Hochul is all in for ‘bold’ $15 congestion toll plan
Gov. Hochul expressed support Tuesday for a proposal before the MTA to set a base fee of $15 for cars driving in Manhattan at 60th St. and points south.
“From time to time, leaders are called upon to envision a better future, be bold in the implementation and execution, and be undaunted by the opposition,” Hochul said Tuesday at a Union Square rally of congestion pricing advocates and MTA brass.
“That’s how you secure progress,” she added. “That’s what today is all about.”
The statement was the governor’s first full-throated endorsement of the plan released last week by the MTA’s Traffic Mobility Review Board, which is expected to raise $1 billion a year for capital spending on the region’s subway, bus and commuter rail systems.
Hochul said of the plan: “This is going to be transformative.”
But congestion pricing still faces headwinds — including a wish expressed by Mayor Adams on Tuesday that the plan provide more breaks for taxi drivers and buses transporting children to school.
Congestion pricing also remains under challenge in Newark Federal Court, where New Jersey elected officials have filed twin lawsuits challenging the plan on the ground that the federal government didn’t adequately review its impact on the environment.
At a City Hall news conference Tuesday, Adams expressed support for congestion pricing, but continued his call for additional exemptions to the toll.
“We’re really focusing on our two yellows — school buses and taxicabs,” Adams said when asked what exemptions his office was pushing for.
The plan Hochul supports was prepared by the Traffic Mobility Review Board, which set aside several groups’ efforts to lobby for exemptions to the program. The board’s chairman, Carl Weisbrod, said last week that his team eschewed many exemptions in an effort to keep the base toll as low as possible.
The board did not exempt school buses, the final report reads, “because they are often deployed for purposes beyond transporting students to school.”
The report “urge[d]” the MTA to “explore providing a specific school bus exemption in the future for the specific purpose of transporting students,” while continuing to charge school buses used for other purposes.
Similarly, the board called on taxi tolls to be passed on to passengers in the form of a $1.25-a-trip surcharge.
The New York Taxi Workers Alliance has long argued against any additional surcharge, citing the $3 on top of every taxi fare in the congestion zone that already goes toward funding the MTA.
Taxi Workers Alliance head Bhairavi Desai welcomed Adams’ statement. “The mayor is taking the right position, and we are grateful and motivated by it,” Desai said in a statement.
An additional charge “would mean the MTA would take the majority of the fare before the car moves an inch, before the driver gets a dollar for their own living,” she said.
The Traffic Mobility Review Board plan would charge cars a base rate of $15, increasing to $24 for small trucks and $36 for big rigs. Motorcycles would be charged $7.50. During nighttime hours — 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. on weekdays and 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. on weekends — the tolls would be discounted by 75%.
Drivers who have to pay a toll to enter the congestion district — those who enter via the Hudson or East River tunnels — will get an additional discount during daytime hours.
In addition to the taxi surcharge, passengers using Uber or Lyft should expect an additional $2.50 charge for every trip in the zone.
Low-income New Yorkers would get a 50% toll discount if they make 10 or more trips in the zone in a month.
The plan is expected to reduce vehicular traffic in Midtown and lower Manhattan by 17%.
The MTA’s board is widely expected to vote Wednesday in favor of accepting the recommendations. That vote will kick off a 60-day state-mandated review process, which must pass before the MTA board can hold a final vote on congestion pricing’s ultimate toll plan.
Transit officials say the tolls should go into effect in May.
“I’m not taking out that first bottle of champagne until the first car crosses [and is tolled,]” Sam Schwartz, former city traffic commissioner and former Daily News columnist, said at the Union Square rally.
“Why? In 1977 when we thought we had tolls on the East and Harlem River bridges … only an act of Congress could stop us,” he said.
“And guess what happened? An act of Congress stopped us,” he said.
“I’m not going to retire until that first car passes through.”