Transportation | MTA approves $9-a-day congestion pricing as race to beat the clock on Trump kicks into gear

The MTA’s board voted 12 to 1 to approve Gov. Hochul’s modified congestion pricing plan Monday, effectively reviving the controversial toll deigned to fund system improvements.

“This is a hopeful moment,” MTA chairman Janno Lieber said ahead of the vote. “It shows that New Yorkers — we collectively — can take on and address big challenges that we’re facing.”

The plan — which was announced last week in an end to Hochul’s five-month “pause” — will start with a 40% discount over the plan approved by the MTA’s board in March. That initial plan would have charged motorists a $15 base toll to drive into Midtown or lower Manhattan — the revenue from which was to back $15 billion in bonds for the MTA’s capital.

Hochul’s new plan will start the tolls 40% lower for three years — $9 a day for most motorists — before ramping up to a full $15 toll in 2031. State officials plan to start tolling on Jan. 5, 2025.

Lieber heralded the modified toll as a victory — a policy that would not only fund several of his agency’s big-ticket projects, but also one that would improve air quality and street safety in the city.

“When you go out, every time we talk about congestion pricing, and stick a mic in the face of a driver coming off one of our free bridges and ask them if he or she wants to pay,” he said in an open comment to reporters,  “When are you going to go out and talk to a family who’s walking their child to school by the Lincoln Tunnel, who’s living in fear for their life? When are you going to go out and talk to somebody with asthma?”

Hochul said she plans to turn on the congestion toll on Jan 5 — but it’s  by no means a done deal.

The plan must now be approved by the Federal Highway Administration — part of the federal Department of Transportation — which is tasked with ensuring it’s in line with the MTA’s 4,000 page environmental assessment that the feds approved last year.

Simultaneously, the city, state, and federal departments of transportation — along with the MTA — must sign off on a final agreement what would allow the tolling money to go towards MTA funding, while the agency also kicks off three weeks of public education required by state law.

President-elect Trump has expressed his opposition to the congestion pricing plan, and it’s expected he will try to kill the plan if federal sign-off has not come by the time he takes office on Jan. 20.

David Mack, Nassau county’s representative on the board, was the sole opposing vote, arguing that stronger enforcement of trucks and a toll on East River bridges would be sufficient to raise revenue and limit congestion — assertions not supported by the MTA’s studies.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D – New York), a long-time supporter of the plan, spoke at a gathering of congestion pricing supporters at MTA headquarters Monday ahead of the vote.

“The people of our region have waited long enough — the time to move forward on congestion pricing is finally here,” he said. “The exhaustive environmental assessment produced by the MTA shows that without a doubt the $9 toll will benefit both New York City residents and all those who live in the [metropolitan] region.”

Under the plan approved Monday, drivers of most vehicles — ordinary cars, SUVs and pickup trucks — will be charged $9, once a day, to enter the congestion zone during daytime hours.

That’s a 40% discount across the board compared with the plan Hochul paused in June, but the toll will slowly ramp back up to the original rates.

In 2028, the toll will go up to $12, a 20% discount. In 2031, the base-toll will return to $15.

Those prices only apply to motorists with E-ZPass. Drivers without the automatic tolling system will face higher base tolls: $13.50 at first, $18 come 2028, and $22.50 by 2031.

As with earlier versions of the congestion plan, larger vehicles will be tolled more, and overnight tolls will be slashed by 75%.

MTA’s head of construction and development, Jamie Torres-Springer, said Monday that the toll’s expected revival meant that his teams were already working to resume projects that had halted during the pause.

Torres-Springer said he would begin “immediately” seeking contracts to bore a tunnel from 120th St. to 125th St. for phase two the Second Ave. subway.

The plan also means six new subway station accessibility projects can begin immediately, he said, and 17 others which were paused can begin moving forward with their design phase.

The MTA will seek to purchase 270 more electric buses immediately, as well as new dual-mode locomotives for service on the Long Island Rail Road.

MTA is also set to resume de-humidification of the main cables of the Verrazano Bridge, and will soon restart plans to install modern computerized signals along the Fulton Line of the A and C trains in Brooklyn, as well as the Liberty Line of the A train in Queens.

That work would convert the vast majority of the system’s longest subway line to modern signals.

“The toll will generate less net revenue during the phase-in, so we may need to manage the schedule of projects a little differently,” Torres-Springer said. “But we think that that impact will be off set by the availability of funding for the 2025-2029 [capital] program,” he said of the upcoming budget that Hochul has pledged to support.

Congestion pricing also faces ongoing legal challenges — most notably a lawsuit by neighboring New Jersey, which claims the feds were wrong to approve the MTA’s environmental assessment without demanding a more intensive environmental impact study.

The resumption of a congestion pricing plan re-opens those legal challenges.

Neal Zuckerman, the chair of the MTA board’s finance committee, addressed those legal challenges Monday.

“To those who have sued us — If you have a better idea where we can find a billion dollars, we are all ears,” he said. “otherwise, lets end these frivolous lawsuits.”

“I think this is practical,” he said of the tolls. “I think this is real world, I think this is fair.”