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That’s what Mayor Bill de Blasio essential asked Tuesday in blasting the MTA’s 16-month timeline to do an environmental review of the long-stalled congestion pricing proposal to toll drivers heading into downtown Manhattan.
“Do I buy that timeline? No. I’d like to meet the person who thinks 16 months is ‘expedited’ — that’s ridiculous,” de Blasio told reporters at his Aug. 17 press briefing. “Everyone’s gotta go faster. I mean, this is crazy.”
MTA officials must conduct a so-called environmental assessment to suss out the potential effects of charging drivers heading into Manhattan below 61st Street, officially known as Central Business District Tolling.
The agency told The New York Times that the review of the toll’s potential effects on residents in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut would take about 16 months.
Lieutenant Governor/soon-to-be Governor Kathy Hochul told the paper that, while she supported congestion pricing in the past, she needed to “evaluate further given the constantly changing impact of COVID-19 on commuters.”
The MTA needs revenues from congestion pricing yesterday, according to a new report by a government watchdog group.
Reinvent Albany reported that the mass transit agency has secured less than 4% of the cash needed for its ambitious, nearly $55 billion five-year capital plan to modernize the ailing subway and bus systems.
“The MTA literally cannot afford to lose congestion pricing revenues,” said Rachael Fauss, a senior researcher with Reinvent Albany, who co-wrote the report.
MTA officials have only $2 billion on hand out of $54.8 billion budgeted for the 2020-2024 capital plan 18 months into its schedule, according to the analysis released Thursday, Aug. 19.
The agency claimed in July that half of funding is “secure,” but only 3.7% of funds have arrived so far as almost a third of the capital program’s timeline has passed. That’s slower than previous capital plans 18 months in, when 7.3% was funded for the 2015-2019 plan and 11% for the 2010-2014 plan.
The first-in-the-nation proposal to charge drivers entering Manhattan’s “Central Business District” at or below 60th Street is crucial for funding the current capital plan by unlocking $15 billion in bonds for MTA projects, the single largest money source, in addition to providing $1 billion in annual tolling revenues.
Advocates also hail the tolling proposal for reducing congestion and pollution, supporting a move away from car-dependent commutes to public transit.
That’s what Mayor Bill de Blasio essential asked Tuesday in blasting the MTA’s 16-month timeline to do an environmental review of the long-stalled congestion pricing proposal to toll drivers heading into downtown Manhattan.
“Do I buy that timeline? No. I’d like to meet the person who thinks 16 months is ‘expedited’ — that’s ridiculous,” de Blasio told reporters at his Aug. 17 press briefing. “Everyone’s gotta go faster. I mean, this is crazy.”
MTA officials must conduct a so-called environmental assessment to suss out the potential effects of charging drivers heading into Manhattan below 61st Street, officially known as Central Business District Tolling.
The agency told The New York Times that the review of the toll’s potential effects on residents in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut would take about 16 months.
Lieutenant Governor/soon-to-be Governor Kathy Hochul told the paper that, while she supported congestion pricing in the past, she needed to “evaluate further given the constantly changing impact of COVID-19 on commuters.”
What's really going on is that many suburban voters and many outer borough voters, two groups that Hochul needs in 2022, strongly object to Congestion Pricing.
There goes Big Bird again.......
Twisting the knife into the backs of every New Yorker.
November seems so far away.....please step down already...
Thank goodness Kathy Hochul is willing to evaluate the impact.
We taxpayers are in a moribund state and quickly bleeding out.
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