New York City teachers union, Staten Island sue to halt congestion pricing

A new federal lawsuit to stop the MTA’s congestion pricing plan alleges the toll would shift traffic patterns and lead to increased pollution in communities already struggling with health issues.

The lawsuit, filed by the United Federation of Teachers Local 2 and Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella in Eastern District Court in Brooklyn alleges “the program would have particular adverse impacts on communities with environmental justice concerns, communities that have some of the highest preexisting pollution and chronic disease burdens.”

At a news conference Thursday morning outside Staten Island Borough Hall, UFT president Michael Mulgrew said, “All it does is move the pollution from midtown and downtown Manhattan to some of our most challenged areas.”

MTA spokesman John McCarthy said Thursday the environmental review process involved four years of consultation with government agencies, public outreach and review of tens of thousands of public comments.

“If we really want to combat ever-worsening clogged streets 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,” he said in a statement.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Central Business District Tolling Program, approved by the federal government last summer, would charge most vehicles $15 for driving below 60th Street in Manhattan. Congestion pricing supporters say the measure would ease traffic, reduce accidents and improve air quality. The plan aims to generate $1 billion annually in toll revenue that would go to transit infrastructure improvements.

According to the suit, people who live near the Staten Island Expressway and Cross Bronx Expressway would suffer from more air pollution as a result of more cars.

Pollutants, including volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxides, particulate matter and carbon dioxide equivalents, are expected to rise in the Bronx, Staten Island and Bergen and Nassau counties for as long as two decades, the lawsuit claims. 

The plaintiffs, including several Staten Island residents, are asking for a “permanent injunction vacating and setting aside” the plan and a further environmental review to be conducted.

Fossella said that for Staten Island residents, the plan will divert traffic onto the borough making the air quality and congestion worse, while costing people tens of millions of dollars.

“Why on earth would we support this?” Fossella said, adding that 83% of Staten Islanders own cars, in part, due to a lack of mass transit options.

The MTA hopes to implement the plan as early as May, but has acknowledged that litigation — including a pair of suits already filed by the State of New Jersey and the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, could delay it.

Congestion Pricing Now, a coalition of plan supporters, in a statement expressed “disappointment at the latest misguided lawsuit seeking to halt the implementation of congestion pricing,” and said it hoped to see the lawsuit dismissed “and instead see this critical program implemented swiftly.”

Responding to the teachers union's opposition to the plan, Danny Pearlstein, of the Riders Alliance — a transit commuter advocacy group — noted that “every school day, hundreds of thousands of children, parents, faculty members and Department of Education staff depend on subways and buses” that will receive new funding because of congestion pricing.