Tuesday’s Headline: Six-Figure Ad Buy Edition

Congestion pricing advocates are making a Hail Mary advertising push to get the long-awaited tolling program started — and pinning the blame squarely on Gov. Hochul if the plan falls through.

The 30-second spot from Riders Alliance airing on cable TV and streaming services calls out “Gov. Hochul’s abrupt decision to cancel congestion pricing” for “trapping New Yorkers in endless traffic” and causing “slower emergency responses for ambulances and firefighters.”

“Hochul’s delays keep our air dirty, our streets clogged and our ambulances gridlocked,” the ad’s voiceover says. “Gov. Hochul must put public safety, clean air and public transit above cheap political stunts.”

Riders Alliance spent “six figures” to air the ad, according to spokesman Danny Pearlstein, who said time is running out for New York to reap the billions of MTA funding dollars congestion pricing will raise. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to nix the program when he takes office in January.

“This is our last, best shot at having the program for any time in the foreseeable future,” Pearlstein said. “There has been an enormous outpouring of support for congestion pricing that has crescendoed right now. The governor needs to know it and she needs to see it herself.”

Watch the ad below:

It’s not just advocates who want congestion pricing, of course: Hochul’s potential total abandonment of cute toll threatens to “choke” the city’s mobility, according to two Manhattan business leaders. (Crain’s)

In other news:

• Today on Streetsblog: Find out the latest on our freedom of information lawsuit agains the city Department of Transportation.
• Uber declared war on the Taxi and Limousine Commission on Monday, threatening to put thousands of drivers out of work if the city doesn’t reduce its driver minimum wage. Shocking: Paying drivers a living wage puts for-hire cars out of reach in a mass transit city. (amNY)
• Newsday‘s Monday front page: toll evasion crackdowns aren’t bringing toll evasion down. (Alfonso Castillo via X)
• NYU researchers retracted a study that found 89 percent of MTA workers had experienced an assault on the job after their work was “compromised” by out-of-state participants. (Patch)
• Interim NYPD Commissioner Thomas Donlon wants the full-time gig. (NY Times)
• An MTA bus driver crashed after suffering a medical episode, injuring three. (Patch)
• Curbed and NYU Furman’s Matthew Murphy took a whack at forecasting the second Trump administration’s housing agenda.
• Sunday’s rain wasn’t enough to end the city’s seemingly interminable drought. (Gothamist)
• Trump wants to nominate climate- and congestion pricing skeptic Lee Zeldin to run the EPA. (NY Post, Gothamist)