Drivers of cars and trucks will have to pay new tolls if the congestion pricing proposal is approved. Associated Press
Congestion pricing is gaining traction in the New
York legislature: Here’s what you need to know
By Mark Hallum / mhallum@
schnepsmedia.com
While the chips are yet to fall on
congestion pricing, April 1 is the deadline
for the state legislature to include
the proposal which has been heralded
as the best option for providing the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
with the estimated $40 billion it
needs to dramatically modernize the
subway.
Not only does the antiquated transit
system needs extensive, systemwide
overhauls but the agency is facing a
steep decline in ridership as a $1 billion
deficit looms in 2022. It’s getting
down to the wire for elected officials to
vote to include congestion pricing in
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2020 executive
budget, here’s what you need to
know about congestion pricing so far:
• The cost to drivers has not been
decided upon by lawmakers or the
MTA. An early proposal by Governor
Andrew Cuomo’s FixNYC panel release
in January 2018 suggested charging
passenger cars entering Manhattan up
to $11 during business hours. Trucks
would have to pay about $25 to conduct
business between boroughs.
• The governor’s office has outlined a
central business district in Manhattan
below 60th Street as the boundary
for where drivers to expect to
pay to access. Traditionally free East
River Bridges would not be directly
tolled, according to early projections,
unless drivers follow routes continuing
into the central business district
as opposed to heading Uptown where
they would be in the clear. But a clear
definition of where gantries for cashless
tolling would be placed has not
been established.
• Congestion pricing has been projected
to provide about $15 billion for the
MTA’s next capital plan, which runs
from 2020 to 2024. Those funds could
go a long way for making the subways
more Americans with Disabilities Act
compliant within the coming years,
for one. New York City Transit President
Andy Byford’s Fast Forward plan
will bring sweeping changes to the
subways and buses over the next 15
years if it receives the proper funding
which could total $40 billion.
• State Assembly Majority Leader Carl
Heastie announced on Monday that
congestion pricing had enough votes
to pass and get inclusion in the 2020
executive budget, but some lawmakers
are still holding onto their opposition
to the toll which they believe will only
isolate the outer boroughs from services
and attraction in Manhattan while
placing an undue financial burden on
eastern Queens constituents. Legislators
such as Assemblyman David
Weprin and state Senator John Liu
have said they want a more clearly
outlined pricing plan before they take
a vote.
• In all districts surveyed, only singledigit
percentages of residents commute
into the potential tolled zone
Caribbean Life, M 34 arch 29–April 4, 2019 BQ
of Manhattan would be paying the
toll, according to a study conducted
by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign
in 2018, which broke down commuter
patterns by assembly districts.
Though the district of Councilman
Barry Grodenchik falls into this range
by overlapping state districts, he has
argued that the impacts will be much
more deeply felt with his district bereft
of any sort of a rail transportation
options.
• Congestion pricing is part of a $175
billion budget proposed by Cuomo in
January and received support from
Mayor Bill de Blasio in February after
over a year of opposition from his
administration who favored a millionaire’s
tax instead, but was shot down
by Cuomo and former MTA Chair Joe
Lhota on the grounds that the plan
lacked immediacy. The tax on the 1
percent of New Yorkers had the potential
to raise $700 million in 2018 and
had the support of over half of City
Council members.
• Establishing a dedicated revenue
source for the MTA, which moves over
eight million people per day across
all the services it provides, is not
the only reform Cuomo has ordered
to be made to the agency. The MTA
will also undergo a restructuring to
improve accountability in financing,
cut down on bureaucracy and have an
board made up of members appointed
by an elected official whose tenure
would expire with that of the politicians
themselves. The restructuring
will include a variable pricing structure
for the tolls into Manhattan and
establish a lockbox for those funds to
go into.
• Budget amendments would, through
talks with the legislature, determine
the pricing structure “which would
take into account the type of vehicle,
the time and day of the week, credit for
any tolls paid at other bridges and tunnels,
as well as other key factors that
will be determined through conversations
with the Legislature.
• The lockbox would ensure that
100 percent of the revenue collected
through congestion pricing would
only be used for MTA capital projects.
• Congestion pricing was first proposed
by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
but it proved unpopular at the state
level and was killed before it could
even make it to a vote in the Assembly
chamber in 2008.
• The environmental impacts of congestion
pricing can improve the overall
health of communities in central
zones where it is implemented dramatically,
according to a Johns Hopkins
study performed in Sweden, which
showed asthma attacks in children
decrease by up to 50 percent. Transform,
a Los Angeles-based organization,
warns that congestion pricing,
however, can pass on the burden of
traffic pollution onto other communities
and that legislators should take
caution.
/schnepsmedia.com