A group of Lower East Side residents and merchants says it’ll sue to stop the MTA’s looming $15 congestion toll – claiming it’ll squeeze local businesses and create a traffic nightmare.
The group fears drivers will opt for the toll-free FDR Drive and overburden that thoroughfare, while some local shops say they’ll be burdened with the new toll and have to pass the costs onto customers.
Plaintiff Daniel Bazzetta, owner of Peter Jarema Funeral Home, said he can’t avoid having his hearse travel in and out of the central business district — encompassing the area below 60th Street.
“I can’t use public transit. I can’t put a dead body on a bus,” Bazzetta said. He’s looking for an exemption or relief when he has to travel to pick up bodies at hospitals and morgues and sending them to cemeteries or crematoriums.
Other plaintiffs in the suit, expected to be filed Thursday, include New Yorkers Against Congestion Pricing Tax, retired state Judge Kathryn Freed, an East Sider who lives near the FDR Drive; Baruch Weiss, owner of East Side Glatt Kosher Butcher Shop; residents from the Two Bridges Neighborhood, Chinatown dessert maker Ricky Yang as well as elected officials including Councilman Robert Holden and Assemblyman David Weprin from Queens.
They argue, as plaintiffs in two other lawsuits have, that the feds and the state failed to conduct an adequate environmental review. Those cases were filed by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and jointly by the United Federation of Teachers and Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella.
The new suit argues toll planners failed to:
“This is simply a money grab that goes into a black hole called the MTA — and it is a black hole,” Freed, the retired judge and Lower Eastsider told The Post Wednesday.
“There are winners and losers under congestion pricing. We on the Lower East Side are losers. We have a lot of pollution to begin with,” she said, complaining more traffic will choke residents who border the FDR Drive.
“It’s not just hurting people who own cars. Our air will get worse and we’re not getting benefits,” added Freed.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Democratic-run Assembly and Senate approved the congestion pricing program for the MTA to implement back in 2019.
Gov. Kathy Hochul inherited and supports the program that is expected to raise $1 billion a year to fund $15 billion worth of upgrades for the MTA’s subway, commuter railroads, and bus systems, while aiming to curbing congestion in the Manhattan business district during peak hours.
Officials on the board that recommended the $15 daytime toll — with major discounts for night time hours and for drivers coming in via the already-tolled East River and Hudson River tunnels — will get more than 150,000 cars off the local streets and avenues.
The MTA, which has begun to install license readers on highways as part of the congestion toll program, dismissed the latest lawsuit as more hot air.
“This issue has been exhaustively studied in the 4,000-plus page environmental assessment, and will be re-evaluated for the adopted tolling structure before tolling commences,” said MTA policy and external relations chief John McCarthy.
“It’s time to move forward and deal with the congestion that’s clogging roads and slowing down emergency vehicles, buses and commerce while also polluting the air we breathe,” he said.