The MTA is already trumpeting the success of its controversial congestion pricing plan, which it says has sliced travel times and cut the number of cars on the road — although data about revenue and air quality is still forthcoming.
Juliette Michaelson, the agency’s deputy chief of policy and external relations, said at the MTA board’s Wednesday meeting that three weeks of data show fewer drivers crossing the congestion zone’s 60th Street border.
Travel times are improving as a result, with more commuters funneling onto buses and subways or shifting driving times to miss peak toll hours, Michaelson said.
On an average January weekday, about 583,000 vehicles enter the congestion zone — but this month, that fell to 490,000, she said.
“I’m very happy to say what we studied, what we expected and what we planned for is what seems to be happening,” she said, adding the rollout has been “very smooth.”
“We’re spreading traffic away from the busiest period,” she continued. “That’s what we wanted to do, and that’s what the toll is doing.”
Michaelson said trip times across the eight bridges and tunnels leading to the Manhattan congestion zone have fallen by an average of 10% to 30%.
But the agency said it’s planning to release revenue data next week — and give the public a clearer idea of how much cash the MTA will reap from the $9 toll on anyone driving below Central Park during peak hours.
And congestion pricing’s effect on air quality has yet to be measured, with Michaelson saying the agency will need “months of data to make any kind of categorical conclusion.”
“It will be a little while before we know the impact,” she said.
The agency is still fighting toll evaders who cruise through the camera banks with so-called “ghost plates” that hide their identity from collectors, officials said.
“The covered plates are just something [where] we’re losing out [on] big dollars, so we must look at a continual enforcement, just like we’re doing in the subway,” board member David Mack said.
MTA CEO and Chairman Janno Lieber said he agreed with Mack, but the agency collects 96% of its tolls and, in the end, it’s Albany’s problem to solve.
“We need changes in the law,” Lieber said. “Right now, people get bills in the mail, they don’t pay them. If they are New York registrants, we can take their registration away. But what happens if our friends in New Jersey don’t pay their tolls?
“We can’t always deregister cars registered in New Jersey,” he said. “So that’s No. 1: How are we dealing with out-of-state deadbeats?”
There’s still the looming possibility that President Trump will try to end congestion price.
But Lieber believes the Queens native understands the Big Apple’s traffic issue better than most.
“I do believe that Donald Trump, as a New Yorker who lived on 59th Street and spent plenty of time trying to work his way downtown to his buildings in Lower Manhattan or Midtown in a car, understands the damage and the cost of traffic in New York.
“I know there are politicians in his party who feel strongly about it,” he continued. “We’ll see how things shake out in the administration.”
