Former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, on Good Day NY with Bianca Peters, left, and Rosanna Scotto
The father of New York’s congestion pricing tax, former Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, now believes that implementation of the tax would be counterproductive until New York City fully recovers from the effects of Covid-19, the pandemic that dramatically changed workplace habits across the U.S., the group Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free today reported.
New York City and New York State have been losing hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales and other tax revenues because of workplace changes, with countless employees choosing to work from home rather than at an office, the group noted.
“There’s been a change in circumstance,” Mr. Cuomo told Good Day New York last week. “There’s now a choice C: stay home. The cost has gotten too high. It’s another impediment. I don’t want to pay a higher toll to drive into New York City that has high crime, that has homelessness. I’ll stay home.” (https://www.fox5ny.com/video/1381456).
“Governor Cuomo should be saluted for recognizing when common sense is needed, while New York’s current crop of leaders are seemingly impervious to it,” said Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free spokesman Joshua Bienstock. “A $15 paywall to enter Manhattan’s struggling business districts is the worst thing that New York State could do. If people don’t want to travel to an office now, how would charging them $15 daily to enter Manhattan business districts by car make things better? What the City and State are doing is sheer lunacy.”
Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free has long been arguing that a congestion pricing tax paywall would naturally slow, or halt, a return to offices. Both New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli have issued reports and statements on this dramatic loss in revenues. (Adams: “Remote Work Draining New York City’s Economy”; DiNapoli: The Office Sector in New York City.)
Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free, a diverse coalition of civic, business, and labor organizations and businesses throughout New York City, argues that implementing a tax on vehicles traveling south of 6oth Street in Manhattan will, among other things, permanently damage efforts to revitalize the two districts.
