What happened
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that the Trump administration was rescinding federal approval of New York City’s first-in-the-nation congestion pricing toll program for vehicles entering Lower and Midtown Manhattan. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which manages the new program, quickly filed suit and said it would keep collecting the $9 toll until a court told it otherwise.
Who said what
Duffy said in a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul that congestion pricing was a “slap in the face to working-class Americans” and complained that the tolls supported the city’s robust subway and bus system, not road maintenance. “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD,” President Donald Trump said on social media. “Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”
“We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king,” Hochul shot back in a statement. “We’ll see you in court.” The MTA said in its lawsuit that the program has worked as intended since its Jan. 5 launch, with traffic below 60th Street down 9%, reducing accidents and saving drivers an average of 20 to 30 minutes within the district, while foot traffic increased. Other cities that adopted congestion pricing, like London and Stockholm, have had similar results over the longer term, The New York Times said. “The tolls are typically unpopular at the onset before gradually winning over more public support.”
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“It feels like the commuters of our city and our region are now the roadkill on Donald Trump’s revenge tour against New York,” Hochul said at a news conference. “New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years and we sure as hell are not going to start now.” Whether you “love congestion pricing or hate it,” she said, “this is an attack on our sovereign identity, our independence from Washington.”
What next?
Duffy did not give a time frame for trying to shut down congestion pricing, saying only that federal officials would contact the state to “discuss the orderly cessation of toll operations.” MTA CEO Janno Lieber said tolling would “continue notwithstanding this baseless effort to snatch those benefits away.”
