The MTA has been hit with a third federal lawsuit seeking to overturn congestion pricing, this time led by a group of conservative city lawmakers.
The City Council’s Common Sense Caucus, a bipartisan group of conservative lawmakers, plus Queens Assemblymember David Weprin and a cadre of New Yorkers, mainly from the Lower East Side, filed the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court Thursday, naming the MTA and Federal Highway Administration as defendants.
Like the federal complaints previously filed by New Jersey and the United Federation of Teachers, the Common Sense Caucus argues that the MTA and FHWA conducted a half-baked environmental assessment of the program and should be made to undertake a much longer environmental impact statement.
“The city, the state, and the federal government did not do the proper review to protect the very citizens that were supposed to be protected by the environmental law of this nation,” said Jack Lester, the plaintiffs’ attorney, at a press conference outside City Hall on Thursday. “So that’s why we bring this case as a class action, so that we can resolve those issues that are negatively affecting so many New Yorkers. Emergency workers, police officers, nurses, firefighters, that will be taxed in a way that has not been evaluated.”
The MTA is set to finally implement its congestion pricing program, charging most motorists $15 per day for entering Manhattan south of 60th Street, this spring, aiming to reduce traffic in Manhattan and raise money for the city’s transit infrastructure.
‘It’s time to move forward’
The agency has previously defended its lengthy environmental assessment and is currently in talks to settle the case with New Jersey, but officials have said the lawsuits threaten to forestall the program’s timeline.
“This issue has been exhaustively studied in the 4,000-plus page environmental assessment, and will be re-evaluated for the adopted tolling structure before tolling commences,” said…
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