Exclusive | Hochul mulls lower-cost NYC congestion toll — with city workers exempt — but will wait until after election: sources

Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering proposing a lower congestion toll for Manhattan — and nixing it altogether for municipal workers such as cops and teachers, The Post has learned.

It isn’t clear how much the governor is considering pushing for the Midtown road tax after suddenly shelving the controversial planned $15 pricing fee in June, but either way, she won’t make a pitch for it till after November’s competitive election races in a bid to help other Democrats, sources said.

She also is weighing pushing for the exemption of Big Apple government workers — including cops, firefighters, ambulance crews and teachers — who commute to their jobs in the zone, which is south of 59th Street, said a source briefed on Hochul’s thoughts.

“[The governor] said, `We know we have to lower [the toll].’ She’s going to review the number,” said the official, who requested anonymity.

The official said the governor also volunteered that a potential waiver for city workers needs to be looked at.

“That’s something the governor brought up as well,” the source said. 

If both notions become reality, Hochul and state lawmakers would then have to find other funding sources for the MTA’s capital plan to make up for the loss of revenue from the changes, the source said.

The MTA board is expected to vote next month on its 2025-29 capital plan, which already has taken a major hit since the planned $15 toll stalled. The $15 toll was projected to raise as much as $1 billion a year in revenue for transit maintenance, new rail cars and expansion.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s previous environmental assessment of the plan, approved by the federal government, said the toll could be potentially as low as $9 during peak times for drivers entering Manhattan’s Central Business District and as high as $23. 

The MTA’s traffic-mobility review board settled on $15 for motorists and higher tolls up to $36 for truckers during peak hours, with lower tolls overnight. Proponents said the pricing scheme would curb congestion and pollution as well as provide a permanent revenue source for mass transit. 

Opponents questioned those reputed benefits while adding that the toll would severely hurt currently struggling everyday New Yorkers.

Tasked with collecting the toll, the MTA has already spent $500 million to install readers and other technology to do so — before Hochul suddenly did an about-face and ordered an indefinite “pause” in the program.

Speculation was rampant that Hochul — who was a cheerleader for the new toll until she wasn’t — knuckled under pressure from the Democratic White House and Dems including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, urging for the delay or scrapping of the toll to try to help the party win back control of the House of Representatives. 

Republicans planned on using the unpopular toll as a club against Democrats in six swing House races in New York.

Hochul denied that was the case in June, saying she made the move because New Yorkers are still struggling economically post-pandemic and that the new $15 toll was too much of a burden.

A spokesman for the governor told The Post in an e-mailed statement Sunday, “Governor Hochul’s position has not changed and congestion pricing continues to be paused indefinitely.

“Like the majority of New Yorkers, Governor Hochul believes a $15 daily toll is just too much for working people trying to get by in today’s economy,” wrote the rep, John Lindsay. “That’s why, as the Governor has repeatedly said in public, she is exploring multiple options with legislative leaders to fund transit as the pause continues.”

The toll remains highly unpopular.

A Siena College poll released last week found 59% of New York voters want to scrap the congestion pricing scheme for Manhattan entirely.

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella, a co-plaintiff in a federal lawsuit along with the United Federation of Teachers that sought to block the toll, said any new fee to enter Midtown is unacceptable — likening it to the proverbial camel’s nose in the tent.

“It’s bad policy. A lower toll is not going to cut it. It’s a money-grabbing scam,” said Fossella, a Republican to The Post.

State lawmakers said Hochul has not put a formal proposal on the table yet — and that that is unlikely to happen until she presents her 2025 State of the State policy agenda in January.

“No one has offered any alternative proposal to me,” said Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan), chairwoman of the state Senate’s Finance Committee.

Congestion-pricing backers said that lowering the tolling structure will slow down implementation of the plan because it will require new approval from federal transportation officials.

“I have not heard this. We have federal approval for the current proposal. No one knows whether a different toll structure would be approved,” said Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the Partnership of the City of New York, who serves on the MTA’s traffic-mobility review board.

Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said Hochul should just approve the plan she shelved.

“There’s no easy answer. The only easy answer is to unpause the pause,” Daglian said.

Two lawsuits were filed in Manhattan state Supreme Court last month claiming Hochul did not have the authority to stymie a state law approved by ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo enacting congestion pricing in 2019.