Financial Impact of Congestion Pricing Pause Could Result in Potential $3.2B Wage Loss for MTA Staff
The possibility of the Metropolitan Transportation Agency’s (MTA) board overruling the June 5th decision by Governor Hochul to indefinitely pause the slated June 30th launch of the congestion pricing program, will not happen according to reported public comments by City Planning Director Dan Garodnick. As a member of the MTA board and backer of congestion pricing, Garodnick said, “the MTA board cannot move forward on a program that does not have the necessary support from the state;” and since “the MTA is an implementing agency it follows state law.” In the meantime, transit supporters including City Comptroller Brad Lander’s Office, the Partnership of New York City, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Riders Alliance, among others, are “exploring legal avenues to overrule the governor’s deferral of congestion pricing tolls” if not reinstated by the end of June. “Governor Hochul’s announcement to delay congestion pricing just weeks before implementation without any clear [financial] alternatives,” has removed “the single source of revenue planned for the MTA’s 2020-2024 Capital Program.” This “creates a major financial risk to the MTA’s ability to modernized and upgrade the largest transit system in North America;” and “without any long-term financial alternative to support crucial improvements for tracks, signals, and cars, will complicate the long-term competitiveness of New York City,” according to a press release by City of New York Independent Budget Office (IBO). It remains unclear how the MTA will fill the $15 billion hole in its capital budget that now exists, including the potential loss of up to $3.2 billion in wages for the MTA’s more than 50,000 employees. In addition, if the program is not enacted at a future point, MTA investments made to date for the 6-year contract with TransCore to install, operate and maintain the tolling infrastructure at a total cost of $556 million will potentially need to be written off as bad spending.