NYMTA: February CRZ Tolling ‘In Line With Projections’; C&D Department Reports $3B Saved in First Five Years
According to the MTA, $51.9 million was collected from the tolling program, 24% of which comes from taxis and for hire vehicles ($12.3 million), 66% comes from passenger vehicles, 9% from trucks, and 1% from buses and motorcycles. Ninety-five percent of revenue was gathered during peak tolling hours. Expenses from the program, including operating camera infrastructure and customer service, amounted to $9.5 million. Combined with another $2 million for mitigation efforts, expenses totaled $11.5 million. This resulted in a net surplus of $40.4 million.
“Once again, the extensive studies done are proving to be reliable as we close the second month of the program with revenue in line with projections,” said MTA Co-Chief Financial Officer Jai Patel. “The program continues to reduce traffic while generating projected funds for critical transit projects.”
Congestion Relief revenue funds projects in the 2020-2024 Capital Program, including accessible stations upgrades, installing modern signaling on the Fulton line in Brooklyn and Liberty Avenue in Queens on the A and C, new rolling stock, zero-emission buses, extending the Second Avenue Subway into East Harlem, and more.
Monthly reporting on revenue is part of the MTA’s commitment to transparency, the agency noted. Data on the volume of vehicles entering the CRZ and the excluded roadways is also available on the MTA’s data transparency website and can be downloaded on New York State Open Data. The dataset can be viewed by location, time, and type of vehicle down to 10-minute increments.
In related news, MTA Construction & Development (MTA C&D) on March 25 released “Better. Faster. Cheaper.”, the agency’s 2024 Year in Review and 2025 Strategic Plan, which found it has saved $3 billion on capital project delivery in its first five years. The strategic plan, the agency says, “traces C&D’s progress since its founding in 2020 and charts a path forward for an ambitious docket of projects to be completed this year.”
The Strategic Plan arrives as the MTA seeks full funding of its proposed 2025-29 Capital Plan, the largest State of Good Repair investment in the organization’s history. More than 90% of the proposed plan is dedicated to improving and rebuilding the existing system. Its priorities were informed by the most detailed system-wide evaluation the MTA has ever undertaken, the Twenty-Year Needs Assessment.
The savings identified in the report include:
- “Better Contracts: More than $1.1 billion in savings from improved contracting strategies, before a shovel hits the ground on key projects.
- “Better Planning: $750 million in savings from better upfront planning, identifying smarter design and correcting for over-customization.
- “Better Delivery: $750 million saved from efficiencies found in the contract budget versus the actual budget cost, due to rigorous project management during construction.
- “Better Management: $400 million saved in insurance reductions alone.”
These savings, C&D says, have allowed the proposed 2025-2029 capital plan to deliver far more for riders than previous capital plans, while costing 4% less in inflation-adjusted dollars than the current 2020-2024 capital plan.
“Over the past five years, MTA C&D has transformed the way the MTA delivers capital projects for our riders. The result has been the fastest, cheapest, and most effective project delivery in MTA history. And we’re just getting started,” said MTA C&D President Jamie Torres-Springer. “From an exciting slate of projects already on track for 2025, to an ambitious and achievable scope of work in our proposed upcoming capital plan, there’s never been a more exciting time to deliver a better public transit system in New York.”
The C&D Strategic Plan comes as the MTA continues to make progress on the 2025-2029 Capital Plan. At its March Capital Program Committee meeting, the MTA announced the next 13 stations to be made accessible in the plan, including stations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. This will close gaps between accessible stations and provide new elevators, improved stairs, and updated fare payment areas.
The stations proposed for inclusion in the 2025-2029 Capital Plan are:
- Norwood Avenue (B, D)
- 207th Street (1)
- 191st Street (1)
- 157th Street (1)
- 23rd Street (C, E)
- Spring Streer (C, E)
- Avenue N (F)
- Brighton Beach (B, Q)
- Van Siclen Avenue (C)
- Wilson Avenue (L)
- Forest Avenue (M)
- 103rd Street (7)
- 88th Street (A)
MTA C&D awarded $4.6 billion in commitments in 2024 and completed $5.5 billion worth of projects in 2024 “while making enormous strides on reliability, accessibility, resilience, sustainability, and other key priorities,” according to the agency. That includes launching the first new subway cars on the Staten Island Railway in 50 years; making 16 stations fully ADA accessible and awarding contracts for work on five more; completing a flood wall and flood gates at 207th Street Yard to prevent service disruptions in severe weather; purchasing 60 new battery-electric buses; and far more.
The department made a total of $784 million in payments to MWDBE firms in 2024.
“Thanks to congestion relief, MTA C&D has proceeded with procurement on other critical projects, like Communications-based Train Control (CBTC) signal modernization, additional ADA upgrades, dual-mode locomotives for Long Island Rail Road, and other major initiatives,” the agency said.
Looking forward to 2025 and beyond, the strategic plan, C&D says, “looks toward continued improvements in executing the remainder of the 2020-24 capital plan, advancing long-range planning for the future of the public transit system in New York, and growing its in-house capacity to further reduce costs and project timelines going forward.”
