TRANSCRIPT: MTA Chair and CEO Lieber Appears Live on NY1’s Mornings on 1 With Pat Kiernan and Jamie Stelter

MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber appeared live on NY1's Mornings on 1 with Pat Kiernan and Jamie Stelter to discuss congestion pricing and other transit-related issues.

A transcript of the interview appears below.

Pat Kiernan: The MTA Board is set to vote today on the revised congestion pricing plan. Governor Hochul unveiled that updated plan last week, reversing the pause of the original plan that was set to be implemented back in June. The original toll would have been set at $15 per day for private vehicles. The updated plan sets that at $9 for private vehicles entering the congestion zone below 60th Street. Box trucks would pay a little over $14 a day. Larger trucks would have to pay $21 each day. There would still be big discounts to try to encourage vehicles to make those trips in the overnight hours instead of in the peak of daytime congestion. At that announcement, we also heard from MTA Chair, Janno Lieber. Here's what he said about what they would do with the money:

Video clip of Janno Lieber: The MTA is ready to do its part, to use the money that we're going to receive from the capital program, congestion pricing efficiently, to build out the improvements that this program will support.

Kiernan: And Janno Lieber is with us in studio now. Thank you for coming in.

Lieber: Pat, Jamie.

Kiernan: Been a busy run for you, but here we go again. Is it going to stick this time?

Lieber: I think it will. You know, the governor obviously wrestled with this for a few months, and I think she's made her decision. The MTA board's gonna vote today. We're gonna pursue, you know, the bureaucratic process with the feds, which we have to go through now because there's a tweak to the original tolling structure, and then we're gonna to get it going on the fifth of January.

Kiernan: So, we've all seen the toll reading equipment. Roughly half a billion dollars was spent on that. We wondered would it ever be put to use? Have you had it turned on? Have you been testing it? Is it ready to go?

Lieber: Yeah, it is ready to go. And what we've been doing is making sure we have, you know, the system relies on taking photographs, so we're making sure that the angles and the clarity of the photography is consistent, so that we can read license plates. Obviously, we're going to continue to make sure that people who are covering their plates, or doing things improperly to hide their plates, hear from all of the forces in New York. But, the system is working well and ready to go.

Kiernan: The whole idea of the deterrent and the tolling plan breaks down if there's not enforcement of license plates.

Lieber: Yeah, and obviously, the legislature stepped up last year and increased the penalties for that kind of behavior. We're gonna go back this year and say we want, you know, in addition to that, we want the right to actually take away these, you know, these coverings and these other devices, when we get them on the spot.

Jamie Stelter: In terms of that $9 amount, are you confident the MTA will get the funding that it needs?

Lieber: Yeah, Jamie, you know, the plan has always been to use that revenue stream to bond out up to $15 billion so that we can invest in new subway cars, commuter rail cars, new signals for better service, a lot of ADA station elevators, all that stuff may take a couple years to get the last couple billion dollars of the 15 with the lower toll, but, thanks to Governor Hochul, you know, endorsing the new MTA capital plan, we're going to have a lot of projects going on. So, it's all going to come out in the wash, and we're really going to be entering an era of much better transit. We're already good. We want to get great.

Kiernan: The press conference on Thursday, the governor was somewhat unclear about the launch date. She said probably January 5th, or January 5th was the target date. Has that been set?

Lieber: I think we've all nailed that down. That's a Saturday night going into a Sunday morning after New Year's going into the first week of the new, true new year. And that's the date that's been selected. We have to do a little bit of public outreach, and so on, under state law, and that's the date that made the most sense.

Kiernan: You're gonna stay with us. We're gonna take a break, and we'll come back with a lot more questions about congestion pricing, and what's been going on at the MTA. We'll be right back with more of Mornings on 1.

Kiernan: Welcome back to Mornings on 1, and we are continuing our conversation with MTA Chair Janno Lieber. As congestion pricing moves closer to implementation, the MTA has put in some programs to help New Yorkers who are in need of financial support, or if they are disabled. The individual disability exemption plan offers toll exemptions for qualifying vehicles that are registered to people with disabilities, or the vehicle registered to their caregiver. And then separately, there's the low-income discount plan that provides a 50% toll discount for eligible drivers earning $50,000 or less or enrolled in assistance programs. Let's talk about how these programs are being administered.

Lieber: Super, super important. Everybody who has a disability needs to get qualified for this full exemption. It's a matter of state law. We want everybody who has a medical disability or another kind of disability to get the exemption.

Kiernan: You can't just have a tag in your windshield?

Lieber: No, it's not that old system, which is subject to abuse, but you need to go through a little bit of a process. Go to the website, MTA.info. It will guide you there and get certified for the exemption, and you will pay nothing.

Kiernan: That's for the disability?

Lieber: The disability. The low-income folks have a discount if you have to come, remember, Pat, you and I both know, the percentage of low income people who drive to the central business district for work is tiny. But for those people, for whatever reason, they ought to also go to the MTA website and go through the process, so they can get that discount as well.

Kiernan: The way that's been set up, the first 10 trips are at full price in a calendar month.

Lieber: So, the idea was that if folks really have to go frequently, they need a discount, the low-income folks. In addition, if you're low income, and you live in the zone, you're entitled to a very significant tax credit. That's a dollar-for-dollar tax credit. So, it's slightly different for low-income folks who live in the zone, but wherever you live, if you're low income, go to the MTA website, and we'll guide you to the right place.

Kiernan: There's been some hand wringing over the way that that low-income discount was set up in that it was tied to a calendar month, which is always a problem; somebody takes 15 trips in April, but then takes 25 in May, and then they only take five in June. They would not get any discount in the month of June. Have you considered a change? Could you make a change?

Lieber: It's a fair question. We will address those kinds of small issues over time. But the main thing is, if you're disabled, if you're low income, get the exemption, get the discount. We want people to benefit from that. But remember, Pat, it's only .6% of all people in the region who actually drive to the central business district for work. Respectfully, I'd say we're kind of overkilling the impact on the broader population. Ninety percent of the people who come to work in the CBD take transit, and they will be huge beneficiaries. Drivers, if they still have to come, are going to get a faster ride, less time wasted in traffic. That's a benefit.

Kiernan: You made a point at the Friday press conference about putting out a series of maps that looked at every county around the New York City area, the Long Island counties, the New Jersey counties, the Westchester Counties. And the point that those maps made and here, here's what you passed out to reporters, there are way more transit riders in each of these jurisdictions than drivers who are coming into Manhattan, but you would not know that from the intensity of the political fight.

Lieber: Yeah. I mean, politics is politics, and people are trying to make their careers on fighting an initiative which is good for everybody. The business community supports this because there's a ton of productivity impact from having all that time wasted in traffic, whether it's actual individual drivers or people trucking materials or whatever. The reality is, it's a tiny percentage of our regional population who's going to be impacted this year. But the politicians talk about it like it's everybody, when the truth is 90% of the people who are traveling to this area come by transit, and they're going to benefit hugely. Better signals, new rail cars, more ADA stations, better service. Good for everybody.

Stelter: Politics is inseparable from this. How worried are you about the incoming Trump administration finding a way to block or reverse it?

Lieber: Listen, I said it before. Obviously, there are a lot of MAGA politicians around Trump, including, unfortunately, maybe even some folks from New York who are pushing against this. I believe that if Donald Trump looked at this, he has office buildings that are filled with people who ride transit 90% of the time, so I think he probably will get it. But one of the reasons we want to move this along is to make sure that the politics of the change in Washington does not become a hindrance to this. So, we're going to get it going, and we're gonna obviously defend the inevitable lawsuits. The one time that the lawsuits have been decided, by a Southern District of New York federal judge, we had an across-the-board decision favoring what the State of New York and the MTA have done. So, we think the other cases will follow that.

Kiernan: There was a protest in Queens yesterday. Some lawmakers got together and said, we are in a neighborhood that is comparatively a transit desert. They were saying it's two buses to a train to get into Manhattan. That's why there is such a preference for taking private cars in from that neighborhood. It has been a valid criticism that there are areas of the city that are better served by transit.

Lieber: Yeah, and listen, we are redesigning the bus system in Queens. No one took this on for 50 years. You have bus routes that are still going to trolley barns that were knocked down when FDR was the president. We are redesigning the bus system just so even in those neighborhoods and relatively smaller areas where there is less connectivity to the rail system, whether subway or commuter rail, that people have more access to fast ways to get to the central business district. So, we're redesigning the bus system. The Long Island Rail Road for people who live in the city is now five bucks most of the day. It used to be much more. We cut the price of that. We're adding bus service in Queens. We're adding express bus service. People who are concerned about using mass transit are going to get better service and more service.

Kiernan: Can we get one question for viewers in the Rockaways?

Stelter: I was just going to say, what about the timing of the Rockaways?

Lieber: Listen, everybody wants this. This is a community that's on a peninsula. It's not connected to the mainland. It's got a couple of bridges, relies tremendously on that ​ train connection. We cannot let it fall apart. We have to do the work. It took a hard hit in the Sandy era, and all of the climate change impacts are real. The bridge which connects, literally, when it opens to let a ship through, frequently, doesn't close. It happened last week. We've got to do the work. So, what are we doing? We're adding express bus service. We're adding direct service. We're making the Rockaway shuttle, which is sort of the ​ train shuttle, that goes the extension of the peninsula, free. And we're giving people a less than subway fare, $2.75, on the Long Island Rail Road.

Kiernan: But that's the other end though, and I think people who are ​ train riders are not going to be Long Island Rail Road riders.

Lieber: Pat, it used to be that you connected to the ​ train sort of the middle of the peninsula. We're going to run that shuttle all the way the length of the peninsula. People will be able to get to the Long Island Rail Road. So, it really is going to be an option for people up and down the peninsula.

Kiernan: Lots to talk about. Good to have you in this morning. Thank you.

Lieber: Good to be with you.

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