“Congestion pricing isn’t just surviving, it’s thriving,” noted MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber, after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority won a battle in its quest to make the controversial tolling program permanent. On May 27, Judge Lewis Liman of the Southern District of New York division of the US District Court, blocked the US Department of Transportation from making retaliatory funding cuts against the State of New York as the fate of the program continues its judicial trajectory.
The temporary restraining order, is in effect until June 9, when the next session will determine the ultimate legitimacy of congestion pricing in NYC. So far, the program has enriched MTA coffers by $215.7 million in revenue since program inception in January of this year. Lieber stated that 10 million car trips into NYC had not been made due to the congestion pricing fees.
The following day was the May monthly meeting of the MTA Board of Directors, which was combined with MTA committee meetings, normally split into two separate days. Combined, the two sessions ran seven and a half hours.
While congestion pricing itself was almost tangential, the benefits that it has and will bring were the thrust of the board meeting, which dealt largely with $68.4 Billion 2025-29 MTA Capital Plan, which approved a proposed plan to be resubmitted to the MTA Capital Program Review Board in Albany. With the passage of the Fiscal NY State 2026 Budget, some funding issues for the plan were resolved.
Noted Chair Lieber on the revenue from the tolling to fund the plan; “It is the first capital plan based on a comprehensive review of the condition of this priceless system and the first to truly and unapologetically say we are prioritizing a state of good repair.”
More than 90 percent of the new capital funds will include an order of 2,000 railcars, making an additional 60 stations accessible, modernizing 75 miles of signals, installing modern fare gates at 150 stations, updating customer information screens, enhancing security elements, rebuilding more than 80 power stations, and upgrading train shops and yards. The state of good repair work, supported by the new funding, ensures the region can continue to rely on the metropolitan New York City subways, buses, railroads, bridges, and tunnels for decades to come.
The MTA’s Construction & Development division has started preliminary work on almost half of assigned upcoming projects.
Many topics were discussed at the committee meetings, many to the advantage of hard-working New York commuters;
Cell phone calling, already available on the Times Square-Grand Central Shuttle, will be available in a year to two years on the 4 and 5 trains between Bowling Green and Borough Hall in Brooklyn and the G train in a part of Brooklyn, a $600 million job with no cost by the MTA. This will be in public-private partnership with Boldwyn, who equipped the underground subway lines with Wi-fi.
NYC Transit President Demetrius Chrichlow cited the best subway performance in a generation, with on-time Subway trains approaching 85 percent reliability, and buses with 72.8 percent on schedule.
During the public comment section preceding the committee meeting for MTA operating units, a young woman who identified herself as Daylight Peace made an urgent plea. Insisting that the MTA’s policy on fare evasion was dangerous for those who could not afford the fare, she noted that 26 percent of residents in the city live in poverty, 1 in 4 of the total population. Ms. Peace felt that all the new expenditures were perpetuating a war against poor people in the city.
At a question and answer press session after the conclusion of the Board Meeting, we queried about these concerns to CEO Lieber.
He answered by noting that the MTA’s efforts at making sure that fare evasion was never a crime of poverty and that the organization was a huge advocate of the Fair Fares program, run by NY, going a step further by raising the eligibility threshold ($32,000 nationally for a family of four vs. $47,000 in NYC) to reflect that, and also to increase it further to bring better availability. Only half of those eligible for the program are enrolled, and Lieber cited a further marketing campaign to fill that gap. “Fare evasion is not a victimless crime, and we want everyone to understand that,” he stressed.
The installation of turnstile fins, sleeves, and anti back-cocking, in concert with delayed access fare gates have increased fare revenue, Lieber said.
Under the new capital plan, 150 stations will be equipped with these enhanced fare collection systems.