U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Wednesday that the federal government had rescinded its approval for congestion pricing, saying it’s unfair to drivers. The toll, which started January 5, charges most drivers $9 to enter lower Manhattan south of 60th Street. Proponents say it’s already lowering traffic in the area by encouraging people to take public transit instead. It’s also supposed to raise $15 billion for capital improvements at the MTA.
Speaking in Manhattan hours after the move, Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul vowed to fight the reversal.
“Our MTA was prepared; we knew this could come. Filed a lawsuit within minutes," said Hochul. "And I also want to say: the cameras are staying on.”
Congestion pricing has some supporters in New York City, but the toll has long faced opposition from drivers and lawmakers in New Jersey, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley. A slew of lawsuits tried to block the toll before it could go into effect, claiming it would lead to increased traffic and pollution in suburban areas, that it amounted to an “illegal tax,” and that it was especially unfair to commuters west of the Hudson River, who don’t have a direct train line into Manhattan.
All of those lawsuits floundered in court, but that didn’t stop opponents like Congressman Mike Lawler, a Republican from the 17th District, from calling on President Trump to step in.
"The fact is that [the MTA has] perpetrated a scam on New Yorkers," says Lawler. "This has never about anything other fleecing hardworking New Yorkers of their tax money.”
Rockland County Executive Ed Day, also a Republican, says one word comes to mind following Wednesday’s news: "Hallelujah."
Day claims Rockland County contributes far more to the MTA than it gets in return. He’s part of a group of Republicans who have gone as far as to call on MTA Chair Janno Lieber to resign amid the battle over congestion pricing.
"By Janno Lieber's own words, he's said the service west of the Hudson stinks," says Day. "And now I read that he said that there's nothing much we can do about it, because of the way the railroad was set up, that it was set up more for freight as opposed people. That's utter nonsense. If that's what his position is, let [Rockland County] out of the MTA, or make us pay less."
The MTA says Rockland and Orange County contribute less than 2 percent of the 1.2 million people who regularly commute into lower Manhattan.
In the suburbs, opposing congestion pricing has been a bipartisan issue. Not long after the toll took effect, Democratic State Senator James Skoufis introduced legislation to pull Orange County from the MTA. The bill garnered the support of a bipartisan coalition that includes Assemblymembers Jonathan Jacobson, Paula Kay, Chris Eachus, Karl Brabenec, and Brian Maher, as well as State Senator Rob Rolison.
Rolison, a Republican from Poughkeepsie, says they may continue to work on the bill, even if congestion pricing dies.
"As a stand-alone measure, that could still happen," says Rolison. "Pulling Orange County out of the MTA is a larger issue than congestion pricing."
In his own statement, Skoufis stopped short of celebrating the Trump Administration’s move, calling it “chaos” — but he adds all of the debate around congestion pricing could have been avoided if advocates had “spent any time negotiating a nuanced plan in good faith with working class communities.”
Advocates now worry an end to congestion pricing could worsen a funding gap at the MTA and gut plans for infrastructure improvements in and outside of New York City. In her State of the State Address, Hochul had proposed a number of improvements to Hudson Valley transit specifically, including plans meant to speed up trips on the Metro-North. Rolison says killing congestion pricing doesn’t have to mean canning infrastructure plans.
He’d like to see an independent, forensic audit of the MTA to see what its options are.
"The MTA is a very important operation for this region. Getting people to move about that don't have access to cars, or getting people out of cars, that is, of course, a worthwhile endeavor," he adds. "But we just gotta be more transparent about it. We really need to understand and get the trust back to the people who pay the bill."
