Village-Chelsea Rally With Governor Hochul

No Mr. Trump – Congestion Pricing Won’t End

By Arthur Schwartz

Back on February 19, Donald Trump, with a picture of himself as King (no kidding) announced that he was giving NY State 30 days to end Congestion Pricing — or else. The official news came from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who wrote to Governor Hochul that the Congestion Pricing agreement from the Federal DOT back in November, was unlawful, and was being cancelled. If NYC continued, it could lose its highway and road repair funding.

The MTA immediately went to court to have that pronouncement declared unlawful. A number of citizen groups joined them, including the Center for the Independence of the Disabled, NY, which won a case requiring installation of elevators at subway stations.

The MTA and Governor Hochul (who went to Washington twice to meet with Trump) weren’t backing down. On March 20, Secretary Duffy, after scolding New York for its lack of respect for the President, announced a 30 day extension. On March 21, Hochul rode a bus across 14th Street and held a rally at the little park on the north side of 14th Street and 9th Avenue. An amazing part of the rally was that the organizers and attendees were the same groups that had sued Hochul when she “paused” Congestion Pricing back in June. (Trump has a way of making strange bedfellows.)

The governor didn’t attack Trump, but she hailed the program. “Since congestion pricing took effect over two months ago, traffic is down and business is up – and that’s the kind of progress we’re going to keep delivering for New Yorkers,” she said. “Every day, more New Yorkers are seeing and hearing the benefits for our commutes, quality of life and economy – and we’re not going back.”

Can Trump Stop Congestion Pricing?
As with many of his other early Term 2 actions, Trump has challenged those he attacks to sue him. He didn’t send in the National Guard to take down the cameras vital to the program, but he threatened to stop funding for highways, roads and mass transit capital projects. Even if illegal, the loss of funding for months while litigation proceeds causes serious setbacks (which is why Hochul got sued over her pauses that caused delays in accessibility projects).

The agreement that Duffy revoked was a contract. It was approved after a three year Environmental Impact Study, the thoroughness of which was upheld over four different court challenges.

Because some of Manhattan’s streets receive federal subsidies, the MTA needed federal approval to launch the tolls. And in order to get that approval, the MTA spent more than five years working to be admitted to the Federal Highway Administration’s “Value Pricing Pilot Program,” which allows state governments to charge tolls on federally-subsidized roads as a way to ease traffic congestion. In his February 19 letter, Duffy asserts that congestion pricing doesn’t qualify because it’s a “cordon program” that imposes tolls on much of Manhattan rather than a single highway or bridge crossing. He also argued it “appears driven primarily by the need to raise revenue” for the MTA, not to ease congestion.”

In its lawsuit the MTA argued it’s the only party that can “unilaterally decide to discontinue the [congestion pricing] program” under the rules of the federal pilot program. “In short, FHWA’s decision to purportedly terminate the VPPP Agreement is in open disregard of a host of federal statutes and regulations, not to mention the MTA and TBTA’s rights under the United States Constitution,” the lawsuit adds.

Eric Goldstein, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which supports congestion pricing, called Duffy’s arguments ‘dubious.’“ The courts impose a very high burden when the federal government seeks to reverse course and completely do a 180 turnaround simply because administrations have changed,” Goldstein has written. “They’ve got to prove that their rationale is legally justified, and it’s hard to see how they can make that case.”

Jack Lester, an attorney who helped lead a now-dismissed federal lawsuit in Manhattan that aimed to stop the tolls, argued the federal government nonetheless holds sway over congestion pricing and has the legal authority to nix the tolls.

“This is the definition of arbitrary and capricious — not to mention hypocrisy,” the MTA argued in its lawsuit. (The same was said by litigants when Hochul issued her “pause.”)

Come on, MTA, it’s King Trump. What do you want? A rationale?