Congestion pricing plan is back. Here’s what it means for public health.
Healthbeat New York
by: Eliza Fawcett
The MTA has pledged to fund mitigation measures in the Bronx, earmarking $20 million for an asthma center and case management program and $15 million to replace diesel-powered trucks at the Hunts Point Produce Market. Officials stressed that those and other mitigation measures would remain fully funded under the new plan.
“They need it,” Hochul said of areas like the Bronx. “This is a community that needs the assistance, and I’m proud to deliver it.”
Arif Ullah, executive director of South Bronx Unite, an environmental justice nonprofit, said his organization supports congestion pricing in principle — but not at the cost of further polluting the South Bronx, which has among the highest childhood asthma rates in the country.
“We welcome all pollution mitigation measures for the South Bronx and for any pollution-burdened community, but they should not be dangled in front of us as a bargaining chip for adding more pollution to the area,” he said. It’s not clear how the revised congestion pricing plan might alter the MTA’s projections about traffic flows into the Bronx, Ullah acknowledged. But any local increase in pollution due to congestion pricing would be “unacceptable,” he said.
South Bronx Unite began monitoring local air quality a few years ago through dozens of sensors, and Ullah said the organization plans to collect data on the potential impacts of congestion pricing if it is enacted.
