Whoopi Goldberg gives Kathy Hochul an earful over NY’s congestion pricing toll: ‘nobody was listening’
New York’s controversial congestion pricing toll has yet another high profile critic — Whoopi Goldberg.
The 68-year-old joined the chorus of opponents when she ripped the contentious plan to hit drivers with a $15 toll to enter Midtown Manhattan during Gov. Kathy Hochul’s appearance on ABC’s “The View” on Wednesday.
“This is a huge deal because I can afford it, don’t get me wrong, I can afford it, but a lot of my friends who drive in every day, who left here because they couldn’t afford to live here anymore, can’t,” Goldberg randomly said at the tail-end of the governor’s segment.
The talk show host’s rant came as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority continues to hold a slew of hearings to supposedly listen to the public’s concerns about the back-breaking new toll targeting drivers traveling south of 60th Street in Manhattan.
But Goldberg — who described herself as a “lifelong New Yorker” — railed against the Empire State’s push to implement the congestion pricing plan without having a “conversation” first with Big Apple residents.
“This whole thing, this congestion pricing, I don’t understand,” Goldberg told Hochul. “Because the mayor, because New Yorkers did not mess up the streets.”
“We used to have four-lane avenues, we had ways to get around. You could get, it might have taken a long time because we have big trucks, but you could get around,” she continued, adding that now there are bike and parking lanes scattered everywhere.
“The idea of having to pay, I’m a lifelong New Yorker, the idea of having to pay to get from point A to Point B without really having the conversation only to see those things go up anyway … it made me feel like nobody was listening.”
“You can’t get to Broadway in time unless you leave the day before,” Goldberg added.
For Goldberg, her work commute from her $3 million mansion in West Orange, New Jersey to the ABC studio’s on 66th Street would fall within the congestion toll zone if she drove via the Lincoln Tunnel.
Her criticism came after MTA chief Janno Lieber told one of the public hearings earlier this month that like it or not, congestion pricing was happening.
“This is state law, and we’re just trying to implement it in an effective way,’’ he said. “This is not about whether we’re doing congestion pricing or not. It’s about [whether] the proposed toll structure makes sense and how much to adjust it.”
The MTA has long argued the additional toll, which aims to curb peak-day congestion on busy Manhattan streets, will reap $1 billion per year that would, in turn, fund major upgrades to subway, commuter railroads and bus systems.
Critics, however, have slammed the toll as a cash grab that’ll only saddle Big Apple drivers with yet another fee — and that it could just end up diverting traffic and pollution to outer boroughs.
