MTA honcho Janno Lieber says NJ will get slice of NY’s controversial $15 congestion toll
Green for the Garden State!
New Jersey is expected to get a cut of the controversial proposed $15 daily congestion toll to drive through swaths of Manhattan, the head of the city’s MTA revealed Wednesday.
“There are also, without getting into all the specifics, there is a portion of the mitigation that is actually being allocated to communities that, through their own decision making, they can invest in things that mitigate the impact,” MTA Chairman Janno Lieber told business leaders during an event held by Crain’s New York.
“The way that all of this is determined is allocations by the number of people, who are in areas impacted by initial truck traffic and New Jersey will get its share — exactly on the arithmetic,” he later added, but declined to elaborate further.
Lawyers in New Jersey’s tort against New York’s impending toll have argued the agency should be obligated to provide funding to offset any potential impacts of the charge, including the potential added pollution from trucks and cars being rerouted around Manhattan to avoid the toll.
Representatives for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who’s leading the suit, declined to comment.
The MTA has already guaranteed funding for $155 million over five years to regional and city-focused anti-pollution programs that would offset any potential boosts in local traffic. Officials also say the projections of bumps in local traffic would only occur in worst-case scenarios.
Officials at the agency said Wednesday that New Jersey may be eligible for funding from roughly two-thirds of those initiatives, but more details were not immediately available.
The controversial program would toll drivers who head south of 60th Street on city avenues and local streets $15 per day between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. and $3.75 to drive in overnight.
Trucks would be charged $24 or $36 depending on their size during the day and $6 or $9 during the off-peak hours.
Drivers crossing via the Hudson or East River tunnels would get a $5 discount on the toll.
The program could start as soon as June, MTA officials say.
Traffic studies show that it could slash the number of cars on Manhattan’s traffic-clogged streets by as much as 17 percent, but opponents point to other portions of the 4,000-page study that suggest some of those trips would merely be diverted and end up in their neighborhoods.
By law, the toll must raise $1 billion per year to finance $15 billion worth of projects to modernize the MTA’s sprawling networks of subways, commuter railroad and buses.
Officials have pledged to spend the billions in tolls on big ticket projects, including:
- $3 billion for the expansion of the Second Avenue Subway into East Harlem, including three new stops at 106th St., 116th St., and 125th St-Lexington Avenue;
- $3 billion to overhaul the century-old stoplight-style subway signals that frequently break and wreck commutes on the 6th Avenue and Fulton Street lines;
- $2 billion to renovate crumbling stations and make them accessible for those in wheelchairs or with strollers;
- $1 billion for new subway trains;
- Another $3 billion for commuter railroad improvements.
