Spectrum News 1 reports, New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ 5) is making good on his threat to try restricting the flow of federal dollars to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) if it implements the Central Business District Tolling Plan. Together with Michael Lawler, a freshman Republican representative from New York, he has proposed a bill that would block the award of new transit capital investment grants to MTA projects until the agency exempts “all New Jersey and New York crossings into Manhattan” from liability for congestion tolls. The bill would also create a federal tax credit for commuters equal to any such tolls they are required to pay. The legislation is given little chance of passage, but its unveiling reignited a debate over the MTA program, which Gottheimer and others claim is in jeopardy. In response to the bill’s introduction, both New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) and MTA spokesman John McCarthy stated the congestion pricing plan is alive and moving toward implementation.
