Congestion pricing is here at long last. Now, lawmakers must stop debating a settled matter and turn their attention to investing the proceeds into transit improvements in a cost-efficient way.
The policy, first proposed in 2007, is off to a promising start, reporter Caroline Spivack found. While transit experts contend that it’s far too early to have a full understanding of the program’s impact, preliminary data shows that cars are moving faster on bridges and tunnels and around key corridors in the city. Bumper-to-bumper gridlock on Manhattan streets has noticeably evaporated. Subway ridership jumped by 400,000 travelers on the first Tuesday for which data was available, and the Long Island Rail Road and Metro North Railroad both experienced an uptick of more than 30,000 passengers, respectively.
Gov. Kathy Hochul wasted no time floating rail improvements on Metro-North’s Hudson line, which she said would speed up commutes to the city by up to 30 minutes on a round trip. The upgrades include a second track at the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx, signal and track enhancements at the Croton-Harmon station in Westchester County and increasing capacity at the Poughkeepsie Yard.
The announcement, made on the same day that the $9 congestion pricing toll took effect, was a smart move by Hochul, who has fences to mend with suburban voters who fear that their commutes will only bankroll transit upgrades for wealthy Manhattanites.
Other lawmakers, who continue to kick and scream about a done deal, should follow suit. Instead of wasting taxpayer dollars dragging out a decades-long debate about the merits of the toll, it’s time to turn the page and focus on how to spend the money efficiently. The city’s business community relies on workers being able to get to their jobs quickly.
Ensuring that the MTA makes good use of the money won’t be an easy task; the agency has a $33 billion dollar hole in the latest capital budget it pitched to Albany and a recent audit alleges that it failed to implement any of the cost-cutting measures it pledged back in 2019.
But cameras are firing and tolls are being collected. Electeds must now turn their attention to making sure those dollars go toward funding innovative projects and improving New Yorker’s lives.
