An Open Letter from the MTA: In Defense of Congestion Pricing

A public service announcement that congestion pricing has been enacted on the New York City subway. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Editor’s Note: This letter was received in response to an article that the Columbia Political Review published discussing the alleged inefficacy of New York City’s congestion pricing program. After additional correspondence in the wake of the Trump administration’s efforts to end the program, the MTA offered an additional statement ahead of its first press conference addressing the matter.

Arguments against congestion pricing, like the ones outlined in the October 2 Columbia Political Review piece, “New York City’s Congestion Pricing Is Not Its Saving Grace”, are tired and inaccurate.

 The author would have readers believe that most people living outside Manhattan are drivers, when we know that 90% of all commuters into the Central Business District rely on mass transit. To suggest that the small minority (roughly 5,000 people) with cars are somehow worse off, when they pay more for their cars and for daily parking on top of that, is plainly incorrect.

 Additionally, for every working New Yorker in poverty who would pay the congestion charge – at a discounted rate under MTA’s proposed tolling program – another 50 would benefit through the mandated investment of revenues in transit upgrades, according to the Community Service Society.

Bottom line: congestion pricing is a generational opportunity to make it easier for people to get around, and get to, the Central Business District by reducing traffic and air pollution, improving street safety, and funding better transit for millions of New Yorkers, and we stand ready to implement it as soon as we get the green light from the State.  

An Additional Statement Regarding Efforts to End Congestion Pricing

Today, the MTA filed papers in federal court to ensure that the highly successful program – which has already dramatically reduced congestion, bringing reduced traffic and faster travel times, while increasing speeds for buses and emergency vehicles – will continue notwithstanding this baseless effort to snatch those benefits away from the millions of mass transit users, pedestrians and, especially, the drivers who come to the Manhattan Central Business District. It’s mystifying that after four years and 4,000 pages of federally-supervised environmental review – and barely three months after giving final approval to the Congestion Relief Program – USDOT would seek to totally reverse course.

Aaron Donovan (GSAPP ‘04) is the Deputy Communications Director for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.