President Donald Trump and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) are negotiating the fate of congestion pricing, but New York City business leaders are seeking to convince Trump to leave the policy alone.
Trump promised during his campaign to eliminate the $9 toll and shared with the New York Post on Monday that he could kill the initiative through the Department of Transportation, saying congestion pricing has been detrimental to New Yorkers.
“Traffic is way down because people can’t come into Manhattan, and it’s only going to get worse,” Trump told the outlet. “People don’t know about it until they get the bill.”
However, the Partnership for New York City, a business association consisting of the CEOs of Pfizer and Tishman Speyer, is seeking to change Trump’s tune on congestion pricing, according to Politico.
“In every respect, this is a policy that President Trump and the Republicans should be supporting,” Kathy Wylde, the industry group’s leader, said Monday on WNYC. “The concept of congestion pricing, a market-based Republican principle, is that you’re not just raising taxes.”
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The money generated from the tolls will go toward funding upgrades for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which was previously kept afloat by a 2023 deal that raised taxes.
While Trump and other politicians have railed against congestion pricing, the initiative is popular among the majority of New Yorkers. Polling by Morning Consult found that 6 in 10 New Yorkers supported the initiative.
