Does Gov.

Hochul, a Buffalo Native,

Really Get New York City?
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/nyregion/hochul-
congestion-pricing.html

Governor Hochul is more of an outsider to New York City than most of her
predecessors. Critics say that put her at a disadvantage in dealing with congestion
pricing.

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Kathy Hochul is one of a small handful of governors of New York who hail from
upstate.Credit...Cindy Schultz for The New York Times
By Jesse McKinley and Nate Schweber
June 6, 2024

In Syracuse, she has overseen an ambitious $180 million project to remove a blighted
viaduct and promised billions in financial support for a computer chip factory near
the city. She gave Rochester, which has been a focus of an anti-poverty program,
$100 million to help reconnect its downtown to surrounding neighborhoods.

And in Buffalo, her hometown, Gov. Kathy Hochul gave the football team, the Buffalo
Bills, a new stadium with the help of hundreds of millions of dollars in state money,
in what is expected to be the highest public outlay for a pro football stadium.

In her nearly three years as governor, Ms. Hochul has seemed comfortable displaying
her upstate bona fides. Her relationship with New York City is not as deeply
established nor, critics say, as politically fine-tuned, a dynamic on display on
Wednesday when the governor announced a last-minute decision to indefinitely
delay the implementation of the congestion pricing tolling plan in Manhattan.

It was a stunning turnabout, a whiplash moment that may appease commuters

outside Manhattan who were upset at the prospect of yet another fee in an already
expensive city that is still recovering from its pandemic-related economic swoon.

But the decision also infuriated many policy shapers and lawmakers, who said the
governor had simply turned her back on some of the city’s most critical needs:
funding the subway, reducing traffic and improving air quality.

Among the disenchanted were even people who disliked the idea of paying the
congestion pricing fee to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.

Mateo Flores, who works at a Midtown nonprofit and lives in Brooklyn, called Ms.
Hochul’s decision “disrespectful” in its suddenness.

Ms. Flores, 24, who owns a car, said Ms. Hochul “has no idea what it’s like” to live
and commute in the city. “You’re about to just impose something on us, and you just
spring it on us, it was so abrupt and out of nowhere,” she said.

The suburban-urban split on congestion pricing is part of a broader and longstanding

schism over issues like school funding, taxes and transportation. But Ms. Hochul is
an outlier even amid that longstanding tension: She is a true upstater, one of a small
clutch of politicians from outside New York City or its environs to be elected or serve
as governor over the last century.

The short list’s most famous entrant is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose family
estate in Hyde Park is somewhere in that fuzzy expanse separating upstate and
downstate New York.

Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, makes her permanent home in western New York and
rarely misses an opportunity to express pride in her roots in Buffalo, the state’s
second most populous city. (She includes the hashtag #GoBills on her official profile
on X.com.)
But the governor also keeps a heavily staffed office in Manhattan at which she spends
many days and — like many newcomers to the borough — she rents an apartment in
the city. She’s championed a variety of pro-city policies, evidenced in this year's
budget, including mayoral control of the schools and an ambitious housing plan, as
well as money to address the migrant crisis.

Still, even some fellow transplants say she doesn’t completely grasp the complexities
of city life, including how residents depend on the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority, which oversees public transit in New York City and much of its suburbs
and would have been the beneficiary of about $1 billion annually from the plan.

“She obviously doesn’t spend enough time down here to see what driving in the city
is like,” said Jesse Park, an environmental consultant from Long Island who grew up
in Leicester, N.Y., near Buffalo. “Or what riding the M.T.A. is like.”

The governor’s office has pushed back on the criticism, noting that the “pause” on
congestion pricing had been cheered by a number of Democratic elected officials,
largely from outside Manhattan, as well as several prominent city unions, including
the United Federation of Teachers and New York City Police Benevolent Association.

“Governor Hochul is committed to the long-term future of New York City and has
demonstrated that from Day 1, advancing policies and investments for New York
City,” said Avi Small, a spokesman, citing her accomplishments, including a plan to
save the M.T.A. from a “fiscal cliff” last year. He added: “Governor Hochul is proud of
her upstate roots and she spends every day fighting for all of New York’s 62
counties.”

In a statement late Thursday, Mayor Eric Adams called Ms. Hochul “an invaluable
partner for New York City,” citing her efforts on the migrant crisis, closing illegal
cannabis shops and working for more affordable housing, among other issues.
“That’s on top of investing in public safety on our streets and in our subways and so
much more in the past,” he said. “New Yorkers are lucky to have a fighter like
Governor Hochul in their corner.”

On Thursday, some in New York City said that if Hochul was disassociated from the
city, it was good for New York State, which has seen two of its three previous
governors resign in disgrace.

“She doesn’t get caught up in any drama like governors from the past,” said Victor
Alonzo, 49, a Midtown concierge who lives in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
“That’s what this city needs.”

Critics characterized Ms. Hochul’s reversal as a sop to the suburbs in an election year
in which close races are expected in those areas, for both federal and state offices.

And they said she needed to learn more about New York City. “I think it’s a perfect
time to encourage her to take public transportation so that she can begin to get a feel
of what she missed out growing up in Buffalo,” State Senator Jessica Ramos, a
Queens Democrat, said on Thursday. “Because we really do need her to stand up for
the vast majority of us who are the economic engine of this state.”
Much of the criticism of the governor’s decision came from supporters of public
transit, who gathered in Albany on Thursday for a “D-Day Rally to Save Congestion
Pricing.” They attacked Ms. Hochul for “an outrageous betrayal of the public transit
riders in New York City who delivered her narrow 2022 election victory.”

Blair Horner, the executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group,
said Ms. Hochul’s recent support for congestion pricing — which was slated to
start June 30 — made her decision on Wednesday all the more baffling.

“How you go from 17 days ago saying ‘This is going to happen,’ to yesterday when
you’re saying, ‘It’s not going to happen,’” he said. “Even for the voting public that is
already jaded about how Albany operates, this must have been a shocker.”

But Ms. Hochul’s decision was hailed by Assemblyman Kenny Burgos, a Bronx
Democrat, who said while he sympathized with those dealing with traffic in
Manhattan, the plan would have been bad for his constituents, particularly if drivers
diverted into his borough.

“The Bronx already has the worst air quality and the highest asthma rates in the
entire nation,” he said, adding that he felt the M.T.A. needed to be fixed to lure riders
back. “It’s a chicken before the egg thing. You have to get the public transit right if
you want people and straphangers and commuters to actually utilize it.”

The complexity of the issue was voiced by Aimee Douglas, 34, who works in tech
sales and lives in Midtown Manhattan with her husband. Car owners, they worried
about the costs of congestion pricing, she said, particularly because Ms. Douglas is
due to have their first child two weeks after congestion pricing was to take effect.

But as traffic haters, they looked forward to it.

Still, the governor’s move left Ms. Douglas feeling disconnected from Ms. Hochul. “I
don’t think she really understands living in the city,” she said. “How bad traffic can
really be, how miserable sitting in traffic can really be.”

Claire Fahy contributed reporting from Albany, N.Y.

Jesse McKinley is a Times reporter covering upstate New York, courts and politics. More
about Jesse McKinley

See more on: N.Y. Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Kathy

Hochul, New York
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