But there is still time to save the plan. Congestion pricing cannot be stopped without a formal vote by the MTA Board of Directors. Although most of the board members are appointed by the governor or her suburban allies, they represent an independent agency and do not have to agree with her frantic political demands. Board members have a fiduciary responsibility to the agency. Delaying or canceling the congestion pricing program would mean an immediate loss of the agency’s capital program, estimated at $1 billion per year, meaning no funding for a non-polluting electric bus fleet or the extension of the Second Avenue Subway to Harlem. It could also mean the end of a successful and hard-fought campaign to modernize the subway system that helps power the nation’s largest city.
The most obvious evidence that this decision was hasty and ill-considered is that Horckle had no serious plan for replacing that income. She initially proposed raising the payroll transfer tax on New York City businesses and having employees pay it. But this was summarily rejected by state lawmakers, many of whom correctly pointed out that it was unfair to impose this burden on city workers while not taxing suburban residents who also use the MTA’s rail and bus systems.
Her next idea was to somehow free up $1 billion from the state’s general fund. Her aides spent Friday, expected to be the last day of the 2024 legislative session, trying to rally support for the proposal. Lawmakers should firmly reject it. Even if they could scrape together the money, general fund revenues would not be the reliable source of funding needed to support the bond sales the MTA needs to pay for these projects. But congestion pricing would provide a stable source of funding. If lawmakers stick to the status quo and refuse to replace it, the state may be forced to revert to the original system.
The system is not perfect, but it’s a good one, studied and refined by generations of planners, financiers, and engineers. Charging drivers for tolls in congested city centers has been successful in cities like London, Stockholm, and Singapore. One report found that congestion in London fell 30 percent and bus ridership increased 33 percent after the system was implemented. In Stockholm, childhood asthma rates fell by almost 50 percent.
Because of the US’s dominance of car culture, no similar experiment has been conducted here, but in 2019, after a summer of public transport breakdowns, the New York State Assembly passed a law creating congestion pricing, which would reduce the number of cars in central Manhattan by 100,000 per day. Ideally, the scheme would have been amended to charge based on the distance a car travels within a congestion zone, rather than charging all vehicles the same fee upon entry, and would have been more flexible in easing the tolls in the early years.
