Feds give green light to Hochul’s $9 NYC congestion pricing plan clearing final bureaucratic hurdle
Congestion pricing is moving full speed ahead.
The Federal Highway Administration OK’d the final bureaucratic step Thursday for the revamped program to collect $9 tolls for cars entering Manhattan below 60th Street starting Jan. 5.
“Today is the moment we’ve been waiting for,” crowed Janno Lieber, the MTA’s chair, during a celebratory news conference.
“Congestion pricing says we are not going to keep putting our head in the sand and pretend that we don’t have a limited amount of room on our streets and with it improve our transit.”?
The?federal?agreement gives the Metropolitan Transportation Authority permission to collect congestion tolls under?the feds’?value pricing pilot program.
Lieber said the sign-off also gave a seal of approval to the congestion pricing phase-in plan unveiled last week by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Hochul’s plan approved this week by MTA board members – which resurrected the hated toll program that she placed on months-long “pause” – will lower the base toll from $15 to $9, at least to start.
The agreement gives the MTA permission to collect congestion tolls under the feds’ value pricing pilot program.
The federal sign-off comes after Gov. Kathy Hochul and MTA officials resurrected congestion pricing from its months-long “pause.”
The new plan will lower the base toll from $15 to $9, at least to start.
Tolls will increase to $12 in 2028 before reaching the full $15 by 2031.
But the hated toll?program’s future remains in doubt, as it faces lawsuits, intense opposition from many local lawmakers and a president-elect Trump who has promised to “TERMINATE” it during his first week in the White House.
Oral arguments in four separate lawsuits on whether to pause, kill or allow congestion pricing to go forward are scheduled for a Dec. 20 hearing in Manhattan federal court.
Lieber was bullish over his side’s chances, arguing congestion pricing follows the law.
“We are comfortable going into the litigation,” he said.
