Governor: U.S. wants revisions to New York congestion pricing plan
By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Governor Kathy Hochul stated on Thursday the Biden administration is in search of adjustments in a long-planned congestion pricing plan for New York Metropolis that might additional delay implementation of a system designed to scale back visitors in Manhattan and supply funding to enhance mass transit.
In March 2021, the U.S. Transportation Division’s Federal Freeway Administration (FHWA) stated the plan to make use of tolls to handle visitors in central Manhattan would face an expedited environmental overview, after the Trump administration didn’t act on it.
“We submitted our plans on time to Washington in February, and by March, the federal authorities got here again with over 400 questions and areas they need us to make changes,” the New York governor stated Thursday. “It is in all probability not going to occur proper now as a result of we can’t get the mandatory approvals from the federal authorities.”
New York needs to cost a day by day variable toll for autos getting into or remaining throughout the “Central Enterprise District,” an space stretching from sixtieth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan all the way down to Battery Park, Manhattan’s southern tip.
The FHWA’s deputy administrator, Stephanie Pollack, informed reporters Thursday the company was working to resolve questions.
“We gave our feedback to them months in the past. We just about have gotten a path ahead or a decision on virtually each single one among them,” Pollack stated, saying the company will work “to get this completed by no matter time it is essential” to the state, metropolis and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which operates New York Metropolis’s subway system and buses, in addition to its two commuter rail traces.
The plan was first authorised by state lawmakers in April 2019 and initially mission to begin in January 2021.
“We want extra folks taking the subways, the trains, mass transit into town, and we’d like extra folks leaving their vehicles residence,” Hochul stated Thursday. “I’m dedicated to getting it completed.”
The MTA would obtain 80% of the congestion charges after prices of working this system for use to enhance town’s subways and buses, with 10% every going to the Lengthy Island Rail Street and Metro-North Railroad commuter prepare traces.
In line with the MTA, the system would assist pace visitors flows and scale back air pollution, along with elevating cash for mass transit.
New York would develop into the primary main U.S. metropolis to comply with London, which started levying a congestion cost on autos driving into town middle in 2003.
Officers have stated the estimated $1 billion in annual tolls would help $15 billion in new debt financing over 4 years to help mass transit.
Hochul stated at a gubernatorial debate Tuesday that the federal authorities put “hurdles in the best way” and “that is going to occur over the subsequent 12 months below any circumstances, however now is just not the suitable time.”
The U.S. Transportation deputy secretary, Polly Trottenberg, stated Thursday the division was working with New York: “We’re very dedicated to serving to them get by means of the method.”
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Enhancing by Leslie Adler)
