One of the lesser-known acts of the French Revolution was a series of attacks on toll booths on the borders of Paris in the days before the storming of the Bastille. These customs houses were natural targets for angry commoners. Customs levied an octroi tax on goods entering the city, which was both a daily economic burden and a symbol of oppression. A few years later, when the revolutionary government officially abolished tolls, Parisians held a celebration on the Champs-Élysées. (One of the products for which heavy taxes had just been lifted was wine.) By then, the king and queen were under house arrest.
The story sets a number of worrying precedents for New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul as she prepares to oversee Manhattan’s central business district pricing system, known as congestion pricing, that goes into effect today. It was one of the The Loop Toll Road is intended to clean up the region’s dirty air, ease traffic congestion in Manhattan, and fund the buses and trains that transport the majority of commuters. Governor Hochul has been the reluctant face of the program since last year, when he decided to suspend its implementation, consider alternatives, reinstate it, and ignore the expert committee in favor of lower fees. Located in: Central Manhattan during the day, where the car-carry fee is $9 (down from $15). She seems as excited to carry this effort through her 2026 re-election campaign as Frodo’s journey through Middle-earth.
But at a time when Democrats are in retreat, the plan’s success would be a major test not only of the party’s ideals but also its ability to actually get things done in the areas it controls. This November, few areas moved more Republican than New York City’s boroughs and suburbs. If Democrats can figure out how to make congestion pricing a reality, they could establish a model for many innovations that require political courage to produce results, including transportation, housing, crime, corruption, and tax policy. Probably.
Proponents of congestion pricing have long relied on two related assumptions. First, New York City has a silent majority of carless households whose private interests lie in the program’s goals of improving public transportation and reducing traffic. Second, as other cities that have introduced congestion pricing have found, congestion pricing becomes more popular (or at least more tolerable) over time.
Taken together, these two arguments reflect a broader notion of politics: that people support policies, support politicians, and get something out of it. Author Matt Stoller chooses the word “deliveryism” to summarize this governing philosophy in the context of the Biden administration, which oversaw the American Rescue Plan, the Control Inflation Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act. is. Although these were landmark bills, they generated little goodwill even among those who would most directly benefit. Similar dangers lurk in this program. Because some of the benefits come over time.
Governor Hochul can do a lot to ensure this transportation tax benefits both financially and politically, and if he gets it right, it could serve as a model for Democratic recovery and influence. Sho. Her challenge boils down to three things. It’s about showing that it works, for whom it works, and why New York decided to do it in the first place.
The first step is the most complex and most important. The usual theory is that the way to sell taxes and fees is to accurately say that the funds. This is the principle behind the “Your tax dollars are working” signs on the highways. The problem with this effort and other large-scale efforts in Democratic cities, from light rail expansion in Seattle to supportive housing in Los Angeles, is that construction is slower and more expensive in blue jurisdictions.
Governor Hochul will need to find an easy victory as soon as possible. Building subway infrastructure takes a long time. The same could be said of reforms to the construction process at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. But we don’t have to work with cities to turn more streets into pedestrian zones, with priority lanes for bikes, buses, and emergency vehicles. The sooner New Yorkers can see the results, the sooner they can implement the program. But if New York leaders wait too long to make these infrastructure changes, the impact of the $9 fee could wear off and the impasse could return to normal.
The next step is to mobilize the program’s beneficiaries. When Governor Hochul announced that the first $1 billion had been raised through toll increases, it was an obvious choice for bus and subway users to support. But other groups should be there too. Anyone who drives in Manhattan for work, including taxi and Uber drivers, would benefit from less congestion on the roads. Police officers, firefighters, paramedics. contractors and delivery personnel. Everyone who cares about air quality must make sacrifices, including nurses, doctors, teachers, and weekend warriors who run or bike along the Hudson River Greenway.
Finally, Governor Hochul must tell a compelling story about why New York State imposed such a high toll. Framing this as a last-ditch effort to fund a useless MTA is no way to win people’s hearts. Instead, she should spend more time arguing that the program is a way to build cleaner, fairer and faster cities. This would directly address a common criticism of Democrats from the 2024 election: that the nation’s largest and healthiest cities are dysfunctional. Congestion pricing is a way for cities to function and take back New York’s share. If the governor connects this with crackdowns on license plate fraud, he can take a tougher stance on crime.
Governor Hochul could learn a lesson from Paris. Although the Ancien Régime toll booth is no longer there, Mayor Anne Hidalgo has used her tenure to significantly reduce vehicular traffic in the city center. Whoever succeeds her, in part because Ms. Hidalgo has moved quickly, delivered results, and positioned these policies within a broader narrative of equity, quality of life, and combating climate change. This achievement will never be undone.
All three of these steps—making the plan work, building a constituency, and weaving it into a larger story—require a bet that conviction and a big plan are more persuasive than defenses and excuses. The rewards could be huge, both for New York City and the country.
