NEW CITY – Governor Kathy Hochul, Tuesday, announced that the Federal Highway Administration has completed the environmental review of the congestion pricing program – Manhattan Central Business District Tolling. And while it is intended to reduce traffic by charging a fee to drive in that area of New York City, it is not sitting well with Rockland County Executive Ed Day.
He said Rockland residents should be exempt from congestion pricing tolls based on the $40 million value gap with the MTA, “or at minimum be credited for the river crossing tolls we already pay to enter Manhattan, including the George Washington Bridge and the Tappan Zee Bridge, with a discounted rate for entering the congesting pricing zone.”
Thousands of Rockland residents commute to the Big Apple for work daily. “Rockland County residents face the highest level of transit inequity in the MTA region including a transit desert that forces more than 60 percent of our residents to drive into the city because they have no other way to get there,” he said.
The business district tolling will force those Rockland residents – which include police, firefighters and others “to pay more simply for using their own vehicle to avoid being stranded by the current inadequate transit system,” Day said.
The exec said the plan proves one thing – “that Rockland County commuters continue to be an afterthought in the congestion pricing conversation with much emphasis placed on improving life in New York City, with little regard for the tax-paying members of the MTA outside the city.”
The governor’s office said if a tolling structure is adopted on a timeline as expected, toll collection could begin as early as May 2024.
