Since the Jan. 5 launch of congestion pricing, the vehicle-tolling program is on track to raise big bucks for much-needed transit upgrades, MTA officials said Monday — even as President Donald Trump targets it for termination.
At the transit agency’s monthly committee meetings Monday, officials detailed how the first 27 days of tolls on motorists driving into Manhattan south of 60th Street generated $48.6 million in revenue. According to the MTA, that amounted to $37.5 million in net revenue after $9.1 million was spent on operating vehicle scanners, a customer service center and credit-card fees along with $2 million for setting up environmental mitigation measures in The Bronx and elsewhere.
The new details on the money being raised for big-ticket capital expenditures such as new train cars, modern subway signals and increased accessibility serves as an addendum to other benefits such as less-cluttered streets and faster buses that officials have been touting for weeks.
“It seems from all indicators that the program is reducing traffic, but also projecting the revenue to be on target,” Jai Patel, the MTA’s deputy chief financial officer said during a committee meeting.
The expected $500 million in net revenue from congestion pricing’s first full year — a haul which is expected to increase in the future — will allow the MTA to borrow more through bonds and help fill the more than $15 billion funding gap in the transit agency’s nearly $55 billion 2020-2024 capital plan.
To reach its target for the year, the MTA will have to pull in about $41.6M in net revenue a month on average. In the 27 days in January when the new tolls were collected, MTA officials say they were satisfied with the dollar amounts during what was a bitterly cold month — with money expected to flow in as temperatures climb and more vehicles are on the road.
“The spring, the summer, some of the fall, are higher traffic months,” Patel said. “So we believe we are on track for the $500 million in net revenue based on early January.”
But optimism over the early victories was tempered after President Donald Trump last week proclaimed “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD,” and the head of the federal Transportation Department called for the “orderly cessation of toll operations.”
The order to shut down the Manhattan tolling system was accompanied by Trump gloating, “LONG LIVE THE KING!” on social media, with Hochul firing back that “New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years.” The MTA immediately filed legal papers to fight the Trump declaration in court.
The tolling scanners at Manhattan’s gateways to the congestion relief zone remain on while the MTA embarks on its latest legal skirmish over the vehicle-tolling scheme — and after Gov. Kathy Hochul met with Trump last week to make the case for congestion pricing.
MTA board member Neal Zuckerman on Monday praised the “brilliant and necessary new revenue stream,” while saying the federal government’s efforts to undercut congestion pricing are sticking it to the city and the region.
Zuckerman, chairperson of the MTA board’s finance committee, said “every New Yorker is a victim of this situation.”
“There is no question that New York is the economic engine of this nation and arguably the planet,” he said. “And yet we are having someone muck with the economic engine of the city and the region.”
During her Oval Office sitdown with Trump on Friday, Hochul shared a presentation highlighting some of the early successes of congestion pricing.
In a weekend interview with the New York Post, Trump called it “a very cordial meeting” but added “I don’t see how I can back off.”
The MTA has said motorists and bus riders on Hudson and East River bridge and tunnel crossings are enjoying faster commutes into and out of Manhattan in the first weeks of congestion pricing.
In addition, numbers show that ridership is up in the subway, on some express bus routes and on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North commuter rail services.
A congestion pricing toll stands near City Hall, Feb. 21, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“From express buses, to New Jersey commuter buses, to the previously slowest local buses in Manhattan, riders are finally getting where they need to go faster and it’s all thanks to congestion relief,” Kara Gurl, planning and advocacy manager at the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said Monday during a public comment session.
“We can’t go back now,” Gurl said.
Another public speaker, Anna Humphrey of the Center for Independence of the Disabled New York, said funding from congestion pricing is essential to the MTA following through on a commitment to making almost all subway and Staten Island Railway stations fully accessible to people with disabilities.
Under a class-action lawsuit settlement approved by a federal judge in April 2023, the MTA must equip 95% of those stations with elevators or wheelchair-accessible ramps by 2055.
“Beyond improving traffic, we cannot afford to lose the critical funding congestion pricing provides for subway accessibility,” Humphrey said. “Riders with disabilities, older adults, parents with strollers all depend on working elevators to use the subway.
“We need to ensure this funding remains intact.”
THE CITY reported in June — after Hochul abruptly paused the start of congestion pricing weeks before its original start date — that the terms of the settlement allow the MTA to lower the share of its total capital budget that is marked for accessibility upgrades.
The 2020-2024 capital plan set aside $5 billion for making 68 more stations fully accessible, with congestion pricing revenues directly responsible for upgrades at 23 stations.
MTA officials reported that 68% of the new revenue in January came from passenger vehicles, whose drivers face a one-daily $9 toll during peak hours, with that price dropping to $2.75 between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. Taxis and for-hire vehicles accounted for 22% of the revenue, with trucks at 9% and buses and motorcycles at 1%.
In addition to questions of the future of congestion pricing, the MTA is also looking for ways to fund its next five-year capital plan. About a third of that $68 billion blueprint, which is largely focused on maintaining a system with assets that officials say are “in real danger of failure,” remains unfunded.
“If we don’t make those investments, if we don’t prioritize state of good repair as our program proposes, those asset classes will continue to age and the consequence is riders will get worse service — period, end,” said Janno Lieber, MTA chairperson and CEO. “That is the choice that is on the table.”
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