BREAKING: Mayor de Blasio Endorses Congestion Pricing as Part of Cuomo MTA Takeover

Mayor de Blasio is finally on board with Governor Cuomo’s push for congestion pricing — and he’s teaming up with the governor to boost what the two are pegging as a total reform of the MTA.

“This crisis runs deeper than ever before, and it’s now clear there is no way to address it without congestion pricing and other dedicated revenue streams. The time to act is now,” de Blasio said in a statement, sent minutes after he and Cuomo released a 10-point plan (below) to fund and fix the city’s broken transit system.

The funding plan outlined by Cuomo and de Blasio on Tuesday morning would set up congestion pricing by 2020, and supplement the $15 billion that would raise with a “new internet sales tax derived from sales in New York City,” something Brooklyn Assembly Member Bobby Carroll proposed earlier this month. The MTA faces major financial upheaval right now, in terms of both its $18-billion operating budget and its $40-billion-plus capital needs.

Tolls for driver entering Manhattan below 61th Street will vary by time of day, in part to encourage off-peak commercial deliveries, according to today’s announcement. It would also exempt the FDR Drive. Cuomo and de Blasio also outlined what they described as “limited” exemptions for emergency vehicles and select drivers.

Other highlights include using a tax on legal marijuana to fund transit and more emphasis on fare enforcement. (Opponents of the so-called pot tax, such as Council Member Rafael Espinal, have said revenue from the sale of recreational weed should benefit communities that have been most adversely affected by decades of marijuana prosecutions.)

In endorsing congestion pricing, de Blasio signed onto Cuomo’s plans for MTA governance reform, which include the creation of multiple new panels whose powers would supplant those of the MTA board.

The proposed reforms would also limit MTA subdivisions to their day-to-day operational responsibilities, sidelining New York City Transit President Andy Byford from the implementation of his own “Fast Forward” plan, according to John Kaehny of the government watchdog group Reinvent Albany.

“The job of president of New York City Transit is going to be vastly diminished [under this plan]. They will be in charge of operational planning and scheduling and maintenance,” Kaehny said. “That means they’re taking Fast Forward away from Byford and putting it in MTA headquarters.”

A united front from the governor and mayor gives congestion pricing an important boost as it faces negative headwinds from state legislators, who have shown an unwillingness to come up with their own governance and funding solutions. Many outer-borough and suburban legislators refuse to fully endorse congestion pricing, passing the buck to Cuomo to come up with a plan. Such opponents often claim that congestion pricing is a tax on outer-borough drivers, ignoring evidence that very few of their constituents regularly drive into the central business district — and that those who do tend to be wealthier than their transit-using neighbors.

At a happy hour panel hosted by Tri-State Transportation Campaign Monday night in Manhattan, freshman State Senator Alexandra Biaggi said a failure to pass congestion pricing would be a “failure for the entire city and state.”

“What is the alternative? Do we just hit a button and turn off all the trains and stop the buses?” Biaggi said. “It’s a total negligence of power if we don’t actually do something.”

The 10 points are actually 11 (we broke out one so it wouldn’t get lost, and edited slightly for length and clarity):