Photo Courtesy of Marc Hermann/MTA
MTA Acting Chairman and CEO JannoLieber
By Forum Staff
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, State Department of Transportation, and the City Department of Transportation on Friday announced an agreement to kick off the Environmental Assessment that will jump-start the public outreach process for the proposed Central Business District Tolling Program, or Congestion Pricing.
Under the plan, which was developed with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration, the Environmental Assessment is scheduled to take 16 months and include more than 20 public meetings and outreach to Environmental Justice communities in relevant areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Though the Central Business District Tolling Program Environmental Assessment is unprecedented in its complexity of interlinked variables and covers an extraordinarily broad geographic scope—significantly larger than is typically covered in an Environmental Assessment—the agreed upon 16-month time-frame is actually shorter than those done for many projects with relatively small geographic, population and environmental footprints.
Environmental Assessment and Outreach Unprecedented in Scope
Incorporating and documenting all this public input, the project partners will create an Environmental Assessment document analyzing the impact of Central Business District Tolling on traffic congestion, transit, air quality and numerous other environmental indicators in 28 counties across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. All told, the Study Area contains 22 million people, including 12.3 million residents residing in environmental justice communities, and five Tribal Nations.
Public Outreach
The “robust public outreach” effort required by FHWA will commence in coming weeks with meetings with federal, state and local agencies from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Those meetings will be followed by 10 virtual public meetings that will be held online and start in late September in which individuals and stakeholder groups can learn about the project and comment.
Besides the public meetings, there will be additional briefings for elected officials, community boards, transit and environmental advocates, and other interested parties.
A project website and informational handout will be rolled out in coming days.
Focus on Environmental Justice for Minority and Low-Income Communities
The public outreach will also place heightened attention on Environmental Justice communities in relevant counties in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to study potential positive and adverse impacts the proposed CBDTP could have on minority or low-income populations. In addition to the public outreach meetings, there will be an additional three virtual public meetings in early October with specific outreach to EJ communities in the same 28-county Study Area. An Environmental Justice Technical Group and a separate EJ Stakeholder Working Group will also be created in coming weeks.
The Central Business District Tolling Program was authorized by the State in April 2019 and modeled on urban congestion pricing programs around the world to reduce traffic congestion and raise needed revenue to improve public transportation. Other cities across the world that have similar programs have also experienced improved air quality. If approved by FHWA, the CBDTP would be the first such program in the United States.
“Our recent successfulprojects like the LIRR Main Line Expansion show how the MTA is able do unprecedented levels of public outreach and also deliver projects on schedule at the same time,” said MTA Acting Chairman and CEO JannoLieber.“We intend to do just that again here.”
