While he didn’t come close to winning in the liberal metropolis, Donald Trump did increase his share of the vote by 8 points. Notoriously liberal urbanites were more willing than ever to pull the GOP lever. It just wasn’t enough.
Once Manhattanites start shelling out $9 each time they drive south of 60th Street, they may find themselves less receptive to the siren song of the party that just stuck them with another expense they are told will save the planet and eliminate traffic jams.
Subways, trains and buses are the main ways to get around the city that never sleeps, but that doesn’t mean carless New Yorkers won’t be worse off. Uber and Lyft riders will be billed $2.50 per trip. Delivery prices will rise because trucks must offset the impact of the $21.60 toll. The fees add up quickly to $15 billion — an estimate that relies on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s promise to wait until 2031 before raising the toll on cars to $15.
Don’t count on that. Once this big-city Democrat gets her hands on the loot, the rest of the nation’s spendthrift mayors and governors will stampede to Uncle Sam, begging for permission to implement congestion-tolling schemes of their own.
Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Transportation was peculiarly enthusiastic about tolling. Many of the upper-level appointees involved in these decisions left the administration for positions on the boards of the companies that create and run the toll collection infrastructure. It’s funny how that works.
There’s reason to believe common sense may soon prevail.
Sean Duffy is Mr. Trump’s pick for transportation secretary, and the former Wisconsin congressman does not appear to have weighed in publicly on the tolling issue. One thing is certain: He won’t be fooled by the assertion that “congestion pricing” is being done to benefit the environment. That’s the card liberals usually play whenever they want to ram through an unpopular proposal.
On his Fox Business show a few weeks ago, Mr. Duffy horrified progressives by entertaining the idea that the giant ball of fire at the center of our universe — the one that’s 100 times the size of Earth, burning at a temperature of 27 million degrees — might contribute more to planetary warming than a car idling at a stoplight.
“I think it makes people go, well, maybe there’s a different set of priorities here as opposed to climate change. Maybe it actually is an agenda of control,” Mr. Duffy said.
That would also be an accurate description of Ms. Hochul’s cash grab. The 27% of residents who endure the grinding Manhattan traffic don’t drive because they want to. They do so because they have to. That’s why this experiment in behavioral control won’t reduce congestion in any way.
The outgoing administration and Ms. Hochul want to profit from the misery of others.
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