‘Traffic Deniers’
The MTA chairman’s mockery of his critics is galling. He wants residents across the Tri-State area to cover the budget gap that he and the MTA lack the ability to handle on their own.
The chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the unelected quasi-government that rules over New York transit and bridges, has heard enough from critics opposed to his plan to impose up to $23 in tolls on drivers into lower Manhattan. He even compared them to backers of President Trump’s claims of voter fraud. “We have,” he said at a board meeting Wednesday, “climate deniers, election deniers,” and “we now have traffic deniers.”
“In New York, we’re not in denial,” the chairman, Janno Lieber, concludes. Putting aside Mr. Lieber’s arrogance — the prerogative of officials appointed to posts beyond the reach of the ballot box — his comments are an attempt to distract from the real intention of congestion pricing: to extract $1 billion a year from drivers. “Gridlock is killing our economy,” he says. “It’s bad for the air.” He adds “People are being hit by cars and trucks in record numbers.”
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