Gov: Congestion price, or no $7B
Gov. Cuomo plans to hold up to $7.3 billion earmarked for the MTA in order to press lawmakers into passing congestion pricing and other policy in his executive budget, the Daily News has learned.
Budget language in Cuomo's 2020 proposal lays out terms of how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority can spend money set for its 2015-19 capital spending program.
The budget states that the MTA cannot use or spend the money, including a $1.4 billion appropriation for next year, unless lawmakers pass congestion pricing, reorganize the agency and approve a speed camera system.
The Senate Democratic conference on Wednesday did not react well to the power move.
“One of the top priorities of the new New York Senate is securing dedicated revenue to restore our mass transit system to the international model it once was and certainly withholding promised and past due money will not accomplish that goal,” Senate Democratic majority spokesman Mike Murphy said in a statement.
“Linking unrelated issues is the kind of horsetrading that Albany was notorious for in the past and something we should look to avoid,” he added.
A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (DBronx) said lawmakers are reviewing Cuomo's budget proposal.
Reps for the MTA did not have immediate comment.
Administration officials say the budget technique ensures that congestion pricing becomes reality, which is important because the traffic-busting fee will help the MTA get the money it needs — in this case, generating up to $15 billion.
That money would be dedicated to the MTA's 2020 capital plan that will cover NYC Transit's Fast Forward overhaul plan to update signals in the subway.
Another way to help the subway and bus network tucked in the budget would send any money collected from new New York City school zone speed cameras directly to NYC Transit for its capital work — bypassing the mayor's coffers.
The budget would let the city put speed cameras in 290 school zones, focusing on areas where lead-foot drivers and crashes are most common. There are speed cameras at 140 school zones now.
The budget maneuver is a heavy-handed attempt to get lawmakers to pass Cuomo's policy priorities, according to John Kaehny of the good government group Reinvent Albany.
“It's really an in-your-face to the Legislature on this,” Kaehny said. “It's power politics — that's what it is.”
If congestion pricing was put in its own bill, administration officials feared that lawmakers could ignore it.