New York Governor Kathy Hochul considers ways to revive a program that would have charged drivers a new $15 toll to enter certain Manhattan neighborhoods — before President-elect Donald Trump takes office and can block it.

In the days after Trump’s election, Hochul and his team reached out to state lawmakers to gauge support for reviving the plan — known as “congestion pricing” — with a lower price, according to two people close to the case. The people spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were revealing private conversations.

Hochul, a Democrat, put the brakes on the project just weeks before its planned launch this summer, even though all the infrastructure was already in place.

She said at the time that she worried it would cost motorists too much, but it was also widely seen as a political move aimed at helping Democrats in closely watched congressional races in the city’s suburbs. Those fees would have been added to already high tolls for entering the city via some river crossings, and Republicans were expected to use them as a cudgel in an election heavily focused on cost-of-living issues.

Some of these Democrats ended up winningjust like Trump, who pledged to end congestion pricing in the Oval Office.

Hochul now has less than two months to save the project before the Republican president-elect, whose Trump Tower is in the toll zone, takes office for another four years.

Hochul had long insisted the program would eventually return, but had previously offered no clear plan for doing so — or for replacing the billions of dollars expected to generate to help New York City’s ailing public transportation system .

She is now floating the idea of ​​lowering the toll for most people driving passenger vehicles entering Manhattan below 60th Street, from its previous cost of $15 to $9, according to the two people. His office suggested that a new Internet sales tax or payroll tax could help make up for lost money by reducing fees, one of the people said.

A spokesperson for Hochul declined to comment and pointed to public remarks the governor made last week when she said, “Conversations with the federal government are not new. We have had conversations – ongoing conversations – with the White House, the DOT and the Federal Highway Administration, since June.

She reiterated last week that she thought $15 was too high.

A new report from the state comptroller finds the MTA will find itself in big trouble if the agency doesn’t get the money it expects from congestion pricing. On Wednesday, Governor Hochul said an announcement regarding a reduction in congestion charges would come before the end of this year. Andrew Siff of NBC New York reports.

A key question hanging over the process is whether reducing the toll amount would require the federal government to conduct a lengthy environmental review of the program, which could delay the process until the new administration’s term.

The program, which was approved by the New York State Legislature in 2019, already stuck for years awaiting such a review under the first Trump administration.

The U.S. Department of Transportation did not immediately return an emailed request for comment.

Laura Gillen, a Democrat who last week won a close election for a House of Representatives seat on Long Island, just outside the city, responded with dismay to news about congestion pricing.

“We need a permanent end to congestion pricing efforts, period. Long Island commuters cannot afford another tax,” Gillen wrote on the social media site X after Politico New York first reported on the governor’s efforts to revive the toll program.

MTA board member Andrew Albert said he supports returning the fee but is concerned that $9 won’t be enough to achieve the policy’s goals.

“It doesn’t raise enough money, it doesn’t clean cars off the streets enough, and it doesn’t make the air clean enough,” he said.