Congestion pricing is likely to go into effect by the middle of next year now that the plan has received full federal approval, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said on Tuesday.
The final toll rates and complex array of rules governing the program still must be finalized by the MTA’s Traffic Mobility Review Board (TMRB), but Lieber told reporters following an event with Governor Kathy Hochul in Manhattan — where they celebrated the plan’s approval by the Federal Highway Administration — that it has issued a notice to the contractor hired to build the tolling infrastructure, TransCore, to proceed with implementation on a 10-month timeline.
“The notice to proceed is being issued, because we hit this important milestone, to our contractor, who has fully designed the whole system of cameras and sensors, and the whole back office computer system so that we can process payments,” Lieber told reporters at New York University. “And they have 310 days under the contract to implement that. So that’s why we believe we should be ready to go in about ten months from now, and we fully intend to comply with that schedule.”
