Gottheimer submits legal request for MTA Congestion Tax revenue calculations

NEW JERSEY — U.S. Congressman Josh Gottheimer Thursday announced he had filed an official Freedom of Information Law or FOIL request to the MTA to provide any emails and documents containing the data, calculations, and discussions that went into their Congestion Tax revenue projections.

The MTA has 30 days left to comply and respond.

This follows the MTA becoming incredibly defensive and refusing to make their calculations public after Gottheimer released an evidenced-based report on the Congestion Tax.

This Congressional report found the MTA will raise $3.4 billion a year from the Congestion Tax — $2.4 billion more than the New York State Legislature requires them to generate. Gottheimer originally asked the MTA to confirm their calculations 78 days ago.

After years of mismanagement, receiving more than $17 billion in taxpayer dollars from the federal government since 2020 alone, and wasting billions more, the MTA should simply provide the data needed to back up their claims and share their calculations on their projected Congestion Tax revenue. If the Congestion Tax does make more than $3.4 billion, mathematically, the MTA could exempt all New Jersey crossings from the Congestion Tax and still raise its target $1 billion.

TAXPAYER DOLLARS WASTED BY THE MTA: 

• $3 billion a year just to service the MTA’s enormous debt.
• $1 billion to expand the Second Avenue subway stations twice as large as experts say is needed.
• $700 million a year lost to fare skippers.
• $200 million unnecessarily on the Long Island Rail Road expansion.
• $30 million on unnecessary Times Square staircases.
• $5 million on workers to look for fires at Brooklyn bus depot because the sprinklers don’t work.
• $700,000 on subway gates designed to keep out fare-beaters which can be defeated by a simple hack.
• And more.

“I’m sorry, but I refuse to let Janno Lieber’s MTA, which is clearly the worst run mass transit agency in the country, attempt to push the blame away from themselves and get away with highway robbery. Everything at the MTA is a black box. So, the real question is, despite requests from me 78 days ago, reporters, and everyone and their brother – why hasn’t the MTA come clean and produced all of the calculations for their revenue projections? Gottheimer said. “Last month, my Office submitted an official Freedom of Information Law or FOIL request to the MTA to provide any emails and documents containing the data, calculations, and discussions that went into their Congestion Tax projections.  Will it raise one billion dollars as it is legally required to under New York state law – or more like my evidence-based report shows?”

“This wasn’t the path we wanted to take, but the MTA has left us with no choice. The public in New York and New Jersey deserves to know. Right now, all the MTA and New York’s Congestion Tax is doing is shifting the blame from those who are truly at fault — themselves,” Gottheimer said. 

Gottheimer was joined by New Jersey State Senator Gordon Johnson and Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich.