NEW YORK (WABC) — The U.S. Department of Transportation has pulled its approval for the MTA’s congestion pricing toll program, but the MTA is vowing to fight back and take the decision to federal court to ensure the plan will continue.
In a release Wednesday, the DOT’s Federal Highway Administration said it sent a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul informing her that the department had rescinded the agreement.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said his agency will work with the state on an “orderly termination of the tolls.”
“Within seconds of us getting this notification, our MTA was prepared, we filed a lawsuit within minutes,” Hochul said. “Very confident we’ll be successful and I also want to say the cameras are staying on. We are keeping the cameras on.”
MTA Chair Janno Lieber echoed Hochul’s stance in a press conference later Wednesday afternoon, highlighting the program’s early success.
“Traffic was down 9% in January, with 1.2 million fewer vehicles entering the central business district,” he said. “Bus speeds are up, crashes are down, and pedestrian traffic in business areas has surged. This is working.”
Lieber also pushed back on claims that congestion pricing would hurt businesses. “Restaurant reservations are up 7%, Broadway grosses are up 25%, and commercial office leasing jumped 61% in January compared to last year,” he said. “People want to be in New York.”
Hochul also hit back at Trump’s social media post that said, “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE King!
“At 1:01 p.m. today, the U.S. Department of Transportation emailed us a letter from Secretary Duffy announcing their attempt to end congestion pricing,” Hochul said. “By 1:58 p.m., former President Donald Trump tweeted, ‘long live the king.’ Well, I’m here to say New York hasn’t labored under a king for over 250 years, and we sure as hell aren’t going to start now.”
“We don’t back down, not now, not ever,” she said.
Columbia’s Michael Gerrard answers the questions many residents and commuters likely have.
Officials have mixed reactions to move to halt congestion pricing
City Comptroller Brad Lander released a statement that congestion pricing had been working, saying “traffic is down, travel times have plummeted 30%, transit ridership has surged, and hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing to improve our subways and buses.”
“We must not let Trump drag us back to crappier subway service, standstill traffic, and smoggier air,” Lander went on to say. “Having been at the forefront of the fight to implement congestion pricing, I am appalled that President Trump and his U.S. Department of Transportation put this in reverse, purely for political purposes.”
The Riders Alliance argued that public transit riders are enjoying faster and more reliable bus service throughout New York and New Jersey.
“We organized for a decade, held two governors accountable, and prevailed in court in three states after years of exhaustive environmental studies. We are committed to maintaining and expanding on our victory and will defend it with everything we have,” Riders Alliance Executive Director Betsy Plum said.
However Borough President Vito Fossella released a statement thanking the Trump administration for terminating the approval:
“It was always a three-strike loser and a nonstarter for Staten Island – more traffic, more air pollution and more tolls. The program was revived unceremoniously, at a politically opportune time for political reasons. To bring an end to the program is the right thing not just for Staten Island but for the City as a whole. The MTA should follow this action by turning off the toll readers and relieving Staten Island residents from this unnecessary and burdensome tax once and for all.”
The toll survived several lawsuits trying to halt it before its launch, including from the state of New Jersey, unionized teachers in New York City, a trucking industry group and local elected leaders in the Hudson River Valley, Long Island and northern New Jersey.
New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer also praised the move to halt the program, calling it a “huge win for Jersey families, their wallets and the environment.”
“From Day One, when we first started this fight, we knew that the Congestion Tax was just a giant cash grab for New York and the MTA – all on the backs of hardworking Jersey families,” he said. “They never cared about how the tax would hurt Jersey families – they just needed the cash to pay for the MTA’s woeful mismanagement.”
(The Associated Press and ABC News contributed to this report.)
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