Feds Give NY Congestion Pricing Plan the Green Light

By Michael V. Cusenza

Governor Kathy Hochul this week announced that the Federal Highway Administration has completed the environmental review of the State’s congestion pricing program—Manhattan Central Business District Tolling—following a 30-day public availability period of the Final Environmental Assessment.

The federal agency on Monday issued a Finding of No Significant Impact, confirming the conclusion of the Final Environmental Assessment, which includes mitigation measures to be undertaken by the program, that the program will have no significant environmental impacts.

The Central Business District Tolling Program was mandated by the State in April 2019 and modeled on urban congestion pricing programs around the world to reduce traffic congestion and raise needed revenue to improve public transportation. The program will charge vehicles a toll for traveling in Manhattan south of and inclusive of 60th Street, excluding through-traffic on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, West Side Highway, Battery Park Underpass, and roadway portions of the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel connecting to West Street.

The Environmental Assessment, prepared by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, an affiliate agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, State Department of Transportation, and City Department of Transportation in consultation with the Federal Highway Administration, found the program is expected to meet its objectives by reducing congestion and overall vehicle miles traveled, with related regional air quality benefits, while providing financial support to capital upgrades for the MTA’s public transportation system.

Before a tolling rate structure can be set, the Traffic Mobility Review Board, a body required by the April 2019 State Legislation that established the Central Business District Tolling Program, will develop a recommended toll structure after considering factors such as traffic patterns, traffic mitigation measures, operating costs, public impact, public safety, vehicle types, discounts, peak and off-peak rates, air quality and emissions trends. The TMRB will provide a report explaining its recommendations, including the underlying review and analysis, to the Board of TBTA, which is coterminous with the MTA Board. The TBTA Board will adopt and establish the tolling structure.

If a tolling structure is adopted on a timeline as expected, toll collection could begin as early as May 2024, which gives contractors a contractually obligated 310 days to finish designing, developing, testing, and installing the tolling system and equipment.

Hochul touted what proponents of the plan have characterized as its myriad benefits:

The assessment finds that across the 28-county area studied in the environmental review, of those who commute to work in Manhattan’s Central Business District, only 11 percent drive and 85 percent use public transportation. By reducing congestion and creating revenue for public transportation, the program will benefit millions of people every day. Through a package of mitigation measures, the program will also improve air quality in environmental justice communities.

Less traffic congestion: New York is the most congested city in the United States. Congested streets slow down buses, delay

A more equitable, accessible transit system: The program will generate net revenues sufficient to leverage $15 billion for the MTA's 2020-2024 Capital Program, which includes transformational projects. The MTA's transit system, and particularly the bus network, promotes equity by serving low-income and minority populations. The funding will allow the MTA to progress on its aggressive timeline of completing acces-

Environmental Justice Technical Advisory and Stakeholder Working Groups, and six public hearings after the release of the draft Environmental Assessment in August 2022. Nearly 950 speakers participated in early outreach sessions and public hearings, combined. Additional meetings were held separately for elected officials, community boards, transit and environmental advocates, and other interested parties. TBTA and the State and City departments of transportation received and responded to more than 22,000 individual comments and more than 55,000 form submissions during the formal comment period.

The Environmental Assessment's Study Area emergency vehicles and delivery services, raise the cost of doing business, and degrade our quality of life. The Final Environmental Assessment estimates a roughly 15-20 percent reduction in the number of vehicles entering the Central Business District, or about 110,000 to 143,000 fewer vehicles daily, about as many as enter Manhattan on the Brooklyn Bridge today. sibility improvements, along with performing necessary state-of-good repair work to the more-than-a-century old transit system.

In consideration of public input, the Final Environmental Assessment analyzes the potential impacts of Central Business District Tolling on traffic congestion, transit, air quality and numerous other environmental indicators in 28 counties across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The Study Area contains 22 million people, including 12.3 million residents residing in environmental justice communities, and five Tribal Nations.

The Final Environmental Assessment assesses impacts to traffic and public transportation for a regional transportation network with 28.8 million journeys per average weekday, 61,000 highway linkage points, 4,600 traffic analysis zones, 44,267 bus stops or transit stations, 4,170 transit routes, and more than a dozen public transportation providers in addition to the MTA, including NJ TRANSIT, PATH, ferries, and regional bus systems including Westchester County Bee-Line, NICE, and Suffolk County Transit.

Still, everyone is not on-board with the plan. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said this week that the Garden State will be researching all legal avenues to stifle its advancement.

And Councilmembers Bob Holden (DMaspeth) and Joann Ariola (R-Ozone Park) have been leading area opposition to congestion pricing.

New York City buses serve a greater share of low-income and minority households compared to other modes of transportation, including subways. Local bus speeds have declined 28 percent in the Central Business District since 2010 and Select Bus Service in Manhattan is 19-percent slower than SBS in other boroughs. While ongoing MTA initiatives such as the bus network redesigns have shown improvement in speeds, congestion pricing would not only improve travel times for bus service, but also paratransit service.

A healthier, more sustainable future: Congestion pricing will improve overall regional air quality with one of the most comprehensive plans the region has implemented to support a greener future. The Final Environmental Assessment found in all tolling scenarios an overall decrease in vehicle-miles traveled in the Central Business District and region overall, and that the program would encourage some commuters to shift from their vehicles to transit.

Outreach and Community Engagement Unprecedented in Scope

Over the course of the environmental review process, MTA and its project partners held 19 early outreach sessions, of which nine were focused on environmental justice communities, 10 meetings with

“This could be the final blow, penalizing hardworking middle-class taxpayers and seniors on a fixed income who depend on driving into Manhattan for crucial appointments,” Holden said on Tuesday. “Let’s hope officials from outside the state step up to do what State officials should have done: put an end to it.”

Ariola made a congestion pricing stop sign one of the pillars of her campaign platform. She led an opposition rally outside City Hall in May.

“The MTA needs to reel in their spending before they pass on costs to ordinary New Yorkers. One recent NYU study, for example, found that the MTA spent nearly twice as much on consultants for the Second Avenue Subway than it did on actually digging the tunnel itself,” Ariola said at the event. “And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This kind of reckless spending needs to be checked—a cash grab like congestion pricing will only continue to fuel their destructive, expensive, wasteful practices.”