After threatening cuts, MTA now has faith Gov. Hochul will fill $15B congestion pricing hole

MTA leaders said on Monday that they will take New York Gov. Kathy Hochul “at her word” when she promised to restore the $15 billion she cut from the transit agency’s construction budget through her last-minute pause of congestion pricing last month.

The comments came just a month after MTA officials said they’d have to shelve $16.5 billion worth of projects — including the extension of the Second Avenue subway and purchase of hundreds of new train cars — that were to be financed by the Manhattan tolling program. During the agency’s June board meeting, MTA leaders hinted they may formally nix those projects from the agency’s 2020-2024 construction plan.

But on Monday, Jamie Torres-Springer, the agency's president of construction and development, said his team would move ahead as if funding for the work was still available.

“The assumption is that the projects funded by congestion pricing are moving forward,” Torres-Springer said at an MTA committee meeting. “As the governor has said, and we take her at her word, the $15 billion will be restored.”

The remarks were the latest turn in a back-and-forth between Hochul and the MTA since the governor announced an “indefinite pause” of congestion pricing on June 5. At the time, Hochul vowed to work with state lawmakers to fill the hole left in the agency’s budget, but the state Legislature left Albany days later without reaching a deal. The governor also asserted her move was “a temporary pause" on June 30.

Now, instead of formalizing draconian cuts to crucial transit projects, MTA leaders are assuring the public that Hochul will come through with the money, either by unpausing congestion pricing or reaching a new funding deal with lawmakers in next year’s state budget.

"I think that they are being cautiously optimistic,” said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. “I think that they've been given assurances by the governor, but we were all given assurances that congestion pricing was gonna start on June 30.”

“I applaud their optimism,” she added. “I do not share it."

John Lindsay, a spokesperson for Hochul, said in a statement that the governor was “committed to funding the MTA” and “working with partners in government on funding mechanisms while congestion pricing is paused.” He did not lay out what those funding mechanisms might entail.

During the MTA committee meeting, agency officials pointed out that inflation would only increase the cost of the projects that were mothballed due to Hochul’s order halting the tolling program.

MTA board member Marc Herbst said it was crucial for the agency to find a way to fund the projects as soon as possible.

“We don’t know how long the pause will be,” he said. “We’re not going to have a clear picture, until probably after April, of what the funding stream will be to fill this program.”

While uncertainty surrounds the MTA’s current construction plan, the agency is currently at work on a new five-year program to upgrade its transit infrastructure. MTA leaders said they would release that plan in September, but did not identify how it would be funded.