The MTA is showing off the tangible fruits of congestion pricing, buying 265 electric buses for southeast Queens.

“This is the first project unlocked by congestion pricing,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said.

What You Need To Know

  • The MTA is already purchasing 265 electric buses with the money unlocked by congestion pricing and touting early numbers showing a reduction in traffic thanks to the toll

  • Transit advocates say they would have liked to hear the mayor talk about street safety, bus lanes and bus speeds in his State of the City address

  • Officials in southeast Queens say the mayor should have made sure there were more bus lanes so commuters could shorten their trips from transit deserts

Bidding is out for signal modernization on the A and C lines in Brooklyn and phase two of the Second Avenue Subway, which will bring the Q train to 125th Street. And the MTA is touting some early traffic reductions in the first week of the congestion toll, though prefacing it’s still too early to judge.

“Crossings at TBTA, the MTA crossings, are down,” Lieber said. “And the East River crossings that New York City DOT operates are down as well. We’re having consistent reports that A.M. peak travel into the CBD (Central Business District) is much faster.”

Mayor Eric Adams, though, made no mention of the tolling plan or anything related to transportation above ground in his State of the City address Thursday. The omission surprised transit advocates and some officials.

“Being able to walk safely to the park with your kids without having to be worried about speeding drivers or intersections that feel scary to cross — it’s a big part of raising kids in the city of New York,” Ben Furnas, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said. “And if Mayor Adams wants to be the greatest city in the world for raising a family, he has to fix the streets.”

Others were upset the mayor, who declared himself the bus mayor, mentioned nothing about buses.

“Transportation makes New York livable for families,” Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director for Riders Alliance, said. “The mayor has yet to deliver on his core promise to speed up our buses. He has nowhere near met his commitment to 150 miles of bus lanes and busways in four years.”

Council Transportation Chair Selvena Brooks-Powers says Mayor Adams is forgetting areas like hers in southeast Queens that are bus-dependent and have some of the longest commutes.

“I would have loved to have heard greater emphasis on the need to prioritize bus lanes,” Brooks-Powers said. “And we knew congestion pricing was imminent. Now it’s here, and the city is in a position where we haven’t done enough to have more or sufficient bus lanes to speed up the buses.”

Brooks-Powers says she did appreciate the mayor’s commitment to making the subway safer. As for bus lanes, she is sponsoring legislation to make the DOT report more frequently on its progress creating them.