MTA Chairman Janno Lieber took to the airwaves to defend congestion pricing from what he called “grievance politics” Tuesday, ahead of the second rush-hour under the controversial tolling plan, which switched on for the first time Sunday morning.
“New York has a problem — it’s called congestion,” Lieber said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“We have a great mass transit system that 90% of our commuters take,” Lieber said. “Using the proceeds from [congestion tolling] to invest in even better mass transit makes perfect sense — that’s why we’re doing it.”
The toll, which charges most passenger-car drivers $9 once a day to enter Midtown and lower Manhattan, is designed to back $15 billion in bonds earmarked for infrastructure improvements to the subway, bus and commuter rail system most people use to access the city’s business districts.
Proponents say the fees will also decrease motor vehicle traffic in the congestion zone, increasing bus speeds and emergency response times.
But critics have labeled the so-called “congestion tax” a money grab.
Westchester Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, appearing on “Morning Joe” to discuss the toll Monday, called the MTA “the worst-run authority in America,” adding he “fundamentally believe[s] [the MTA] needs an enema.”
“The fact is the MTA loses $700 million a year from people who refuse to pay to ride the subway,” Lawler added, incorrectly.
The MTA estimates its total loss from fare and toll evasion across all its divisions — including subways, buses, commuter rail and bridges and tunnels — to be roughly $690 million, according to a report published in 2023. Of that amount, subway fare evasion represents less than half, $285 million, in lost revenue.
“This is grievance politics, not substance politics,” Lieber said of Lawler’s criticisms Tuesday. “That guy is selling an outdated cartoon.”
As previously reported, the $15 billion in bonds contingent on congestion pricing are earmarked for a variety of big-ticket MTA upgrades and repairs, including hundreds of new R211 subway cars for the lettered lines, accessibility improvements at two dozen subway stations, and an extension of the long-awaited Second Ave. subway into East Harlem.
Lieber rejected the notion, put forward by host Willie Geist, that the subway system “doesn’t appear to be working for New Yorkers.”
“I grew up in a New York where the subways broke down every 5,000 miles, and now they break down every 200,000 miles,” Lieber said.
“We have a long way to go, and it needs to feel safer,” the transit boss continued. “This is a much better system than we’ve had in a long time, and I’m proud that we continue to make it better.”
As for any indications of what the toll was doing for congestion above ground, Lieber said it was too soon to tell.
“It’s too early to draw any, you know, long-term conclusions,” he said. “Yesterday was a light day — everybody was noticing the traffic was light. But it was also the day after the holiday season, and there was snow forecast, so, we’re not drawing any premature conclusions.”
Neither the MTA nor the city’s Department of Transportation — which shares in the administration of the new tolling program — could provide the Daily News with Monday’s traffic data.
An MTA spokesman said tolling data should be available for public release by the end of the week.
Subway ridership was up slightly compared with last week, with 3,435,564 riders going underground Monday, up 3.4% from the Monday prior, and up 4% from Jan. 8, 2024, last year’s comparable Monday.