Tag: halting

The Trump administration is considering a move to halt New York City’s congestion pricing program, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The Department of Transportation is discussing whether to withdraw a key federal authorization that the tolling plan received from the Biden administration last year. Such a move would almost certainly touch off a legal battle between the state and federal governments, and could effectively kill congestion pricing in its infancy.

No final decision has been made but President Trump had vowed to halt congestion pricing once he entered office, saying it was harmful to the city’s economy. The program’s opponents have urged Mr. Trump to re-examine it, with Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey calling it “a disaster for working- and middle-class New Jersey commuters and residents” in a letter to Mr. Trump last week.

The tolling program started on Jan. 5 after surviving a number of lawsuits seeking to block it and a last-minute suspension by Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York in June.

Ms. Hochul and Mr. Trump have spoken twice this week including on Thursday morning. They discussed a range of issues including congestion pricing, according to a person familiar with the matter, with the governor conveying to Mr. Trump that the program was showing signs of success.

President Trump told Ms. Hochul, the person said, that there would be no immediate action and that before any decisions were made they should touch base again next week.

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There is little precedent for the reversal of a transportation project of this magnitude, transit experts said. New York’s congestion pricing plan, an idea that first took shape in the state more than six decades ago, is the first such program in the country. Legal experts said that the federal government’s maneuver could flout the law and would undoubtedly face resistance in the courts.

“It is questionable whether the administration can unilaterally halt congestion pricing,” said Michael Gerrard, a Columbia Law School professor who supports the program. “The legal authority for that is not at all apparent.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates congestion pricing, declined to comment on the latest potential threat to the program, but pointed to recent comments it had made about the plan’s resilience.

“We’ve been sued in every federal court and state court east of the Mississippi, and we’re batting 1.000,” Janno Lieber, the chair and chief executive of the M.T.A., said in an interview this month. “We’ve won every time.”

A spokesman for Ms. Hochul pointed to her past statements talking up the merits of the program and why it was important to help improve New York’s transit system.

Other cities that have implemented congestion pricing programs, including London, Stockholm and Singapore, have used the tolls to cut traffic and vehicle emissions, push people to use other modes of transportation and raise money. The tolls are typically unpopular at the onset before gradually winning over more public support. In New York, more than half of voters across the state were opposed to congestion pricing in a Siena College survey released in December.

The plan, which state lawmakers approved in 2019, charges most vehicles a $9 fee to enter Manhattan below 60th Street, home to some of the most traffic-choked roads in the world. The program cleared its final bureaucratic hurdle in November when the Federal Highway Administration granted New York the approval it needed to toll drivers.

The M.T. A. had spent half a billion dollars on infrastructure for toll collection during the run-up to the program’s implementation.

Congestion pricing seeks to reduce the number of vehicles entering the newly tolled zone, which contains famed landmarks like the Empire State Building, Times Square and Wall Street. The tolls aim to help the M.T.A. raise $15 billion in financing for repairs and upgrades to the city’s decrepit subway system, which still depends on equipment that in some cases predates World War II. The funding is also earmarked for improvements to the authority’s bus fleet and two commuter train lines.