The MTA board is set to begrudgingly bow to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to pause congestion pricing — for now.
A resolution drafted by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Law Department — and obtained by The Post — “recognizes” that the first-in-the-nation congestion toll “will not be implemented in June 2024 due to the pause in the program.”
The resolution is expected to be approved in a vote Wednesday during what will be the MTA’s first board meeting since Hochul suddenly announced she was hitting the brakes on the plan to charge drivers $15 to enter Midtown Manhattan south of 60th Street — which was set to go into effect June 30.
But even while acknowledging the pause, the resolution keeps the door open to revive the program — and the MTA makes clear it wishes to do so.
It notes that the tolling law, which then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature approved in 2019, remains in effect even while the program is suspended.
The resolution also directs the MTA’s tolling collection officials to continue “to take such steps as may be necessary or desirable to implement” the program.
“The date of the CBDTP [Central Business Tolling Program] is hereby extended from in or about June 2024 until after such time as the execution of legally required tolling agreement among the project sponsors,” it states, referring to the state Department of Transportation, the city Department of Transportation, the MTA’s Bridge and Tunnels unit and and the Federal Highway Administration.
The resolution does not mention Hochul — who has tremendous influence over the agency — by name. The governor appoints many of the appointees to the board and its leader.
MTA chairman and CEO Janno Lieber is expected to lay out planned cuts as part of a pared-down capital construction program on Wednesday to compensate for the loss of $1 billion a year in revenue to help finance $15 billion in capital projects.
Transit sources and critics of the Midtown toll said the move to announce reductions in the program is clearly a ploy to pressure Hochul and lawmakers to revise the Midtown toll or identify other revenue sources.
The tolling program should be permanently scrapped, said Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella, a leading opponent who filed suit to stop it.
“The pause in the congestion toll is a big victory for people who were against it from day one. We’re in a better place than we were a few weeks ago. But we still have our work cut out for us,” he told The Post on Tuesday.
He called on the 2019 law authorizing the toll to be repealed so as to prevent the MTA and supporters of congestion pricing to use it as a “hook” to revive the program.
“We want the toll to be sent overseas,” he quipped.
Even Cuomo has backed away from the program he once championed amid widespread opposition.
David Mack, an MTA board member representing Nassau County, supported the suspension of the congestion toll and insisted there’s ample money to run a safe, reliable system without the revenues from it.
“Congestion pricing was the wrong salutation at the wrong time,” Mack said in a statement sent to fellow board members, citing inflation that has caused double-digit spikes in grocery and housing costs.
He also told MTA officials and transit advocates to stop engaging in scare tactics by dramatizing cutbacks in expansion programs to pressure Albany to reinstate the congestion toll.
“Putting out select stories of what cannot be done without congestion pricing designed to rile up certain segments of the community to approve congestion pricing is really not helpful,” Mack said.
In time, he said Hochul and the legislature will find an alternative revenue source, which also would have to be weighed against the impact on the economy.
In the meantime, Mack said, “The MTA must take the resources it has to prioritize what needs to be done. Let’s face it, there will always be a shortfall between what we’d like to do and what we can do,” Mack said.
Meanwhile, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli stuck it to Hochul by playing into the gloom and doom scenario, saying that $21 billion in planned projects are under the microscope.
“The loss of congestion pricing revenue means the MTA’s current capital plan is likely to be smaller than its predecessor, adjusted for inflation …As a result, the plan represents a decline in investment in the metropolitan region’s vital transportation system,” an analysis by DiNapoli released Tuesday said.
“The MTA will likely need to remove approximately $17 billion in projects from its current capital plan under its reprioritization efforts.”