MTA Board kills congestion pricing

 

Crain's New York

 The MTA’s board voted Wednesday to indefinitely pause the implementation of congestion pricing tolls, formalizing an eleventh-hour postponement announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this month and officially blowing a $15 billion hole in the authority’s capital budget.

In a 10-to-1 vote, the board at its monthly meeting advanced a resolution that hits the brakes on a long-awaited toll program that would have charged most motorists $15 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street to reduce traffic and raise funds to improve the region’s mass transit. The vote firmly shut the door on the MTA’s board possibly attempting to advance congestion pricing against Hochul’s wishes.

MTA board member David Mack, who voted against the tolling program in March, was the sole vote that sought to block the resolution, instead preferring a permanent halt on the program.

“The fact is the MTA, it’s just a reality, cannot start implementing congestion pricing without the New York State DOT sign off,” said a dour Janno Lieber, the board chair and chief executive of the MTA during the vote. “Others may litigate that very issue, if so, so be it, but we are right now where we are.” 

As a result, MTA officials said Wednesday that without a replacement to anticipated toll revenue the authority must defer $16.5 billion worth of construction projects to modernize the region’s aging transit system, including a high-profile extension of the Second Avenue subway to Harlem, signal upgrades and new train cars, among many others. Stop-work orders have already gone out to some projects, sending the region’s contractors into a panic.

Tim Mulligan, the MTA’s deputy chief development officer, said the authority will have to prioritize essential maintenance and upgrades to keep the system functioning and defer less critical, but long sought, accessibility, expansion and modernization work.

“Our guiding principles for the last 21 days, as we've been going through this process, has been to maintain the safe and functional operation of the system,” said Mulligan as he detailed likely changes to the MTA’s capital program.

“There are things that make the system better for our customers and for operation,” Mulligan added, “but they aren't directly related to maintaining existing service in all cases, and so more deferrals [will happen] to projects that are from those categories."

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

de Blasio abolishes the BQX

Queens Post

The future of the $2.7 billion streetcar connecting western Queens to the Brooklyn waterfront will be up to the next mayor of New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday.

The coronavirus pandemic and fiscal constraints have significantly delayed the timeline of the project, dubbed the Brooklyn Queens Connector or BQX.

The city had just begun the environmental review process for the 11-mile streetcar project in 
February but the pandemic brought the process to a screeching halt. It was scheduled to begin scoping and public hearings in May and June, but has been delayed indefinitely.
Yesterday, de Blasio said the next administration will decide the fate of the project, as his term ends in 2021.

“We’re going to continue to do the work to prepare,” he said at a press briefing. “The decisions will have to be made by-and-large in the next administration given the time that’s been lost here.”
The project also comes at a time when New York City faces a multi-billion-dollar budget hole due to economic fallout from the pandemic.

At the end of April, de Blasio said he was unsure whether the city had the funds to cover its share of the costs — given the budget crisis. He said that “substantial federal funding” was needed to make the project a reality.

Critics of the BQX argue that the project is not worth the multi-billion dollar cost. Many transit advocates say the money would be better spent on improving MTA buses and bus lanes, which cost much less.

 

Cy Vance puts justice in quarantine

THE CITY

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. is blaming the coronavirus pandemic to justify dropping charges in a major construction fraud case tainted by allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, THE CITY has learned.

In what appears to be the first instance of COVID-19 knocking out a high-profile criminal prosecution in New York City, Vance revealed in court papers filed Monday that he won’t put a key bribery case back before a grand jury.

That’s because the actions of sitting grand juries have been suspended and no new panels have been convened since mid March when the coronavirus forced the shutdown of much of the state’s court system.

The case dropped by Vance involved one of several defendants in a wide-ranging construction bribery prosecution that’s now the subject of an internal review. At issue are accusations that the lead prosecutor in the case, Diana Florence, withheld evidence undermining her star witness.

 One of those defendants was Henry Chlupsa, a former executive of an engineering firm charged with bribing the witness, a city bureaucrat, for inside information to win multi-million-dollar contracts.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber convicted Chlupsa in November following a three-week non-jury trial. Weeks later, Chlupsa’s attorney, Nelson Boxer, learned that the DA’s office had failed to turn over thousands of internal emails and interviews with the informant in which he claimed he never took bribes from anyone.

In January, Nelson asked Farber to vacate the conviction and dismiss the indictment.

 

In a court filing Monday, Assistant District Attorney Kenneth Moore Jr. agreed the conviction should be vacated, conceding the DA’s office hadn’t handed over the disputed material as it should have.

Moore insisted, though, the criminal charges against Chlupsa were still viable. But because of the COVID-19 restrictions on grand juries, the DA decided not to bring a new case against the now 77-year-old Chlupsa, Moore said.

“In an effort to conserve resources, especially in light of the coronavirus pandemic, and for the other reasons described below, the People will not be seeking to re-present new charges against the defendant to a new grand jury,” Moore wrote.

“In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, no new grand juries will be convened for the foreseeable future,” he noted.