Transit leaders in New York City have scaled back billions of dollars’ worth of upgrades to the nation’s largest transit network after Gov. Kathy Hochul halted the start of a tolling program that would have paid for improvements and repairs.
During its first meeting after Ms. Hochul’s decision to suspend the program, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday viewed presentations from the authority’s staff detailing sweeping project cuts that totaled $16.5 billion.
Gone were plans to make subway stations more accessible to riders with disabilities, repairs to some nearly century-old infrastructure and the expansion of the Second Avenue subway line, among other now-deferred projects.
“That presentation is dire,” said Midori Valdivia, a board member. “No board member, I think, wants to sit here talking about what projects we’re going to cut a couple years after we approved all those projects.”
Wednesday’s meeting set the stage for board members to begin understanding the full scale of the governor’s decision and the damage that the disruption will have on the authority’s overall fiscal health. Just last year, the M.T.A. had balanced its operating budget through at least half a decade thanks to a budget deal secured by the governor and State Legislature. Now, several board members fear that the program’s suspension will jeopardize not just capital projects but also the M.T.A.’s debt load, its borrowing potential and its ability to run day-to-day operations.
The board will receive its annual financial update in July.
While the authority has adjusted and deferred a large portion of its capital plans, board members on Wednesday passed a resolution to remain prepared to put the congestion pricing program into effect once it gets the green light from Albany. Ms. Hochul has not indicated when that might be. (One board member, David S. Mack, an opponent of congestion pricing, dissented in the 10 to 1 vote approving the resolution.)
In a statement issued during Wednesday’s packed board meeting, Ms. Hochul argued that the M.T.A. could rein in costs in order to supplement its budget. She said that the “temporary adjustments” announced during the board meeting did not spell the demise of the authority’s projects.
“There is no reason for New Yorkers to be concerned that any planned projects will not be delivered,” Ms. Hochul wrote.
A record number of people, 141 in total, signed up to speak at the meeting. Dozens lined up to criticize the governor and to urge board members to find a way to push congestion pricing through — some suggested that the board overrule Ms. Hochul and begin tolling drivers anyway.
But without the state’s approval to move ahead, the authority said that it could not legally institute the tolling program as it had planned to do on June 30 before Ms. Hochul changed her mind.
Congestion pricing would have charged most drivers $15 to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan, with the aim of reining in traffic while generating money that is badly needed to modernize New York’s round-the-clock subway. But when Ms. Hochul earlier this month rescinded her support for starting the program as scheduled, she effectively blocked many of the transit system’s renovations. Ms. Hochul has vowed to find alternative sources of funding for the M.T.A.
The governor has said that congestion pricing puts at risk New York’s recovery from the pandemic. She has argued that the city’s economy was still too fragile to contend with a new toll on drivers and that she feared that the program would give commuters yet another reason in the age of remote work not to return to the office.
Her reversal was applauded by a growing chorus of opponents who had accused the M.T.A. of unfairly targeting car commuters to plug its budget shortfalls.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Janno Lieber, the chief executive and chairman of the M.T.A. board, said that he was taking the governor at her word when she said that she would find the money to plug the authority’s budget.
The money raised from New York City’s congestion pricing program had already been counted on to help repair a transportation network that moves more people than any other on the continent. Congestion pricing was also expected to reduce the number of vehicles that enter Lower Manhattan by about 17 percent, according to a November study by an advisory committee reporting to the M.T.A. The report also said that the program would reduce the total number of miles driven in 28 counties across the region.
“No other policy holds so much promise to invest in our mass transit system and manage our out-of-control traffic congestion,” said Tom Wright, the executive director of the Regional Plan Association, an urban policy group that supports congestion pricing.
The merits of congestion pricing, as well as possible unintended consequences of the program, are the subjects of eight pending lawsuits against the program. Last week, a federal judge dismissed a key argument behind three of them, renewing hope among supporters. Proponents have said that they intend to go to court themselves to fight the governor’s delay, because they believe that the 2019 state law that created the program, among other laws, supersedes Ms. Hochul’s desire to halt it.
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