Windup to congestion pricing could take two years, MTA chief says

February 21, 2019 By Raanan Geberer Brooklyn Daily Eagle

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File

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The congestion pricing proposal supported by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and MTA as a means to raise funds to fix the city’s subways is expected to take two years to complete, MTA officials announced on Tuesday.

MTA President Patrick Foye testified at a state Senate hearing in Manhattan that he was confident the transit agency could create a tolling system in less time than other cities, the Wall Street Journal reported. “It took three years-plus in London. We believe we could do it in two.”

Michael Wojnar, Cuomo’s deputy transportation secretary, outlined some of the details of the plan at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Newsmakers event on Feb. 7. Wojnar said the proposal would charge roughly $11.52 to vehicles traveling into Manhattan’s central business district south of 60th Street. If the budget is approved on April 1, the rollout process would not begin until 2021, he said.

As the Brooklyn Eagle reported, the money would go into a “lockbox” to be used only by the MTA for the subway action plan and into a fund to be used specifically for outer-borough transit improvements.

MTA New York City Transit Chief Andy Byford estimated that it would cost $40 billion over 10 years to modernize and upgrade the system, the Journal reported.

Drivers traveling over the four East River bridges would be tolled using technology similar to that of EZ-Pass. New toll booths would not have to be built.

At the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce meeting earlier this month, some business owners expressed dissatisfaction that the plan would not allow exemptions for local businesses to make deliveries in Manhattan.

“There’s no carve-out at this point for any specific type of business, except for emergency vehicles and for-hire vehicles already subject to the surcharge,” Wojnar told the skeptics. However, he reassured them, vehicles would be charged only once a day, no matter how many deliveries they make. “You wouldn’t pay over and over again all day,” he clarified.

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg had his own congestion pricing plan in 2008, but the plan died in Albany after it failed to secure the support of the Assembly Democratic conference, according to The New York Times.