Gov. Hochul caved on congestion pricing. Shocker.
Sadly, the goal was never really about funding the MTA or combatting carbon emissions. If it were, the costs carried by consumers would be reasonable and measured. But $15 for cars and $24 or $36 for trucks, on top of bridge and tunnel tolls, would mean higher prices both at the supermarket and at every retail outlet citywide as the added expense trickled down.
And higher prices in this economy? I’m a single working parent. No, thank you.
If City Hall and Albany really were interested in reducing congestion, why haven’t they explored remedies like constructing high-rise public parking garages to phase out on-street parking; adding additional loading zones, aggressively cracking down on double parking and illegal placards, or a top to bottom redesign of our city’s streets that could accommodate growth and make them more efficient over the next 10 years.
Instead, proponents of this cockamamie plan will only endorse solutions that kill cars and disincentivize commuters and out-of-state families from either working or aspiring to vacation here.
Congestion pricing has also been a blanket cover for another dirty Albany accounting secret.
Since 1975, the Legislature has been required to directly fund public transit budgets via matching funds from local governments. However, Albany has fleeced transit every year for the past 30 years by reclassifying regional taxes earmarked for agencies, like the MTA, as money already contributed by the state.
According to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, “…the state has used a portion of these resources (since 1995) to fund up to 90% of its statutory obligation to subsidize the MTA’s operating budget, rather than using General Fund revenues as originally intended…” — in effect, deadbeat dad-ing their transit obligations to more than 13 million New Yorkers — “Consequently, the MTA has been shortchanged by $2.2 billion since 1995, and will lose out on $709 million during calendar years 2009 through 2012.”
That was more than 10 years ago. The amount owed now has more than doubled.
Sprinkle in a dash of the city’s antiquated zoning laws, federal trade tariffs on steel and lumber, compliance with National Environmental Protection Act regulations, needless years-long delays and cost overruns due to civil suits brought by wealthy NIMBY community activists, plus a lack of willpower at every level of government to untangle this sclerotic regulatory and bureaucratic morass, it’s no wonder why congestion pricing seemed like the path of least headache.
One obvious alternative would be reevaluating and renegotiating overly generous construction contracts. One contract for New York’s largest, most recent transit undertaking, the Second Ave. subway, received only two bids. That’s absurd.
MTA engineers pegged project expenditure for that contract at approximately $290 million, but both bids came in well above $300 million. The final tally for Second Ave. construction ended up a jaw-dropping $4.45 billion. Meanwhile, audits of the East Side Access development (connecting the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal) revealed the MTA paid out 900 workers when only 700 jobs were accounted for.
And even though all MTA capital projects utilize taxpayer dollars, the agency is still denied a seat at the table when it comes to dealing with organized labor. Where were the lawyers when this kleptocratic line item was introduced?
New York City Transit (NYCT) spends $1.9 billion per year on track maintenance, four times as much per track-mile than any other rail system in the continental United States. To cut costs and increase worker safety, NYCT could suspend round-the-clock service, and provide supplementary night buses for commuters needing to travel overnight and in the early morning. Manhattan Institute calculates the outlay of night bus expansion at $94.4 million per year — a mere fraction of what the MTA currently spends on subway maintenance.
As you can see, there are myriad solutions, and I’m just grazing the tip of the iceberg.
But again, the goal of congestion pricing was never really about reducing carbon emissions or traffic flow. It was about creating a Manhattan available only to bicycles. It was about deconstructing a city designed to be the apex of American ingenuity.
And instead of kicking her proverbial can of a crippling commuter tax further down the road, maybe Hochul should do the right thing and take steps to help New York rebuild itself. New Yorkers are waiting to. We’re wanting to. We know how.
The only thing standing in our way is the indecision, ineptitude, and inaction of the people elected to lead us.
Di Stasio, a 2023 candidate for New York City Council, is the managing director of the Ellison Ballet Foundation and an Emmy Award winning vocalist.