City Comptroller Brad Lander and a coalition of legal experts and potential plaintiffs will explore legal action options to implement congestion pricing “as planned,” Lander announced Wednesday at a news briefing.
The pushback comes a week after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she was directing the MTA to indefinitely pause the first-in-the-nation program.
What You Need To Know
- City Comptroller Brad Lander and a coalition of legal experts and potential plaintiffs will explore legal action options to implement congestion pricing “as planned”
- The pushback comes a week after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she was directing the MTA to indefinitely pause the first-in-the-nation program
- According to a press release, Lander and the coalition are developing lawsuits focused on several statues, including an amendment that grants all New York citizens the right to a clean environment
- Additional announcements will be made by Lander and the coalition following the MTA board vote on June 26
“We are all here because New Yorkers need the benefits of congestion pricing. We need those transit improvements. We need modern signals. We need accessible subways. We need the work to meet our climate goals, reducing emissions and cleaner air,” Lander said at the news briefing. “And we’re here to make it clear that if congestion pricing is not implemented as legally mandated on June 30, we are ready and able to take the state to court.”
According to a press release, Lander and the coalition are developing lawsuits focused on several statues.
One of them, according to the release, is Article 78 of NY Civil Practice Law and Rules, which the release says “provides an avenue to challenge the state’s failure to implement congestion pricing, as required by legislation passed in 2019.”
Other statutes that the release indicates could be violated include the Americans with Disabilities Act; the 2021 Green Amendment, which grants all New York citizens the right to a clean environment as part of the state constitution; and a section of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which requires state agencies to act within greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.
The coalition consisted of MTA board members and bond holders; New Yorkers with disabilities; residents of the central business district, like people with respiratory illnesses who may be impacted negatively by congestion; and businesses negatively impacted by congestion.
“You need to do what you said that you were going to do and you need to fund accessibility, and it’s not that you’re giving us a gift. This is the law. That’s what the Americans with Disabilities Act said,” Sharon McLennon Wier, executive director for the Center for Independence of the Disabled, said.
The toll would have imposed a $15 base fare for cars with E-ZPass tags entering Manhattan south of 60th Street. It was supposed to be implemented on June 30.
There are only $13 billion left in the MTA’s capital plan to do $28 billion in work, according to MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber, who didn’t have much to say about possible lawsuits.
“We’re a professional organization. We deal with the facts on the ground,” Lieber said at a news briefing. “And where we are focused right now is how do we retool, reprioritize, and shrink the capital program to deal with the money that we know we have.”
Meanwhile cases aren’t being filed just yet, though they could be.
“Gov. Hochul has already violated the law. We could sue right away,” Michael Gerrard, professor at Columbia Law School, said. “But we want to see what the other agencies do so that we have our case fully together.”
The legislative session in Albany ended Friday with lawmakers unable to reach a funding agreement with the MTA, which had counted on congestion pricing to generate $1 billion annually to pay for infrastructure improvements. State lawmakers also rejected Hochul’s last-minute proposal to replace congestion pricing with a tax on New York City businesses.
Additional announcements will be made by Lander and the coalition following the MTA board vote on June 26, the release said.
Both Lander and outgoing New York City Transit president Richard Davey will appear Thursday on “Mornings on 1.”
