The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board formally set a controversial congestion toll on Wednesday — in a move that will charge motorists $15 to drive on Manhattan streets south of 60th Street.
The 11-1 vote brings the program one step closer to a likely June launch, despite opposition from opponents argue it will hurt commuters and stall out Manhattan’s post-pandemic recovery.
The plan, which advocates say will generate billions for needed transit and railroad upgrades while slashing traffic, includes carveouts for private buses and many city-owned cars.
The only person to vote against the plan in Wednesday’s vote was David Mack, who represents suburban Nassau County.
“Don’t kill the goose that lays the egg,” Mack told his fellow members shortly before the vote.
But a top aide to Mayor Eric Adams who serves on the board, Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, signaled that City Hall would continue to push for an exemption for cabs. Alternatively, City Hall could push Albany lawmakers to nix another fee levied on taxi receipts that boosts the MTA’s budget for running trains and buses.
“We remain concerned about the plight of taxi drivers,” she said.
The toll is facing a slew of legal challenges from residents and politicians on both sides of the Hudson River, who are attempting to convince judges to overturn approvals already granted by federal regulators.
Experts have said that the legal challenges face an uphill fight in attempting to overturn the conclusions in the 4,000 page environmental review.
New York City’s $15 congestion toll to drive south of 60th Street could begin as soon as mid-June, a lawyer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said this week.
Transit officials predict the toll could raise $1 billion per year, which would fund major upgrades to the MTA’s subway, commuter railroads and bus systems.
This would be the nation’s first congestion pricing fee system, which has prompted multiple lawsuits, including from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, the teachers’ union and 18 New York lawmakers.
The labor coalition representing New York City’s nearly 400,000 government workers has also backed Murphy’s federal lawsuit.
Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams refused to support the state’s controversial congestion pricing proposal. Adams said he believes the city should have had more “power and control” over the situation, which likely would have resulted in a “different version.”
City Hall has been pushing the MTA to include exemptions from the toll for city employees and people driving to hospitals.
Most of the cases have been consolidated in both Manhattan and Newark federal courts. Oral arguments are set to take place in the Garden State case on April 3.
Many of the city’s biggest municipal labor unions have joined the lawsuits in Manhattan federal court to block the charge, claiming it would put a burden on blue-collar workers who drive into the city.
“This is simply a money grab because they’re going to raise the money off the working and middle class of this city,” said the chief of the teachers union, Mike Mulgrew, when his organization filed suit in January.
“Those are the folks who are going to pay for this program. We’re sick of this,” he added. “We’re sick of people just trying to shove things through.”
The MTA board was required by a state law passed in 2019 to approve a tolling structure that will generate $1 billion annually to pay for new subway trains, signal overhauls, a new expansion of the system into East Harlem and other major projects.
The congestion-pricing plan would charge drivers $15 per day if they exit the West Side Highway or the FDR Drive in Manhattan and enter its local streets south of 60th Street between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekends.
Drivers coming in during the peak times through the separately tolled Hudson or East River tunnels would receive a $5 discount on the congestion charge, cutting their second toll to $10.
The off-peak congestion toll would be discounted to $3.75 per day.
Trucks would be charged either $24 or $36 per day to enter the zone during peak times based on their size. They would get a steep discount to just $6 and $9, respectively, during the off-peak to try and move deliveries to businesses and buildings out of the rush-hour when the streets are jammed.
Additionally, residents who live in the tolling zone and make less than $60,000 annually would be able to write the tolls off against their state taxes, while those who make less than $50,000 or receive welfare benefits would qualify for a $7.50 peak toll discount after their 10th toll.
Officials, politicians and activists have debated for decades how best to tackle the crippling traffic jams and pollution problems in Manhattan, which is one of densest and most congested places in the world. The MTA’s buses crawl through traffic at just 8 miles per hour.
Former Mayor John Lindsay backed tolling the East River Bridges, but withdrew the proposal after a political firestorm. Former Mayor Ed Koch’s traffic commissioner, Sam Schwartz, known by his nickname ‘Gridlock Sam’, proposed a forerunner to the idea. Mayor Michael Bloomberg revived and pushed the idea during his tenure, though he was turned away by Albany.
Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio eventually struck an agreement over charging cars to drive into Midtown and Lower Manhattan in 2019 in the aftermath of the ‘Summer of Hell’ to help finance then-city transit chief Andy Byford’s plan to revive the system.
Byford’s $40 billion ‘Fast Forward’ program proposed ripping out the century-old and breakdown-prone stop light subway signals with a new computerized system that would dramatically improve reliability and allow trains to run at higher speeds.
It also called for purchasing thousands of new train cars to replace trains that had been running underground since the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were president.