MTA Chairman Janno Lieber didn't create congestion pricing or even decide to implement it, but with Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams running scared from the new tolls, he's been making the case to the public all by his lonesome.
Lieber brought his one-man media tour to MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday — the same day the New York Post plastered him on its cover as the face of the mayor's inability to conquer the perception of subway crime — to respond to potty-mouthed Republican Rep. Mike Lawler's call for an "enema" of "the worst-run authority in America."
The transit boss in turn knocked Lawler for practicing "grievance politics" while failing to use his position in the Republican House majority to juice New York's transit coffers.
"This is grievance politics, not substance politics," Lieber said. "I went to that guy and said, 'Can you help us? You’re in the majority, sir. Can you help us get more money out of Congress?' New York is 45 percent of the mass transit riders in the United States. We get 17 percent of the federal money. I said, 'Congressman, you’re in the majority. Can you help us?' Never heard from him again.”
Republican leaders in Congress "have done nothing" for the MTA, Lieber added, comparing them unfavorably to pro-transit New York Republicans of the past. He likened Lawler's stance to "a congressman from Florida not doing anything to get hurricane relief or a congressman from Iowa not doing anything for corn."
A mere 1 percent of Lawler's upstate constituents drive into the Manhattan congestion relief zone to get to work, Lieber said. And those drivers are on average far wealthier than their transit-using neighbors. Lieber called Lawler's criticisms of the MTA's spending "an outdated cartoon."
"This is an agency that is actually 3 percent lower budget than it was pre-Covid. Very few other government agencies can show that record of getting more efficient," Lieber said. "I wish we had the old New York GOP that went to Washington and worked for New Yorkers that they actually represented."
Pushed by host Willie Geist on why the MTA's $20-billion annual budget isn't enough to meet the transit authority's needs, Lieber offered a dose of reality: The MTA is expensive to run and maintain, but they investment pays off.
"I grew up in a New York where the subways broke down every 5,000 miles and now they break down every 200,000 miles," he said. "We have made enormous strides in terms of the reliability and the operation of the system."
Lawler is mulling a run for governor in 2026, and this week launched "congestionpricingsucks.com" through his Congressional campaign to rally opposition to the toll.
But Lieber told Morning Joe's hosts he thinks New Yorkers will come to accept the new tolls once they see the benefits.
"You’ve got to calm the traffic, you’ve got to have better flowing traffic and we’ve got to make the investments in mass transit. I think that’s what’s going to make people feel that this was in the end a good investment," he said.
"Like many things, it’s hard to do good policy sometimes when you’re surrounded by grievance politics. We’re going to get through.”
It's not the first time Rep. Lawler has prescribed a rectal cure for the bloated MTA. In May, called also called out congestion pricing as a “money grab," adding, “The MTA is the worst foreign authority in the country, it needs an absolute enema."
