Jon Levine writes for the Washington Free Beacon about a bad idea in the nation’s largest city.
New York City’s controversial congestion pricing program, which charges drivers a toll to enter midtown and lower Manhattan, contains several “mitigation efforts” and carveouts designed to limit the punitive impact of the new tax on ethnic minorities—without offering the city’s non-minorities comparable treatment, a Washington Free Beacon review found.
Critics warn such allowances could potentially expose the program to litigation from the Trump administration, which has been keen to kill congestion pricing and shown a willingness to sue or take administrative action against anti-white discrimination promoted in the name of social justice.
“I think it would appeal to the Trump administration that the way the analysis was done was improper,” Randy Mastro, a Democrat and one-time top deputy to former New York City mayors Eric Adams and Rudy Giuliani, told the Free Beacon.
The so-called mitigation efforts include installing pricey air filtration systems and roadside vegetation near certain ethnic neighborhoods, as well as preferential tolls for taxi drivers, who are overwhelmingly South Asian and black.
Mastro, who led legal efforts by the State of New Jersey to kill the new tax, said the focus on limiting impact to “environmental justice communities” had been a particular fixation of the Biden administration as congestion pricing sought federal approval during his term.
“Because the Biden administration in particular, if you were an environmental justice community, there had to be particular mitigation provided in those communities,” Mastro said.
New York City’s congestion pricing program charges a $9 toll on most cars coming into Manhattan’s major business districts during peak daytime hours, with lower tolls on nights and weekends. The area covers the entire island south of 60th Street, excluding highways.
The tolls are designed to ease congestion in Manhattan and reduce auto emissions by pushing more drivers to switch to public transportation—but congestion pricing is primarily a tool to raise billions of dollars for the city’s troubled subway and bus system.
