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New Yorkers are already dealing with the fallout from New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s June 5 decision to end Manhattan’s congestion pricing program, which would have generated $15 billion for the program capital investment by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
MTA President of Construction and Development Jamie Torres-Springer told reporters this week that the agency has halted preliminary utility work on the subway extension from Second Avenue to 125th Street. L ‘MTA will lose a $3.4 billion federal grant for the project because it requires matching funds from the agency that came from the toll plan. “We don’t want to lose that funding, even though there are some real complexities right now,” MTA President and CEO Janno Lieber said at a June 10 news conference.
Lieber added that the MTA should scale back the agency’s 2020-2024 capital investment program. “This is not something we do lightly, but we simply cannot award contracts without dedicated funding,” he said. Instead, Lieber explained, “We must prioritize the state of good repair that ensures the safety of our transit system.”
Also at that media conference, MTA Chief Financial Officer Kevin Willens said that two credit rating agencies, Moody’s and S&P, “indicated that the lack of congestion pricing was a credit negative for the MTA. They have not changed they haven’t even formally followed up on our ratings, but they’ve commented on the negative credit implications.”
Transit systems have long faced a tension between good maintenance and expansion, said Eric Goldwyn, director of programs at New York University’s Marron Institute for Urban Management and professor of transportation. and land use, he told Smart Cities Dive in a June 11 interview. He explained that “the reason why so few [tranist systems] have expanded in the last 50 years [is] because all the money has been spent on good preservation and maintenance.”
Feds give final nod to congestion pricing plan
Although the governor of New York halted the toll program on June 5, on June 14 the Federal Highway Administration reaffirmed its final approval of the plan.
The FHWA’s reevaluation of the congestion pricing plan came in response to a May 23 request from officials from the MTA, the New York State Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Transportation. New York City. The federal agency, which had conducted the environmental review, said in a letter to those officials that it “does not believe that any additional environmental analysis is warranted.”
In the FHWA’s 195-page reassessment document, it noted that tolls would not result in higher prices for most consumer goods, would affect only a small percentage of the total workforce, and would generate economic benefits through the ‘saving travel time and reliability. Federal approval is not required for the project to move forward.
Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit business sector organization, expressed disappointment in the governor’s decision to indefinitely halt the toll plan in a June 5 statement . The Association for the City of New York said in a June 6 statement that the organization opposes the governor’s plan to increase the payroll tax to cover the resulting funding gap of the traffic The PMT is paid by employers. “Without congestion tolls, reliance on the PMT to fund all of the MTA’s needs is unsustainable,” the organization said.
More reactions from entrepreneurs, environmental and traffic advocates
A June 18 letter to Hochul signed by leaders of the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Earthjustice, Evergreen Action and the League of Conservation Voters asked the governor to reconsider her decision and commit to implementing the toll program. “Your proposed indefinite delay poses a significant risk to achieving New York’s climate goals and the imperative to both reduce traffic congestion and ensure sustainable funding for more affordable and reliable transportation,” the letter states.
An op-ed by political columnist Charles Stile on NorthJersey.com said, “The money raised from the new fares would have been spent on improving the subways and buses that many Garden State commuters take once they reach Manhattan.” , countering the US arguments. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, DN.J., who has opposed the congestion pricing plan.
A June 17 memo to Hochul from the Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group, states, “Investments in transit and congestion tolls will yield huge time and health savings for all New Yorkers, both the 2 percent of commuters that will pay the charge as the 98.% that won’t.”
