NYC teachers and Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella are suing to stop the MTA’s congestion pricing plan, saying it will punish teachers, firefighters and other city workers who commute to Manhattan.
The lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn Federal Court on Thursday by the United Federation of Teachers, alleges that federal regulators signed off on the MTA’s plan to toll cars entering Midtown and lower Manhattan too soon.
“Teachers, firefighters, police officers, EMS workers, sanitation workers and other public sector workers who are essential to the fabric of New York City would be forced to shoulder the burden of the MTA’s latest fundraising gambit,” read the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs, mostly Staten Island residents who travel to their jobs at schools in Manhattan by car, raised concerns about longer commute times on public transit, financial burdens that would force them to transfer schools, and air quality in the borough.
“Simply moving pollution is not the right way to treat this city,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew, a Staten Island resident, at a press conference at Staten Island Borough Hall.
Congestion pricing would charge drivers $15 for entering the Manhattan central business district between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m., spanning the hours many teachers commute to and from school. Court documents show 11,515 UFT members reside on Staten Island.
“Staten Island has been denied adequate mass transit options,” said Fossella. “That is why so many Staten Island residents must use their car to get to work.”
“Make no mistake, these workers will be intentionally punished under the proposed scheme,” he said.
The lawsuit challenges challenges the Federal Highway Administration’s 4,000-page environmental assessment — and instead demands a “full and proper” environmental impact statement on the congestion pricing plan.
Under federal rules, an impact statement is required when the USDOT finds reason to believe a project will “significantly affect the quality of the human environment” — but regulators issued a ruling in June that the congestion pricing plan would have “no significant [environmental] impact.”
MTA officials defended their environmental assessment as thorough, involving four years of consultation with government agencies and the public, and “painstaking detail” about the impact on traffic, air quality and environmental justice.
“If we really want to combat ever-worsening clogged streets,” said John McCarthy, MTA chief of policy and external relations, “we must adequately fund a public transit system that will bring safer and less congested streets, cleaner air, and better transit for the vast majority of students and teachers who take mass transit to school.”
The congestion fee comes on top of the long-standing costs of parking and other tolls on bridges and tunnels. A partial credit would be available on some crossings but does not extend to the Verrazzano Bridge.
MTA officials, as well as members of the state board charged with developing the pricing plan, have thus far rejected calls for exemptions for city workers and other professionals, saying any such exemptions would raise the toll for other motorists.
New York law requires the program to raise $1 billion per year towards the MTA’s capital projects budget.
The congestion pricing plan currently has no exemption for school buses, but MTA officials have indicated a willingness to revisit that element.
The final details of the congestion pricing plan are currently subject to a state-mandated public review process, with hearings scheduled for the end of February. Officials say they plan to start tolling in late May or early June.
Thursday’s lawsuit follows New Jersey bringing similar, twin legal challenges based on the environmental review. Those actions were filed in federal court in New Jersey.
The UFT is also suing the city to undo recent budget slashes and prevent further cuts from going through.
This story has been updated.
