NY MTA board votes to defer congestion pricing plan until everyone agrees on it

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board of directors voted today to defer the implementation of the state’s congestion pricing program for Manhattan. A resolution adopted by the board extends implementation of the tolling plan from June 2024 “until such time as the legally required final agreement is signed.”

The board acknowledged the reality that the program can not go forward without the agreement of the New York State Department of Transportation, New York City Department of Transportation, the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and the Federal Highway Administration.

The MTA said the absence of projected funding from the congestion pricing program will result in $16.5 billion in deferred projects. It would delay plans to expand the Second Avenue subway to 125th Street in Manhattan, and it would delay procurement of new subway cars, passenger locomotives for commuter rail lines and 250 electric buses.

An analysis released this morning by Reinvent Albany, which advocates for government accountability in New York, concluded that 87,500 MTA vendor jobs are at risk in the state without congestion pricing. Many of those jobs are in upstate New York, said Dani Simons, vice president for communications and public affairs at Alstom, which manufactures rail cars and other components at facilities in New York. “Those are manufacturing jobs in much smaller communities where those communities really rely on those jobs being there,” she said.