Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chair and CEO Janno Lieber made a live morning television appearance on NY1’s Mornings on 1 with Pat Kiernan and Jamie Stelter to discuss the first-in-nation congestion pricing program.
A transcript of the interview appears below.
Pat Kiernan: Governor Hochul said yesterday congestion pricing is moving ahead. She was joined by MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber. The 4,000-page environmental assessment is done. There were public hearings and the federal government has signed off on the congestion pricing plan.
Governor Kathy Hochul: It doesn't have to be this way. That is the good news. This does not have to be our destiny New York and it's not going to be any longer. We have the power to build a healthier, safer New York. But also how exciting is it for us to know that we can be the model for the rest of the nation.
Janno Lieber: It means that we have, as a city, we have a path away from conditions that really threatened our viability.
Pat Kiernan: So how quickly do we follow that path? When will there be a toll for entering Manhattan? MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber is with us in studio. Good morning.
Janno Lieber: Good morning.
Kiernan: Everybody wants all the answers that you don't necessarily have all the answers for.
Lieber: Keep it coming.
Kiernan: Well, so let's start with implementation date. There is equipment that has to be installed at the perimeter of Manhattan. How quickly could that happen?
Lieber: We literally hit the button on a Notice to Proceed for a contractor who designed that whole system and who is ready to build it out. And they start, under our contract with this company TransCore, they have 310 days, about 10 months, to install and make ready the system that will allow us to implement congestion pricing. It's coming next spring.
Kiernan: So, it's just sometime in the last 24 hours that contract has been moving ahead?
Lieber: Yeah, literally once we got the FONSI, this federal approval, finding of no significant impact, we then activated the Notice to Proceed for the contractor.
Jamie Stelter: So the 310 days to be clear, that is the latest possible day when this will be installed?
Lieber: That's the way our system is working. Correct.
Kiernan: We had a report on earlier this morning from 2007 with the Bloomberg attempt at getting congestion pricing in. The projected toll at that time was $8. We have heard numbers as high as $23. Tell me about the process to set that number.
Lieber: Yeah, well, under state law, remember congestion pricing was adopted as the law of the State of New York back in 2019. And what the Legislature did, was they said, we want to create a board which is independent with some experts, who will give the MTA Board advice on what the toll ought to be. And the key element of that process has to go through the, you know, a couple hundred separate requests, separate groups requesting discounts or exemptions, and to determine which ones are ought to be acted on and which ones ought to be set aside, and that in turn drives the toll. Everybody forgets that when you're asking for a discount or exemption for one group and there we totally understand why folks are asking, but it drives up the base toll for everybody else. Because under the law we must collect enough money to generate $15 billion for the MTA capital program.
Kiernan: Also the whole thing doesn't work. If you if half the city has an exemption, then Manhattan is as crowded as it was.
Lieber: You're absolutely right. You don't want to undermine the core purpose, which is to make it easier. I mean, listen, we want to fund transit, but the core purpose here is to make the air quality better, to eliminate traffic violence, fewer people being hit by cars, and also just to make it easier to drive around Manhattan for the companies that actually have to be in Manhattan.
Kiernan: Well, I think that's one of the things I noticed yesterday in the messaging from the Governor is that it wasn't entirely a conversation about MTA funding. It was talking about the environment, it was talking about the toll on the roads.
Stelter: Yes, and what reducing congestion on the roads will mean for everyone and how for everyone moves about the city and you brought that up yesterday.
Lieber: Yeah. And you know, I when I talk to businesses, interestingly, we've been supported by the you know, the big business organizations in this fight and the real estate owners of New York even support it because they know it'll make New York a better place to do business. You know, if construction companies or plumbers or other kinds of companies who have to come to New York or Amazon trucks, part of our economy, they have to make deliveries. It's going to save them time and money if they're not spending hundreds and hundreds of hours stuck in traffic and it'll make our air quality and our life better.
Kiernan: You have tens of thousands of drivers who don't like anything about this plan, will not be convinced at the moment that it's anything but attacks on them. Will they see the light when they see less traffic congestion? Or is this just destined to be a disappointment?
Lieber: Listen, you know, none of us has a perfect crystal ball. All I can tell you is that, you know, we've all been in New York a long time. We remember everybody projected that the restaurant industry and the bar industry was going to drop dead when we instituted prohibition on smoking in bars and restaurants. And it came, it was implemented and bars and restaurants are doing better than ever. So when folks look forward to Armageddon, I say think back to things that we used to think were going to really have a huge negative impact and we just got used to them. Part of this is just adjusting to a new situation. I honestly think that folks are going to live with this very easily because E-ZPass and the whole system makes it invisible. No one's going to stop you in a toll booth. If you have to come to Manhattan, you're going to come, it's going to end up on your E-ZPass bill and you're going to-- people are going to adjust. I think it's going to be positive.
Kiernan: You did touch on this yesterday. There are so many people in New York with out-of-state plates. Fraudulent license plate, license plate covers, somebody's got to get serious about enforcement on that for this to work.
Lieber: Well, somebody is the MTA and if you've been paying attention, I know that over the last year we have really cracked down on folks who are doing toll evasion. People who pile up fifty, a hundred thousand dollars in unpaid tolls using fake plates or those devices to obscure their license plates, so they can't be seen. Because of that our Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the MTA cops have been, have a parking lot full of Mercedes and Bugatti’s of people who did not pay their tolls and who have their cars impounded. We're going to do it. We're going to keep doing it. And it's not just for congestion pricing, it's also out of fairness for our efforts to deal with fare evasion on mass transit, on subways and buses and commuter rail. We're going to make sure that the toll system is not a place where fare evasion takes place as well.
Kiernan: Janno Lieber good to have you in this morning. Thank you.
Lieber: Good to be with you.