New York lawmakers chide governor for congestion pricing freeze: It ‘muddies political accountability’

MANHATTAN (CN) — Four New York lawmakers claimed Wednesday that Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to indefinitely pause the Manhattan Transit Authority’s congestion pricing program contradicts precedent and “muddies political accountability.”

State Senator Julia Salazar, former Assemblyman Richard Gottfried and current Assemblymen Phil Steck and Andrew Hevesi submitted a 24-page amicus brief to the New York Supreme Court where they voiced support for one of the two ongoing state lawsuits against Hochul’s congestion pricing freeze.

“Giving governors an unwritten power to ‘indefinitely pause’ the MTA’s decisions creates confusion over who has ultimate political responsibility for imposing tolls on bridges and tunnels,” the lawmakers wrote. “Governors seeking to escape blame for such fees can defer to the MTA, citing its statutory authority; governors seeking credit for blocking fees could invoke some extra-statutory ‘pausing’ power.”

Either way, they continued, Hochul’s move leaves New Yorkers “in the dark about who to blame or credit.”

Under the congestion pricing plan, passenger vehicles were to be charged $15 when entering Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours on weekdays. The toll, touted for years by Hochul and her allies as a “transformative” solution to traffic and pollution, was slated to bring $1 billion per year to the MTA to fund upgrades to the system’s aging infrastructure.

But just weeks before the program was set to kick off in June, Hochul pulled the plug, announcing via pre-recorded video that the toll “risks too many unintended consequences for New Yorkers at this time.”

She instructed the MTA to indefinitely pause the program. The following month, city advocacy group City Club of New York sued Hochul claiming she had no right to do so.

The four lawmakers behind Wednesday’s filing agree. They pointed to Hochul’s predecessor Andrew Cuomo, who they said “recognized that the governor lacked any direct power to implement congestion fees.”

“Governor Cuomo repeatedly reiterated that he did not control the MTA,” the officials wrote, adding that it is ultimately the MTA board’s decision to implement such a toll, not the state executive’s.

“The governor doesn’t get two bites at an apple,” Danny Pearlstein, policy director at transit advocacy group Riders Alliance, told Courthouse News Wednesday. “The governor signs laws as they are presented from the Legislature, and that includes the budget.”

Since Cuomo signed the state’s budget in 2019, which mandated the creation of the congestion pricing toll, Pearlstein says Hochul should not legally have the chance to stop the law now.

“It’s hard to imagine a situation with limited government, with checks and balances, with a separation of powers, where a governor could unilaterally pause laws,” he said. “At its most extreme, could she pause a penal law to permit herself to commit a crime?”

His concerns echoed those of Rachel Fauss, a policy adviser at good government group Reinvent Albany, who told Courthouse News in July that Hochul can’t change the law unilaterally. “When she directed the MTA to indefinitely pause congestion pricing, that was her doing something that we think was, on its face, just illegal on its own,” Rauss said at the time.

Hochul’s decision was a controversial one. The state has already spent several hundred million dollars developing infrastructure to enact the toll, and her reversal on the program has left a billion-dollar hole in the MTA’s capital plan. 

All the while, the governor is simultaneously battling lawsuits from the other side of the debate: those who want her to drop congestion pricing altogether. 

Hochul appears to be angling towards some sort of a compromise, though. Earlier this week, Hochul said she hopes to announce a replacement plan “by the end of the year, early next year as we get the Legislature on board.” Details remain sparse, however.

Representatives for Hochul did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Follow @Uebey

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit