By Michael V. Cusenza
Earlier this month, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced her stunning decision to press pause on the Congestion Pricing Program. In March, the MTA Board approved Central Business District toll rates by a vote of 11 to 1. Under the plan, passenger vehicles and small commercial vehicles – sedans, SUVs, pick-up trucks, and small vans – paying with a valid E-ZPass will be charged $15 during the day and $3.75 at night, when there is less congestion, to enter the congestion relief zone in Manhattan below 60th Street. They will be charged no more than once a day.
Trucks and some buses will be charged a toll of $24 or $36 during the day to enter the congestion relief zone in Manhattan below 60th Street, depending on their size and function, and $6 or $9 at night. The toll for motorcycles will be $7.50 during the day and $1.75 at night. Yellow taxi, green cab and black car passengers will pay a $1.25 toll for every trip to, from, within or through the zone; customers of app-based for-hire vehicles will pay $2.50. As previously proposed, qualifying authorized emergency vehicles and qualifying vehicles carrying people with disabilities will be exempt. As will school buses contracted with the NYC Department of Education, buses providing scheduled commuter services open to the public, commuter vans licensed with the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, and specialized government vehicles.
However, Hochul said it’s just not the right time to roll out such a revolutionary—and expensive—project.
“Circumstances have changed and we must respond to the facts on the ground — not from the rhetoric from five years ago. So, after careful consideration, I have come to the difficult decision that implementing the planned congestion pricing system risks too many unintended consequences for New Yorkers at this time. For that reason, I have directed the MTA to indefinitely pause the program,” Hochul said in Early June.
In a joint statement, MTA Chief Financial Officer Kevin Willens and MTA General Counsel Paige Graves wrote that Hochul’s announcement “regarding the future of Congestion Pricing has serious implications for the MTA’s 2020-2024 Capital Program and likely other aspects of the agency’s financial condition.”
Fear not, fellow borough residents. Hochul’s move will not affect one very important Queens span.
On Monday, Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Howard Beach) confirmed that the 100-percent rebate for E-ZPass customers on the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge that she and State Sen. Joe Addabbo, Jr. (D-Woodhaven) succeeded in enacting earlier this year would continue without interruption.
“I can confirm that our community, and the entire Borough of Queens, are not going to lose this long-deserved toll rebate. The rebate was not contingent on congestion pricing because though intense negotiations, the Senator and I obtained the needed funding to make sure this program continues,” Pheffer Amato said.
Pheffer Amato and Addabbo were responsible for securing the funding for the rebate program. The Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge is the only intrer-county tolled bridge in the State. Pheffer Amato had argued for years that it is an unfair toll, especially for residents of the same county to have to pay a toll. The hard work paid off when in February of 2024 a rebate for all Queens County residents took effect. Under the program, the MTA will automatically reimburse Queens residents with an E-ZPass on trips they make via the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge.
