Congestion tolls planned for Manhattan below 60th Street are not slated to happen until the end of next year — and transit advocates worry that the delay will impact desperately needed MTA upgrades.

Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature approved the tolling plan in 2019, with the goal of funding the $55 billion MTA modernization program that is supposed to result in more reliable and frequent trains, in addition to dozens of new elevators and thousands of new electric buses to the region.

Initially scheduled to launch in 2021, the program has stalled thanks to bureaucratic delays at the federal level — most recently, an in-depth environmental review expected to take 16 months or longer. Transit watchers are growing increasingly concerned.

“Congestion pricing is the single largest source of funding in the MTA’s capital program,” said Riders Alliance spokesman Danny Pearlstein.

“Without it, they won’t be able to upgrade as many signals or install as many elevators.”

Yet Gov. Kathy Hochul, who inherited the toll plan from her predecessor, has not appeared eager to launch new fees in an election year, despite traffic having returned to pre-COVID levels.

Hochul insisted during Tuesday’s Democratic gubernatorial primary debate that she “supports” the plan, but that “now is not the right time” for it to launch.

“We’ve been in negotiation with the federal government, who have a say on the next step and they have now put some hurdles in the way we have to overcome,” Hochul said — a reference to the 400-plus questions US DOT has told the MTA to answer about the plan.

“This is not going to happen in the next year under any circumstances.”

MTA officials have said they don’t need the money from the tolls immediately. On Wednesday, the authority issued a statement that it was “fully committed to congestion pricing.”

“We have been vocal about the importance of this program,” MTA spokesman John McCarthy said in a statement.

Andrew Rein of the Citizens Budget Commission said that the MTA should be able to fund construction through this year and next, but delays beyond that create real risks.

“At some point, in the next few years, the lack of congestion pricing money will threaten the ability of the MTA to do the capital repairs it needs: We need stations, we need signals, we need rolling stock,” Rein said.

“Ultimately, they need that money to fix the subways.”