Months before motorists driving into the heart of Manhattan are hit with new tolls aimed at raising revenue for transit upgrades and reducing congestion, state lawmakers want boosts to bus service in hopes of enticing drivers out of their vehicles and onto public transportation.
State Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, a pair of Democrats who represent northwest Queens, on Thursday pushed a $90 million proposal to increase service frequency on the nation’s slowest buses and to triple the number of bus routes that offer fare-free rides from five to 15.
“Congestion pricing is supposed to be a time where we improve the lives of New Yorkers who take transit and we improve public transit to appeal to the New Yorkers who have yet to take it,” Mamdani told THE CITY. “In this moment right now, we are not living up to that promise.”
The lawmakers hope to fund their “Get Congestion Pricing Right” proposal in this year’s state budget, to be hammered out this spring.
The latest piece of the legislators’ plan arrived months before the planned June launch of congestion pricing, the first-in-the-nation plan to put $15 once-daily tolls on drivers going south of 60th Street in Manhattan, while cutting rates during overnight hours.
The Central Business District Tolling Program takes after similar efforts in London and Stockholm to increase bus frequency and make other improvements ahead of their own toll programs.
Ahead of London’s 2003 rollout of congestion pricing, officials boosted bus service into that city’s congestion zone, with new buses and routes part of the equation. Stockholm, whose vehicle-tolling plan launched in 2006, put nearly 200 new buses into service, while adding bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
“One thing we’ve learned from seeing the other cities around the world is, if you want it to work right, if you want to get people out of their cars, you’ve got to give them a viable alternative,” Gianaris said at a Central Park West news conference that was held near E-Z Pass readers and license-plate scanners at a gateway to the congestion zone.
THE CITY reported in September that the congestion pricing plan — which is supposed to raise $15 billion for mass-transit improvements by tolling motorists in the most car-clogged parts of Manhattan — has been criticized for not offering drivers enough incentives to ditch their cars for mass transit.
While the MTA has increased weekday and weekend service on multiple subway lines, critics have said the bus system offers yet-to-be-realized potential for getting some drivers who live outside of Manhattan out of personal vehicles and onto mass transit.
“The congestion pricing plan is missing a full half of the equation,” said Transport Workers Union International President John Samuelsen, who in November resigned from the review board that issued tolling recommendations and accused the MTA of “not meeting the moment” by failing to expand express bus service. “It’s not going to succeed to its full potential unless the proverbial stick is accompanied by the carrot.”
Janno Lieber, MTA chairperson and CEO, showed up at the Thursday news conference to make the case for the city to accelerate its legally mandated rollout of building 30 new miles of bus lanes — a mark the city missed badly in 2023.
“Buses are moving like seven miles an hour in the central business district,” he said. “This is not a viable transportation option for people. They can walk faster in many cases than getting on the buses.”
Lieber also challenged Mayor Eric Adams — who this week told state lawmakers he wants “a different version” of congestion pricing — to get on board with planned bus improvements, citing how he once proclaimed himself the “bus mayor” when pledging to build 150 miles of bus lanes in four years.
“I love ‘bus mayor’ Eric Adams,” Lieber said. “I want him back.”
While state lawmakers and then-Governor Andrew Cuomo signed off on congestion pricing in 2019, its rollout has been repeatedly delayed.
Most recently, the launch of the tolling plan has been slowed by a series of lawsuits that MTA officials say are contributing to delays on $15 billion of planned capital improvements — including subway signal upgrades on multiple lines and the next phase of the Second Avenue Subway.
MTA officials and transit advocates said they are confident that the lawsuits over congestion pricing will be resolved.
“Riders fought for it for years, riders want it, we are past debating the merits of the program,” said Derrick Holmes of Riders Alliance, an advocacy organization. “It is the law, okay?”
But some New Yorkers who drive into Manhattan for work said that not even improvements to bus service from the boroughs would convince them to switch to mass transit.
“I need the car, it’s a requirement of the job, it’s too much gear,” said beer line cleaner and Bronx resident Alan Tavarez, who filled several containers with equipment for his gig after parking in a garage on West 58th Street. “Just imagine having all of this on the bus.”
Nick Diunte, who lives in Middle Village, Queens, said he regularly carries sacks of baseball and bats, first-aid equipment and more to games within the Manhattan congestion zone for his job as a public school coach.
“It’s cumbersome to take this on mass transit and the bus is not exactly a relaxed situation,” Diunte told THE CITY. “I don’t think improvements to the bus would change a lot of peoples’ opinions about congestion pricing.”