The Department of Transportation on Wednesday rescinded a key approval for New York City’s congestion pricing plan, setting the stage for a legal fight over the state-run program.
“New York State’s congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a release announcing the planned termination of congestion pricing. “Every American should be able to access New York City regardless of their economic means.”
The federal government’s rollback of its approval for the tolls will land in the courts, with the Metropolitan Transit Authority filing a lawsuit in federal court in an attempt to keep congestion pricing running.
“It’s mystifying that after four years and 4,000 pages of federally-supervised environmental review … USDOT would seek to totally reverse course,” MTA chair Janno Leiber said in a statement about MTA’s lawsuit.
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Trump heralded his administration’s move on Truth Social, posting, “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul responded soon after. “We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king,” she said in a statement. “We’ll see you in court.”
The federal government’s rollback of its approval for the tolls will likely land in the courts. Legal experts have questioned President Donald Trump’s authority to unilaterally cancel congestion pricing.
The Transportation Department’s rescission of the approval comes after multiple Republican lawmakers from New York and New Jersey — joined by some Democrats from New Jersey — implored Trump to end the program and introduced legislation to withhold grants from the MTA for carrying it out. Some of those lawmakers quickly applauded the federal government’s steps on Wednesday.
In a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday, Duffy said congestion pricing exceeds the authority that Congress allows for tolling vehicles on highways.
Duffy’s letter to Hochul also lambasted the program as a way to raise funds for the MTA rather than reduce traffic congestion.
New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler said in a post on X after the announcement that the transportation department’s reasoning for ending the program is “utterly baseless and frankly, laughable”
“I firmly believe that there is no legal basis for the President to unilaterally halt this program,” Nadler said. “Mr. President, we’ll see you in court.”
Democratic lawmakers from New York City told NOTUS last month that they were in favor of congestion pricing as a way to finance improvements to the MTA’s crumbling and outdated infrastructure.
Congestion pricing has been successful in reducing traffic so far, according to the MTA, cutting commute times for drivers in Manhattan by 10% to 30% on average.
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Shifra Dayak is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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