Trump Kills New York’s Flawed Congestion Pricing Program
It’s gone again.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration withdrew federal authorization for New York’s short-lived congestion pricing program that tolls drivers entering a cordon covering lower Manhattan.
In a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that New York’s congestion-priced cordon did not qualify for an exemption to the general federal prohibition on tolling interstates because it did not provide drivers a toll-free option and because its primary purpose was funding transit, not reducing congestion.
“New York State’s congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners,” Duffy told the New York Post, which first reported on his letter.
President Donald Trump gloated about the policy’s demise on Truth Social.
The latest post by the President of the United States. pic.twitter.com/1DTqNiYJ7D
— Yashar Ali ???? (@yashar) February 19, 2025
In her own statement, Hochul—who had issued her own shock suspension of congestion pricing in June 2024, only to revive the program shortly after the November 2024 elections—promised to sue over the cancellation.
MTA, the state agency that runs New York City’s subways and would receive the congestion toll revenue, has already sued the Trump administration.
Governor Kathy Hochul responds to President Trump’s king post.
“Public transit is the lifeblood of New York City and critical to our economic future – as a New Yorker, like President Trump, knows very well.
Since this first-in-the-nation program took effect last month,… https://t.co/Eijk5ZXi24
— Yashar Ali ???? (@yashar) February 19, 2025
Thus continues the long, troubled, clownish saga of congestion pricing implementation in New York City.
The “cordon pricing program” was first authorized by the New York Legislature back in 2019, with the twin goals of raising money for New York City–area rail transit and reducing traffic in the badly congested areas of lower Manhattan.
The initial plan was to begin charging drivers tolls in 2021, but the program’s implantation was delayed by numerous practical and political hurdles.
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