The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) wrapped its series of public hearings on the proposed toll rate schedule for the Central Business District (CBD) tolling program or congestion pricing in Manhattan zones. The controversial congestion pricing program was established under the MTA Reform and Traffic Mobility Act of 2019. It allows the city to collect tolls via E-Z Pass cameras from vehicles entering Manhattan below and including 60th Street. This area excludes the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Drive, West Side Highway, and any surface roadway portion of the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel connecting to West Street.
Passenger vehicles pay $15 during peak periods (Mon.–Fri., 6 .a.m.–9 p.m.) and $3.75 during the overnight period (Sat.–Sun., 9 a.m.–9 p.m.). Motorcycles pay $7.50 during peak and $1.75 overnight. Small trucks and charter buses pay $24 peak and $6 overnight. Large trucks and tour buses pay $36 peak and $9 overnight. Taxis pay $1.75 a trip while app-based drivers pay $2.50 per trip.
The program is projected to generate $15 billion toward transit improvements in the subway, trains, and buses while reducing traffic congestion. The MTA hearings that began in February were filled with rapid and passionate testimonies from a wide range of commuters, community members, and drivers in the city.
Here’s what Black New Yorkers had to say.
“I recognize that congestion pricing can reduce traffic in the CBD and establish a major new funding stream for transit projects throughout the city,” said Majority Whip Selvena Brooks-Powers, who chairs the City Council Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and represents Southeast Queens neighborhoods. “But I also know that tolling stands to impact people living in outer-borough neighborhoods, including members of my community who would prefer not to drive. Many do so because they lack access to reliable, affordable transit.”
Brooks-Powers urged the MTA to make sure that the impact of tolling on marginalized communities citywide is minimal and that funds made from the program are distributed equitably.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards are in support of congestion pricing, but said they have reservations about implementation and that there should be exemptions for frontline workers and low-income residents.
Plenty of others were in full support of the program as a means of funding MTA fixes. Danna Dennis, senior organizer with the Riders Alliance, has advocated for congestion pricing for years and recently moved to Essex County in New Jersey.
“I know the fear that people feel around this program. Systematic racism and redlining has plagued our city for many years and…what it has done has made some of us feel like we are more privileged based on where we were born and where we grew up in this city,” Dennis said of Black commuters. “We have a very Manhattan focus and we start to think that programs like congestion pricing are only for those who live here, but it’s not. I’m going to tell you as someone who grew up in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights, it’s for you. Far Rockaway, it’s for you.”
Dennis insisted that Black and brown people, immigrants, and marginalized commuters who suffer from long wait times at bus stops and delays will benefit from congestion pricing.
Others expressed major concerns about potential negative environmental impacts to Black and brown neighborhoods in Harlem and the Bronx.
The MTA’s Final Environmental Assessment and Draft Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) 2023 noted that trucks might be diverted to other routes on highways and bridges on Staten Island, near Harlem, and in the Bronx. The South Bronx, in particular, was deemed an “environmental justice community,” burdened with high levels of air pollutants and associated chronic disease because of racist redlining practices. The report said adverse pollution effects in proposed tolling scenarios could be lowered for impacted communities if the truck toll price was lowered.
“The MTA’s own study shows that the Bronx will see an increase in air pollution as vehicles are diverted into our borough, particularly affecting neighborhoods near major highways, even as overall pollution decreases in our city,” said Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson. “For decades, we [have known that] the Cross Bronx Expressway has been one of the main catalysts for air pollution in the Bronx, poisoning residents and families and causing significant negative health outcomes. Congestion pricing has the potential to make this even more challenging.”
Gibson said that the Bronx needs a real commitment from the MTA to upgrade its infrastructure to combat pollution and not just air quality monitoring sites.
Michael Mulgrew, United Federation of Teachers (UFT) president, who heads a union that’s been vocal about its environmental stances of late, said the UFT was excited initially about congestion pricing’s potential to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. However, that excitement has turned to immense concern since the MTA assessment was released.
“We waited for your papers to be filed. Your environmental assessment found that there would be a negative impact upon millions of New Yorkers, but it would not be significant, which is why we have intervened at this point and have asked the courts to order a full environmental impact statement,” said Mulgrew. “This is a serious issue that will control and have an impact on our people in our city for 10, 20 years from now. The very idea that you came to this conclusion of not significant without even having the tolling plan in place is absurd.”
Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member who writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
The Congestion tax is not a solution to pollution at 20% reduction in pollution. All we need ins a fire in Canada and any gains will be wiped away. The extra tax will make goods and services for the residents in CBD more expensive. The office space problems in the CBD will get worse. More people will want to do business outside of CBD and the restaurant, entertainment and tourist industries will suffer. The migration out of NYC will increase. BTW the toll is a tax.
If the city and the MTA were concerned about transportation for non-Yuppy city residents, they would implement QueensLink instead of building the Queensway Park, right next to Forest Park.