Republican Nassau County legislators’ first criticism of the MTA’s latest congestion pricing plan for Manhattan was that it was an attack on the suburbs.

This appears to be go-to criticism by the county GOP. They have twice cited this same complaint in recent months. Who knew that the suburbs were so fragile?

The first claim was made in February when Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed legislation to require municipalities to allow a minimum of one accessory dwelling unit on all owner-occupied residential zoned lots.

The second came in June when two Democratic legislators from the suburbs proposed that local town and city elections outside of New York City should be held in November in even-numbered years.

The tactic actually worked.

Hochul quickly withdrew her plan for accessory dwellings intended to address a 750,000-unit housing shortage in metropolitan New York in the face of heated opposition. The election plan died even quicker, not getting out of committee in either the Senate or Assembly.

We hope the Nassau Republicans’ third effort is not as successful.

The first problem with the objection that the congestion pricing plan is an attack on the suburbs is the plan itself.

It calls for a toll to be paid for cars that enter a zone in Manhattan that extends from 60th Street to the Battery.

If implemented, peak-hour travel could cost between $9 and $23 in any of the seven toll price scenarios. Off-peak travel could cost between $7 and $17 and overnight travel might cost between $5 and $12.

This is an attack on the suburbs only if you consider Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island as suburbs.

Under the plan, residents of the other four boroughs of New York City and all those living above 60^th Street in Manhattan as well as everyone else would also have to pay a toll to enter the zone.

County Legislator Steve Rhoads, who kicked off Nassau’s opposition to congestion pricing,  later joined Jack Martins, who is seeking to regain his 7^th District state Senate Seat, in calling the MTA proposal’s plan a “commuter tax.”

This is an apparent effort to conflate congestion pricing with an old New York City tax that required commuters to pay for public services such as police, fire and sanitation. It was not a very unpopular tax in the suburbs to put it mildly and ended in 1999.

But the MTA’s plan is not a commuter tax. If anything, it is a commuter tax for people who insist on driving their cars into traffic-choked Manhattan below 60^th Street.

There are already good alternatives. They are called trains and buses.

Nassau County residents are in a particularly good position to move from their cars to trains.

The MTA has spent $14 billion in recent years on two projects that make commuting by train from Nassau County to Manhattan – East Side Access and the 3rd track.

East Side Access will save commuters headed to the East Side valuable time by taking them to Grand Central Station rather than having to double back from Penn Station on the West Side.

The Third  Track is the 9.8-mile expansion of rail service from Floral Park to Hicksville, a stretch that carries 40% of the LIRR’s traffic on Long Island.

Moving people from cars to trains will also have major benefits for Manhattan where many Nassau residents work and play.

New York City’s downtown business district ranked as the most congested in America in 2020 and 2021 in a report from INRIX, a private analytics company,

The MTA’s executive summary notes that between 2010 and 2019, travel speeds in the Manhattan Central Business District fell by 22% from 9.1 mph to 7.1 mph.

This costs time and money not to mention frustration.

The congestion pricing proposal seeks to lessen traffic and improve air quality in the city for commuters and residents as well as shorten emergency response times.

Officials also expect congestion pricing to raise $1 billion per year, which will fund public transportation improvements. Of this, 10% would go to the LIRR.

Long Island accounts for 8% of the 1.3 million people who work in New York’s central business district — a little over 100,000 people

Discouraging Long Islanders from driving into Manhattan would also have several benefits for people living on Long Island.

The first is a reduction in the nerve-wracking, time-wasting, pollution-generating congestion faced by motorists taking the Long Island Expressway and other roadways into Manhattan.

This congestion is even faced by people simply driving from one place to another in Nassau. That’s the kind of suburban experience we can all do without.

A reduction in commuting by car from Nassau would also help lower gasoline consumption and the price of oil – a prime source of revenue for such bad actors as Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The European Union is in the process of taking extraordinary steps to wean itself from fossil fuel imports from Russia, which is helping Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. Are we not ready to just take the train to work to help?

And then there are the environmental benefits at a time when we are already watching the impact of climate change – extreme weather, record-setting heat, droughts, floods and hurricanes among other things.

The California Legislature recently passed a $1,000 refundable credit to poorer Californians who don’t own cars in an effort to discourage more driving. The move came a little more than a week after California decided to ban the sales of new gas-only powered vehicles.

“The United States is unlikely to hit its climate goals without a significant decrease in personal car ownership and driving,” the Washington Post reported.

“Thanks to a combination of car-centric urban planning and suburban sprawl, Americans annually drive a total of 3 trillion miles, the story continued.  “According to the energy think-tank RMI, the United States must cut vehicle miles traveled 20 percent by 2030 to keep warming below 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit” — and that is true even in scenarios of aggressive electric vehicle adoption.

Legislator Rhoads says in a petition he created that congestion pricing amounts to a commuter tax on suburban drivers of $1 billion per year.

“Nassau is already one of the highest taxed counties in the nation and with inflation and gas prices continuing to soar, we do not need this added tax for going to work or visiting the city,” his petition reads.

But gas prices, a major driver of inflation, have actually been declining for nearly three months – and would actually fall even further with a drop in gasoline consumption.  The high taxes are mostly a choice made by Nassau voters to generously fund schools.

The petition goes on to talk about the “outrageously high” LIRR train ticket prices, “forcing commuters who choose to take the train to pay an exorbitant amount as well, just for living on Long Island.”

Well, yes, the suburban lifestyle of living on Long Island and working in New York City does come with a price. A round-trip monthly pass in the zone that includes Manhasset is $243.

But compare that with the cost of parking your car in midtown. If Rhoads has a parking garage in Manhattan that costs less we hope he will let us know.

And there are two alternatives – get a job on Long Island or move to Manhattan.

Nassau County Republicans are not alone in their criticism of congestion pricing. Opposition to the plan is heard throughout the metropolitan area, including from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat.

Their concerns should be heard and when possible changes should be made to ensure that any harm be mitigated.

Not least from officials in Manhattan, whose economy has been hit hard by the decline in office occupancy caused by COVID,

The congestion pricing plan is not an easy decision to make and partisan politics will only make it harder. But it is the right decision.