Editor’s note: MTA leadership has a WTF moment over congestion pricing delay

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s sudden decision to indefinitely delay congestion pricing had to deliver a sucker punch to Metropolitan Transportation Authority CEO Janno Lieber. Lieber was unsurprisingly mum after the abrupt pause of the tolling program that was to begin on June 30. Lieber, congestion pricing’s biggest cheerleader, was visibly confident the governor had his back on rolling out the program, appearing together frequently in support of the plan. That surely ended when Hochul’s decision left Lieber holding the bag for the billions the MTA needs to complete its slate of capital projects. 

Lieber getting overruled is a concern moving forward. “He's got a choice of listening to the governor and trying to make his case or resigning,” said Robert Paaswell, transportation expert and distinguished professor of civil engineering at the City College of New York. “I think that's where it's at, and that would be too bad for the MTA if he did.” Hochul’s decision also undermined the authority of the MTA Board, which was blindsided by her announcement of the delay. The Board, which under state law must act in the transit system’s best fiscal interest, must now decide whether to approve a pause that would leave the MTA without funding for already budgeted capital spending. Hochul proposed using an IOU out of the general fund and later having the MTA bond for the $15 billion congestion pricing was expected to bring in. That solution may work, but the rushed decision-making has already done its damage by weakening leadership over a centuries-old transit system, and there’s nothing to say that it won't happen again.