New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says congestion pricing is only way to avoid 30 percent MTA fare hike
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday called on the state Legislature to enact congestion pricing or risk fare hikes of up to 30 percent for bus and subway riders.
Cuomo says congestion pricing is "the best and most logical option" to pay for a much needed MTA overhaul, charging all cars south of 60th Street a new toll of roughly $11.52 per trip, although the exact figure isn't set yet.
The expected billion-dollar annual revenue would go to fix the crippled transit authority.
The governor also ranted about how bad the agency has become, calling it "Frankenstein government" and blaming decades of bad leadership -- although Cuomo has technically run the agency for the past eight years.
"The MTA is the great transit abyss, taking us backwards," he said. "The MTA, everyone takes it, but yet nobody knows what it actually is. It was a government Frankenstein created in the 1960s."
Transit advocates said Cuomo's trash talking helps nothing.
"Not everybody is smiling, that's for sure," said Lisa Daglian, with the MTA Citizens Advisory Committee. "These kind of comments and attacks don't help...The people of the MTA are trying really hard to make a difference."
Cuomo said 25 percent of commuters who would pay the congestion pricing fee are actually from out of state.
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