Hochul sued over NYC congestion pricing freeze

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) — Governor Kathy Hochul was sued over her pause on New York City’s traffic congestion pricing plan by several advocacy groups that claim she had no legal authority to freeze the program.

In a pair of lawsuits filed Thursday in New York state court, the groups asked that the state be forced to follow through on the plan, slated to be the first in the US and designed to curb air pollution and help finance billions of dollars in transit infrastructure upgrades for the city. They asked the court to declare Hochul’s pause unlawful and to block the state from taking any further action to delay the project.

“This is a case about democracy and executive overreach,” according to one of the groups, the City Club of New York, which describes itself as a Manhattan-based not-for-profit founded in 1892 to promote “effective and honest government.”

“After years of discussion and debate, our state’s democratic processes yielded a plan,” the City Club said in its lawsuit . Hochul’s pause “undermines the balance between the Legislature and the Executive struck by the democratic process and, thus, violates state law,” according to the group, which says it has advocated for congestion pricing for decades.

Abrupt Halt

The congestion pricing program would charge most drivers $15 to enter a district that runs from 60th street to the bottom of Manhattan. It was aimed at raising badly needed funds for a more than 100-year-old transit system while reducing traffic and improving air quality. It is intended to generate $1 billion of annual revenue that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , which runs the city’s transit network, would leverage to raise $15 billion for capital projects.

The MTA was set to start charging drivers on June 30, but New York’s governor abruptly halted the plan on June 5 when she announced an indefinite pause. She said the new toll risked the district’s economic growth and would financially burden people already grappling with high inflation.

“Get in line,” Hochul spokesperson Anthony Hogrebe said in a statement in response to the litigation. “There are now 11 separate congestion pricing lawsuits filed by groups trying to weaponize the judicial system to score political points, but Governor Hochul remains focused on what matters: funding transit, reducing congestion and protecting working New Yorkers.”

A trio of other advocacy groups — the Riders Alliance, the Sierra Club and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance — filed a separate suit against Hochul on Thursday, also in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is spearheading the litigation.

The City Club says in its suit that congestion pricing was the result of decades of efforts by multiple administrations and expert studies and includes “extensive input” from community groups, activists and “everyday New Yorkers.” Under the law, the MTA’s Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, which operates several toll bridges and the Hudson and Lincoln tunnels, is the only agency with the power to freeze the congestion plan on the state’s behalf, the suit says.

‘Money Grab’

The program itself has spurred fierce opposition, both from commuters and from neighboring New Jersey, which called it a “brazen money grab.” The lawsuits come just a little more than a year after New Jersey sued the US Department of Transportation over its approval of the plan, saying it was ill-considered and missed numerous risks to the state’s residents.

New Jersey alleges that the federal government ignored the fact that the new tolls would change commuting patterns, redirecting traffic that would unfairly burden New Jersey crossings not included in the pricing plan. A federal judge is currently weighing whether to send the plan back to the drawing board and could rule at any time.

Hochul, who had always supported the congestion pricing initiative, said her decision to suspend the new toll was to help working-class families and small businesses. Some elected officials from the outer boroughs applauded the governor’s reversal.

And a Siena College poll from April found that 63% of New Yorkers disapproved of the plan, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independent voters.

Comptroller’s Role

At a press conference on the legal battle Thursday, Lander said Hochul had overreached.

“She single-handedly denied millions of subway and bus riders that $15 billion of investment in trains that run on time, in accessible stations, in less congestion, in cleaner air,” he said.

Lander, who helped pull together the advocacy groups and lawyers in the litigation, said the pause puts the MTA’s finances and credit rating at risk and that research underway on the impact of the freeze on subway accessibility and on MTA bondholders could lead to further legal action.

Without the tolling revenue or another funding source, the MTA must defer $16.5 billion of infrastructure improvements, including extending the Second Avenue subway to Harlem. Transit advocates and disability groups say the pause upends the MTA’s plans to modernize the system.

The cases are City Club of New York v. Hochul, and Riders Alliance v. Hochul, New York State Supreme Court (Manhattan).

— With assistance from Laura Nahmias, Katia Porzecanski, and Avalon Pernell

This story originally appeared on Bloomberg.com.