The congestion pricing policy that will come into effect as soon as this spring has New Yorkers and metro area commuters in a fury.
Now there is some good news for residents of Queens and the Bronx, but not everyone else is happy about it.
New York is expected to become the first city in the nation to implement congestion pricing. The system will charge cars, buses, motorcycles and trucks a rate based on vehicle size and occupancy to drive into Manhattan on or below 60th Street, including Times Square, Chelsea and SoHo.
In an effort to quell the anger that the policy has generated, Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers have tapped a little-known transit fund to give free tolls to Queens and Bronx drivers — a giveaway that critics say is at odds with congestion pricing’s goal of discouraging driving.
Starting Saturday, Bronx residents who sign up for a new program will get an instant rebate on the $3.18 E-ZPass toll to cross the Henry Hudson Bridge. Queens residents will get a full discount on the $2.60 Cross Bay Bridge toll. The fund will also maintain an existing discounted rate of $2.75 for Staten Island residents to cross the Verrazzano Bridge.
New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer, one of the Garden State’s most vocal critics of congestion pricing, said the rebates were a slap in the face to other drivers across the region who will have to pay a $15 daytime toll to enter Manhattan below 60th Street once the MTA launches congestion pricing.
“The irony here is rich, they don’t really care about congestion or pollution,” he said.
The freebie to the drivers of those two boroughs will come by pulling $20.5 million from New York’s “Outer Borough Transportation Account,” which was established by state lawmakers in 2018 with the goal of boosting transit options in city neighborhoods that are far from subway stations, the MTA confirmed. The account is funded by surcharges on taxi and for-hire vehicle trips that enter the busiest parts of Manhattan. This touches on another sore point of the congestion pricing policy, taxi and livery drivers claim that the extra toll expense may put them out of business, but this is money paid into the fund by them in order to extend discounts to residents.
“The outer borough transit fund was supposed to be to help transit improvements in the outer boroughs to allow for more people to take public transportation,” Queens State Senator Leroy Comrie told Gothamist about its inception back in 2019. This discount would instead encourage people to drive into Manhattan.
MTA Chair Janno Lieber said Wednesday that Hochul and state lawmakers should rethink how the fund is used.
“The future revenues of the outer borough transportation account should include investments in making transit more attractive or more affordable,” he said.
Gottheimer said the fund revealed the MTA’s true motive for congestion pricing.
“They’re using this money to help encourage more people to drive into New York City,” he said. “They just want money.”
