The fate of congestion pricing is still unknown, but the governor has hinted she could implement it at a different price point or exempt certain groups, like municipal employees.

“Removing the municipal workforce from the congestion pricing fee would result in a 14% increase in the tolls for everyone else,” Kate Slevin, executive director of the Regional Plan Association (RPA), said. “And that’s about a $140 million revenue loss.”

What You Need To Know

  • The Regional Plan Association and Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA put out a report that says the MTA could lose $140 million a year if municipal workers were exempted, forcing the MTA to raise the congestion toll to near $17.50 

  • The president of the city’s largest municipal labor union says his employees are being scapegoated for congestion, adding some workers average less than $50,000 a year in salary and cannot afford the toll, but some must drive

  • If the governor were to implement a revised plan, it would need a federal reevaluation which could take over two months and put congestion pricing in jeopardy

That $140 million loss would mean a $17.50 toll for everyone else to make up the difference, according to a new report from the RPA and the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC). There are other impacts too, like an estimated 49,000 more vehicles a day in the central business district.

“Three-quarters of municipal workers take transit to work,” Lisa Daglian, executive director of the PCAC, said. “So the one-quarter of municipal workers that would be benefiting from this end up costing their colleagues and every other New Yorker in terms of transit benefits, air-quality improvements, and traffic congestion.”

But the leader of the largest municipal labor union doesn’t agree, in a statement DC37 President Gary Garrido said in part: “This report unfairly targets public workers as the scapegoat for congestion. They are tethered to residency requirements, do not all live within neighborhoods that have access to public transit, work mandatory overtime, and many earn $18 per hour to carry out the services we all rely on every day.”

The president of the PBA argues congestion pricing will “only drive more talented cops away from the job. The NYPD is already at its lowest staffing level in 34 years,” Patrick Hendry said.

MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber, however, says it is about what the Traffic Mobility Review Board already addressed: fairness.

“We got 130 separate requests for special rifle-shot narrow exemptions,” Lieber said. “Parents with children who were in school and were on sports teams, we had farmers asking for exemptions and so on and so on. Very hard to say one group you’re fine, but 120 other groups are not.”

But if the governor made any changes, the plan would need a reevaluation from the feds. The last one was done when the $15 toll was set and took over two months, which could go past inauguration day. If Donald Trump wins, he has said he’d kill congestion pricing altogether.