Congestion pricing still delayed, 3 years after being announced

Fears that the longer it takes, the easier it is to kill it entirely [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( [VIEW IN BROWSER]( [DONATE]( [WNYC Politics Brief] Congestion pricing continues to stall, three years after being announced Plus: An MTA bus driver was charged in the hit-and-run death of a Staten Island pedestrian. LaGaurdia Airport looks pretty but it's still hard as hell to get to. And European graffiti artists really love tagging subways. Sponsor Message[Ad: NYC Means Business. Click here to find options to help you shop your city.]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- [traffic!] Justin Lane/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock MTA chair Janno Lieber sounded exasperated at last month's MTA board meeting when asked if the agency would complete its environmental review for congestion pricing by June in order to stay on its own schedule. "No, because we are still struggling with the federal government’s 425 comments," he said. "In some cases we’re working with the feds to nail down, what exactly do you want us to do?" Lieber was referring to the hundreds of follow-up questions the Federal Highway Administration, or FHWA, sent to the MTA in response to its required environmental assessment of congestion pricing and its potential impacts on the region. The FHWA questions will ensure that the environmental review is airtight and prevent the project from being stalled even longer, a federal Department of Transportation employee who is familiar with the project told Gothamist. The person asked not to be named because they’re not authorized to speak publicly about this project. But three years after state lawmakers approved the plan to charge drivers in the city's central business district, the approval process continues to hit roadblocks, and advocates fear that these delays decrease the likelihood that this ever actually happens. "The problem is, it’s not even clear that these 400 questions will necessarily lead to a better outcome at the back end," said Tom Wright, president and CEO of the Regional Plan Association, a civic think tank group largely focused on transportation. "And frankly, we know that the longer this takes to play out, the more chance there is that there would be political changes that would undermine the entire program." Even Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who's been a full-throated supporter of the plan, made it clear this week that there would be no movement on congestion pricing at the moment. "This is not going to happen over the next year, now’s not the right time," Hochul, who's campaigning for a full term in office, said at Tuesday night’s Democratic gubernatorial debate. Indeed, the MTA wasn’t planning to have the program up and running until the end of 2023. But other actions to keep the program on track, including the creation of a six-person Traffic Mobility Review Board that would set the tolls and determine who's exempt, is now on hold again. Lining up to kill the plan Even if congestion pricing was to move forward, opponents are likely preparing to file or join any lawsuit to the program. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, has blasted the program and called for an extra toll on New York drivers entering New Jersey if it goes through. Gov. Phil Murphy backed Gottheimer’s suggestion and said Thursday, "all options are on the table." Preliminary discussions suggested drivers who enter Manhattan from the Holland or Lincoln Tunnel might be exempt from the toll, but drivers crossing the George Washington Bridge would have to pay a fee if they drove below 60th Street. "That’s unacceptable, that’s not going to happen," Murphy said. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Long Island Republican also running for governor, has vowed to kill congestion pricing if he’s elected. And City Councilmember Joann Ariola, who represents sections of southeast Queens, told Gothamist she’d happily join any lawsuit blocking congestion pricing from going into effect. She said there should be more breaks for New Yorkers now, not more taxes. "It’s about time that we start to carve out some incentives for people to remain here in New York City, and not flee the way they have been," she said. "I don’t believe it will work, in fact I believe it will make the city more unmanageable to travel through." At an unrelated press event Thursday, MTA Chairman Lieber explained that several of the questions were related to the way the MTA does its air quality analysis. Lieber said the agency has to calculate how air quality might be affected in 28 nearby counties, going all the way to Philadelphia. He said changing variables on the modeling can takes five days to be completed. Next month, the MTA will provide an updated financial plan that may address the financial impact of the delays in implementing congestion pricing. Once in place, the program is expected to generate $1 billion a year in revenue, which the MTA had planned to use to sell $15 billion worth of bonds. The revenue would go toward buying electric buses, installing subway elevators and modernizing the signal system, among other big-ticket projects. "We have been vocal about the importance of this program, because in addition to reducing traffic and providing significant environmental benefits, congestion pricing is essential for the funding of major capital initiatives like accessible subway stations, the Second Avenue Subway and zero-emission buses," said John J. McCarthy, the MTA's chief of external relations. Without congestion pricing funds, it’s unclear whether the MTA will have enough money for all of those projects. Exploring options Still, Nicole Gelinas, a senior research fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, questioned their sincerity. "What happened to Pete Buttigieg wanting to help the climate and also wanting to prove Democrats can build stuff fast?" said Gelinas, referring to the U.S. Department of Transportation secretary. "A bigger point is that with all of this delay, delay, delay, we're losing a good opportunity to experiment." Gelinas proposed that the feds should allow the MTA to quickly install infrastructure that can begin charging a $2 fee during the busiest hours while offering discounts to rides on the Metro-North or Long Island Rail Road. "Why not just start with trucks at a few hours of the day to spread the traffic more evenly throughout the day? We are very stuck on this 'zero or a $20 fee' thing, which bodes poorly for future flexibility," Gelinas said. "We can allow for the very real concern that we don't want to discourage anyone from coming into Manhattan and still get people accustomed to this idea." — [Reporting by Stephen Nessen]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsor Message [Ad: NYC Means Business. Click here to find options to help you shop your city.] --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's What Else Is Happening The Department of Transportation said it's going to complete 100 safe street redesigns by the end of the year. DOT chair Ydanis Rodriguez pointed to the new two-way bike lane and pedestrian islands on a notoriously speedy stretch of Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights as an example of the redesigns to come. Many of these projects will be concentrated around schools and in historically underserved neighborhoods. ([AM New York]( An MTA bus driver was arrested for leaving the scene of a hit-and-run pedestrian death on Staten Island, police said. Darrell Sweet, a 52-year-old bus driver, acknowledged to police that he "should have stopped" after turning into an intersection and hitting an elderly man who was crossing the street at around 4:30 a.m. one morning last month. The driver, a 15-year MTA veteran, was charged with the felony of fleeing the scene of a fatal crash. ([NY Daily News]( The MTA has stopped requiring weekly COVID testing for unvaccinated workers. On Tuesday, state agencies including the MTA lifted their test-or-vax requirements, though agency-run testing centers will remain open through "at least" June 26th. An MTA spokesperson said 77% of its workforce is now vaccinated. ([New York Post]( LaGuardia Airport's new terminals are nice, once you get to them. Terminal B's chaotic new retail layout isn't to this reviewer's liking, but otherwise, the interior design in Terminals B and C are cool and there's nice art. But transit options are still miserable: There aren't enough roadways, the cab line stinks, and public transit users will have to wait who knows how long until the AirTrain replacement idea comes to fruition. ([Bloomberg]( "People who don’t know about graffiti, they’re gonna think they deserved to die." Rates of subway graffiti in New York are dramatically lower than in their '80s heyday, and the MTA says it's "particularly reprehensible" to paint cars because doing so diverts funds towards train cleanup. But for international graffiti artists, tagging a train is still a deeply important accomplishment — even if it turns deadly, as was the case for two Frenchmen back in April. "If you’re a graffiti writer from another country and you came to New York and you didn’t paint a train, it’s like you just wasted a trip," explained one artist. ( [The New York Times]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- And Finally: Ludlow and Rivington will soon officially be known as Beastie Boys Square [the Beastie Boys Square street sign] LeRoy McCarthy A little less than a decade ago, cultural advocate LeRoy McCarthy first presented his proposal to Manhattan's Community Board 3 to rename the corner of Ludlow Street and Rivington Street on the Lower East Side as "Beastie Boys Square." As part of his ongoing mission to commemorate the city's hip-hop roots with street namings, McCarthy had gathered thousands of signatures to back a tribute to the trailblazing New York City trio (Mike D and Ad-Rock grew up in Manhattan, while MCA came from Brooklyn). Despite some preliminary hiccups, he felt confident he would convince the board of the historic importance of the spot, commemorated on the front cover of the group's seminal album, Paul's Boutique. Instead, he faced sabotage when CB3 voted on the matter without him being present. "Yeah, they rejected it," McCarthy told Gothamist. "They pretty much thought that it was not necessary… They placed undemocratic obstacles although the application met the rules requirements. I do not know what their reasons were." Now, nine years later, the fight for the right to rename the intersection is almost at an end. This week, the City Council advanced the Beastie Boys' street naming, along with 78 others. Local politicians said they were confident it will be passed soon. McCarthy has turned his love for the genre into this passion project. He's been behind almost all of the prominent hip-hop street namings in and around the city over the last decade, including Christopher Wallace Way (named for the Notorious B.I.G.) on St. James Place in Brooklyn; Malik "Phife Dawg" Taylor Way in Englewood, NJ; and the Wu-Tang Clan District sign at the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and Targee Street on Staten Island. McCarthy has still more projects in the works, including A Tribe Called Quest Boulevard in Queens and Boulevard De La Soul, which has been approved for placement in Amityville, Long Island. He's also trying to get the city to agree to make August 11th "Hip Hop Celebration Day" and the entire month of August "Hip Hop Recognition Month." — [Reporting by Ben Yakas]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- [Ad: NYC Means Business. 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