New bipartisan congressional caucus vows to fight New York's congestion pricing plan
NEW YORK — The state’s congestion pricing plan is facing increased opposition in Washington, with New York and New Jersey lawmakers creating a new bipartisan congressional caucus to kill the proposal.
Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), longtime opponents of the state’s plan to increase tolls on drivers entering central Manhattan at peak times, have co-founded the new caucus to strategize ways to defeat congestion pricing. Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Tom Kean Jr. (R-N.J.) are the only other two members who have joined the caucus so far.
The opposition is heating up as the Biden administration decides whether or not to greenlight the new tolling system, which is crucial to help fund the MTA’s $55 billion capital plan. State transit leaders had said they expected to get a final answer from Washington by the end of 2022, but are still waiting for a determination from the Federal Highway Administration.
“We’re here to fight the fight and make sure we defeat this congestion pricing cash grab, which is really unfair to the people we represent,” said Malliotakis, whose district includes all of Staten Island, where most commuters drive to work.
The new “Anti-Congestion Tax Caucus” is calling on the FHWA to reject the MTA’s environmental assessment of the plan. Instead they want the agency to compile an environmental impact statement, which typically takes years to complete. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who bitterly opposes New York's congestion pricing plan, has similarly called for the fuller study.
The environmental assessment looked at seven different tolling scenarios, ranging from $9 to $23 for passenger vehicles and between $12 and $82 for trucks.
It found that the plan would achieve the main objective of reducing traffic into central Manhattan by as much as 20 percent for personal vehicles and 80 percent for trucks. Most scenarios were projected to generate $1 billion in annual revenue for the MTA’s capital plan, which is required under the state law that authorized the tolling system.
Opponents have seized on a finding in the environmental review that congestion pricing could increase truck traffic in some areas outside Manhattan. Every tolling scenario found there would be more truck traffic on the Cross-Bronx Expressway and RFK Bridge, as drivers would try to circumvent the new tolling structure. Most of the scenarios also recorded an increase in truck traffic on I-95 in Bergen County, which falls in Gottheimer’s district.
“We believe that it would have detrimental impacts on surrounding neighborhoods outside of the congestion zone,” Malliotakis said at the Wednesday press conference in midtown Manhattan.
When asked about the growing opposition, the MTA stood behind the plan’s merits.
“Yesterday it was reported that New York City has the most traffic congestion of any city across the United States, and incredibly today, we have members of Congress driving into midtown Manhattan trying to make sure those traffic problems remain,” John McCarthy, a spokesperson for the MTA, said in a statement. “The bottom line is reducing car and truck traffic is good for the environment, good for getting fire trucks, buses and delivery vehicles through the city, and good for the 90 percent of people who depend on mass transit.”
Malliotakis has pushed for a federal tax credit for New York and New Jersey drivers affected by congestion pricing, but added that they still want to see the congestion pricing proposal pulled entirely.
“With that said, it’s not satisfactory to us, we want to see this thing dead."
An FHWA spokesperson said the agency is “diligently working towards a decision” when asked for an updated timeline on its decision-making process.
“At this time, FHWA is reviewing all the comments received through the Environmental Assessment public comment period along with the comprehensive analysis completed by the project sponsors to inform FHWA’s NEPA determination,” the FHWA spokesperson.
