Tri-State Economies to Lose Billions From Congestion Pricing Pause

Companies in the tri-state region surrounding New York City will lose about $12 billion in MTA contracts and 100,000 jobs due to Governor Hochul’s suspension of New York City’s congestion pricing program, a new analysis reveals.

As Gersh Kuntzman points out in an article for Streetsblog NYC, roughly $12 billion in capital investments that would have been funded through congestion pricing revenue was set to pay for contracts with private-sector companies throughout the region. “Those companies have done well, and provided thousands of well-paying jobs, in the prior decade of MTA capital expenditures, and would likely have tapped into the 2020-24 capital plan that was partly funded by congestion pricing, but is now being slashed.”

Paradoxically, “Many of the biggest recipients of MTA contracts over the past decades are in districts represented by avowed congestion pricing opponents.” A senior policy advisor for Reinvent Albany, the group that conducted the analysis, “was surprised that so many lawmakers object to a plan to fund MTA capital improvements that end up benefitting so many of their constituents and local businesses.”