Major nonprofits and corporations have lobbied city and state officials for months about congestion pricing ahead of a Monday meeting of an MTA panel that will consider tolling structures and exemptions for the landmark program.
State records show that since the summer, the likes of Lyft, Uber, UPS and even Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center spent tens of thousands of dollars on lobbying, making their cases to government officials about how much drivers should pay — and who should get a break from the charges. The efforts are revealed in publicly filed state lobbying disclosures.
The stakes are high. Tolls could cost as much as $23 per entry into Manhattan south of 60th Street – representing a massive new potential expense for many companies. UPS, for example, paid the city more than $20 million in parking fines in 2019.
“The intense lobbying shows that special interests are trying to carve themselves out of the tolls,” said Rachael Fauss, a senior analyst at the good government group Reinvent Albany, which has also spent money lobbying officials to minimize exemptions.
“The more people who don’t pay, the higher the tolls will be for everyone else. It is in the best interest of the driving and riding public that the MTA stay above the fray, and not give outsized attention to well-financed interests,” Fauss said.
On Monday, the MTA’s Traffic Mobility Review Board will review options for the tolls’ costs and carve-outs. The group is expected to make a recommendation on a tolling scheme next month, which must be approved by the full MTA board.
MTA officials received requests for 122 types of exemptions, the agency confirmed.
Last year, the MTA published a set of seven tolling scenarios for the program, which would charge drivers entering the zone anywhere from $5 to $23. By law, the tolling program must generate $1 billion a year for the MTA’s capital program.
Key to each scenario is who must pay the tolls – and how many times they must do so each…
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