SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Congestion Pricing

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

A Suffolk County lawyer, Jack Lester, is the lead attorney in a major lawsuit challenging the congestion pricing plan for Manhattan that was to take effect on June 30th—until, on June 5^th, New York Governor Kathy Hochul suddenly directed the MTA “to indefinitely pause the program.” 

Last week, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander also announced a lawsuit to overturn the governor’s action. He said at a pro-plan rally that Hochul “took a disastrously wrong turn, so we’re here today to steer our shared future back on track.” 

But even if the Hochul order is overturned, the congestion pricing plan cannot be subject to simply a “pause,” says Lester. For decades, he has been prominent in New York City in practicing what he has termed “community law.” 

As an extensive profile of him in The New York Times began: “When 2,000 new windows started imploding in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village last fall, the residents notified the super. Then they got really serious and called in Jack L. Lester. Mr. Lester is a lawyer, not a glazier, but he does do window cases—and just about any other local issue that stirs neighborhood passions…He is perhaps the busiest lawyer in what he calls the field of community law. Aggrieved residents turn to him as a legal Mr. Fixit.”

Lester closed his Manhattan office several years ago and now practices from his office in East Hampton, where he lives. As to getting involved as lead attorney in a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, he said folks from the city requested his aid—a frequent event.

A main fault in the congestion pricing plan, Lester says, is that it would charge a fee for drivers who enter Manhattan south of 60^th Street—$15 for those operating a car, $24 for a small truck, $36 for a large truck—without regard to whether they are wealthy or just making it. “It would be a regressive tax,” he says. 

Also, the statement by Hochul in halting the plan—that it would devastate the economy—underlines why, says Lester, as his 57-page legal brief notes, by federal law the plan requires a full Environmental Impact Statement and under the New York State Administrative Procedure Act an “assessment on the impact on small businesses and job retention.” The claim has been there’d be “no significant impact. The governor’s statement throws that askew.” The reviews would “take years,” says Lester, and thus “this plan will never see the light of day.”

There are 49 plaintiffs in his lawsuit including seven members of the New York City Council,  State Assemblyman Michael Novakhov of Brooklyn, and what are described as “grassroots community-based organizations.”

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, a Republican, calls Hochul’s move “great news for hardworking Suffolk County families who must travel to Manhattan to make a living. With inflation making it harder every day for families to make ends meet, levying yet another tax on the backs of the working class is not the answer.”

It has been reported that a factor in what Hochul, a Democrat, did involves partisan politics, an effort to avoid displeasure of voters in areas adjacent to New York City including Suffolk County this year. Said an article in the publication The Economist: “Democrats, including Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House of Representatives, are worried about the congressional races in November on Long Island and in Westchester County, where voters are not happy about the pricing scheme. Republicans won key seats in those suburbs in 2022. Democrats do not want roadblocks in New York that could tip control of the House.”

Meanwhile, a huge amount of money has been spent already on the plan. Michael Killeman in a column in The New York Times wrote: “Without any Plan B, the governor sticks New York taxpayers with a roughly half-billion dollar tab for camera gantries and other equipment already installed to monitor vehicles entering Manhattan below 60^th Street.” 

 “It’s devastating news for transit riders and the environment,” says Kate Slevin of the Regional Plan Association about Hochul’s action. “The economy really relies on traffic moving.”

The congestion pricing plan for Manhattan would be the first in the United States. Singapore was the first to introduce congestion pricing in 1975 and since then cities including London, Stockholm and Milan have instituted such plans. 

The editorial board of The New York Times has been outraged by the Hochul move. In a June 8^th editorial, the board stated: “Nineteen days ago, Gov. Kathy Hochul…stood before an audience of world economic leaders and promised to transform mobility in New York City with a first-in-the-nation congestion-pricing system. The concept, she said, had stalled for 60 years because leaders feared a backlash from drivers set in their ways. But, she said, ‘if we’re serious about making cities more livable, we must get over that.’ It was a strong and forthright defense of an imaginative policy that would charge most drivers $15 for entering Manhattan’s densely crowded core. On Wednesday, Ms. Hochul abruptly disposed of her steadfast promise with a surprise announcement: She no longer believed congestion pricing was the right idea for the moment….because she had become concerned it would hamper Manhattan’s economic recovery from the pandemic. It was a flimsy excuse for a grievous misjudgment. In one stroke, Ms. Hochul had endangered a vital public policy that would have had huge benefits for New York’s environment and quality of life…”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.