'This Is Not Fair, This Is Not Right': NAACP, Staten Island Churches Join Movement To Oppose Congestion Pricing

Borough President Vito Fossella, United Federation Of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, and a bipartisan group of elected officials welcomed the Staten Island branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and church pastors in the movement to oppose congestion pricing.

The congestion pricing plan, if implemented, will shift hazardous air pollution away from majority white, high-income Manhattan neighborhoods to Staten Island’s predominantly lower-income, minority residential neighborhoods, stretching from St. George to Mariners Harbor, which already suffer from poor air quality, high asthma, and asthma-related hospitalization rates.

“It’s unconscionable that the MTA would knowingly and deliberately further pollute lower-income minority districts here as part of its plan to remove air pollution from Manhattan,” said Borough President Fossella during a press conference in Borough Hall. “Simply stated, if the MTA’s congestion pricing program is implemented, more Staten Islanders will get sick and more Staten Islanders will die from the increases and resulting hazards of air pollution. And, most of those deaths will occur from the residents of Staten Island’s most diverse and lower income neighborhoods."

Jasmine Robinson, the acting president of the Staten Island branch of the NAACP, called the congestion pricing plan an “undue burden” on the North Shore.

“When you talk about people that live in these communities, this is not fair, this is not right, this is an injustice to those that are hardworking,” she said. “This is an undue burden to the people of our communities, to the black and brown communities, to the working class. We deserve better and we deserve more.”

​Bishop Victor Brown, pastor of Mount Sinai United Christian Church in Tompkinsville, said he was “grateful to see a bipartisan coalition” gathered in opposition to congestion pricing.

“It exacerbates the reality that Staten Island per capita leads the city in incidences of cancer and so this plan can only make that reality worse,” said Bishop Brown. “So, members of good intent in this community have no other choice, but to stand in opposition. It’s not morally right so it is imperative that we all put aside our political differences and come to understand that when it comes to incidences of cancer or other illnesses -- illness does not know party, it does not know race and this is something that stands to affect all of us so it is imperative that we continue to join forces and keep the pressure on and to let the MTA know that this plan is wrong for Staten Island.”