MTA says crush of congestion pricing lawsuits preventing critical improvement projects
NEW YORK -- There are new developments in the battle over congestion pricing.
As a powerful labor coalition joined a lawsuit to stop the controversial toll program, MTA officials told CBS New York on Tuesday that the multiple suits are putting the brakes on critical improvement projects.
READ MORE: Lawsuits filed in New York state, New Jersey to stop congestion pricing
There are approximately half a dozen suits filed in three separate federal courts. While none of them have been resolved, MTA officials say the litigation is hamstringing them, preventing them from awarding contracts for major projects to upgrade the aging transit system.
"Critical improvements to improve our system, expand our system, make it more accessible, all of those improvements are going to have to be on hold while we await the outcome of this litigation," said Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction and Development.
Torres-Springer rattled off a long list of much-needed system upgrades that have been put on the shelf while multiple suits challenge the MTA's plan to charge drivers $15 to enter the Central Business District below 60th Street in Manhattan.
"Projects like the Second Avenue Subway to East Harlem. It's going to fund re-signaling our system to make it more reliable, including on the A and the C to Far Rockaway, on the B, D, F and M in Manhattan, more than 20 subway stations being made accessible with elevators and step-free access. All of that is really on the line," Torres-Springer said.
He said he can't award contracts for the projects until suits by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella, and others, are settled.
READ MORE: Long Island Republicans urge Gov. Kathy Hochul to pull support for congestion pricing
And in a new development, the 400,000-member Municipal Labor Council, including police, firefighters, EMS responders and sanitation workers, is joining the Staten Island suit, claiming the city employees who work in the congestion zone should not have to pay to get to work.
"That's wrong. That's dead wrong. They should be exempt. That's something that should have been done ... should have been the first thing. Talk about the people that make this city run," said Harry Nespoli, president of the Municipal Labor Council.
Like the other suits, Nespoli wants a new environmental impact study, but added, first and foremost, he's concerned about fairness to city workers.
"We just got a raise. We just got as raise. They're going to take back that raise," Nespoli said.
Meanwhile, lawmakers got a surprising response when they asked Mayor Eric Adams about congestion pricing at an Albany budget hearing. He said if he had more voting power at the MTA, "I think we'd have a different, different version."
Opponents of congestion pricing have a new thing to gripe about. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Albany lawmakers are tapping a little known transit fund to provide free tolls to Bronx and Queens residents.
Bronx residents can get a rebate for taking the Henry Hudson Bridge and Queens residents will get a full discount on the Cross Bay Bridge.