By Arthur Schwartz
5 July, 2024
For a long time I had questions, like many folks who live below 60th Street, and who occasionally drive somewhere, about what impact Congestion Pricing was going to have on us. Would people who lived in the “zone” be forced to pay if we drove upstate, or to New Jersey, every time we came back? Was it going to raise taxi fares? On the other hand, we could see the benefits. Since the impacts of the COVD pandemic ended, our streets have resumed being filled, bumper to bumper, with cars (along with those annoying e-bikes). I live near 6th Avenue, and the crush of cars all day is astounding. My windows, which picked up a film from car exhaust, had to start being cleaned more often. And buses resumed moving at a snail’s pace.
But then I came to realize the benefits that Congestion Pricing was going to bring to the transit system. First there was going to be increased accessibility for those with disabilities and for seniors. Elevators at 95% of stations by 2055, as a result of a historic settlement of an Americans With Disabilities Act case brought by, among other groups, the Center for the Independence of the Disabled, NY (of which I am General Counsel). (2055 seems far off, but we are talking about more than 350 stations.) An extension to 125th Street for the 2nd Aveniue subway. Barriers to keep people from falling on the tracks. New subway cars. Signal upgrades (our current signal system dates back to the 1950s). Track repairs. More trains and train operators. And maybe an expansion of the free bus program now being tested on one route in each borough. If we were going to move people out of cars, we needed to make the mass transit system more accessible and more attractive.
But days before Congestion Pricing was going to go into effect, after $5 billion in infrastructure installations to make the program work, Governor Hochul, without consulting any known public official, announced a “pause.” That “pause” resulted, the next day, in a Stop Work Order for every elevator project in the City, including those started to implement the court settlement (and separate projects at 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue and 14th Street, reached via a court settlement back in 2019). The Transit Authority froze all hiring, including that of much needed train operators.
Those who drive their cars to work every day from the suburbs and New Jersey, and who pay $700-$1,000 per month to parking lots, cheered, but most of us in Manhattan didn’t. Our transit system and our air quality will suffer.
Note my words—what the Governor has done is wholly unlawful. (I expect to be part of the legal team.)
The impacts are shown most clearly by the charts released to the Board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) ahead of their vote on June 26 to affirm the Governor’s “Plan.” (The program was to be run by the MTA.)
The pie chart (right) shows the impact to the 2020-2024 Capital Program adopted by the MTA several years ago in anticipation of the Congestion Pricing. The net loss—$17.5 million.
This second graphic shows the Guiding Principles for the use of remaining funds. Accessibility now is a “lower priority.”
Projects to be Deferred includes accessibility and the purchase of zero emission buses. Perhaps the most devastating impact is the cut of accessibility projects, most important of which is the elevator installation program which the disabled and seniors thought was guaranteed by the court settlement, but which the MTA has stopped, asserting that the settlement was “predicated on full funding for the program.” And one great part of the use of Congesting Pricing programs was the purchase of hundreds of zero emission buses, which will make our air so much cleaner.
Also gone is a signal modernization program, to replace, as the MTA admits, 1930s era signals on six different lines.
This graph only shows the cuts for the 2020-2024 Capital Budget. One could only imagine how much more the system will suffer cuts in the 2025-2029 Capital Program.
KATHY HOCHUL. Photo courtesy NYS Senate Media Services.
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