President Donald Trump, Gov. Kathy Hochul discuss congestion pricing's future

Conversations between President Donald Trump and Gov. Kathy Hochul about the future of New York's congestion pricing plan are set to resume next week, according to the governor, who made it clear that the new White House administration is "not supportive" of the tolling program.

In a Manhattan news conference Friday, Hochul confirmed she recently spoke with Trump about congestion pricing and made plans to have a follow-up conversation on the topic next week. She declined to disclose details of their "confidential" discussion, but said Trump "and the people around him have said they’re not supportive" of the program.

"I don’t know what the outcome will be," Hochul said. "All I know is that we’ll always go into the arena and fight."

Hochul said early data and anecdotal evidence show congestion pricing to be a "game changer" for New York. She added that she "cannot say what [Trump] knows about those stories."

The head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority struck a more optimistic tone.

MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said Friday that Trump and Hochul "had a positive, professional conversation" about how to move forward with the MTA's Central Business District Tolling Program, which charges most vehicles $9 for driving below 60th Street in Manhattan.

"From what I understand, his indication was that we wanted to give some thought to it and to talk further," Lieber told reporters following a Manhattan event held by the Citizens Budget Commission. "So, I do consider that a positive."

The White House office did not respond to a request for comment.

"There are reasons for [Trump’s administration] to move carefully on this front," Lieber said, including the fact that New York’s congestion pricing plan is based on the same federal program that allows for tolls on roads throughout the country. If those programs "are subject to being reversed on a dime because we have a change of administration," that could affect bond markets that rely on toll revenues.

"If the bondholders think that this might be taken apart at a moment’s notice, they’re going to charge a hell of a lot more when those states and localities go to bond," Lieber said.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), one of the leading opponents of congestion pricing in Congress, said Trump has made it "both publicly and privately clear" that he believes the tolling plan "is destructive to New York's economy and that it hurts working families."

"I feel that if there is a legal angle, which I believe there is, that the president will stop congestion pricing," Malliotakis told Newsday.

The Republican congresswoman and Trump ally said she believes the White House, at minimum, could order a "more comprehensive assessment" of the plan's environmental impacts. Following an environmental assessment conducted by project officials, the Biden administration last year found no significant impact, which cleared the way for congestion pricing to begin. Malliotakis has argued that under federal law, a more complete environmental review should have been required for the tolling proposal.

Lieber said MTA officials believe that "on the law, this program is very solid." But he acknowledged the "evolving views of the new federal administration" were an "important variable."

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-Pearl River) said Friday that Trump has also made it clear to him "on multiple occasions ... that he does not support the program and that it should be stopped." Lawler told Newsday he believes the White House "would certainly be within its jurisdiction" to revoke federal approvals made by the Biden administration.

Asked whether evidence of improved travel speeds into and within Manhattan since the tolls took effect could hurt opponents’ efforts to take down the program, Lawler said he was unconcerned with a few weeks’ worth of "cherry-picked anecdotes" and "selectively released" data put out by the MTA.

Meanwhile, a judge has ruled that the Town of Hempstead’s lawsuit challenging congestion pricing must be moved from Nassau County to Manhattan — a decision Lieber framed as a win for the tolling program.

On Thursday, State Supreme Court Judge Lisa Cairo granted the MTA’s motion to change the venue of the litigation, noting that state law "expressly provides" that a lawsuit filed against a public authority must be heard in the county where the agency is headquartered.

Lieber said the ruling made him confident the transit authority would "continue to keep winning until we’re sick of winning, in the words of the current president."

A spokesman for Hempstead Supervisor Donald X. Clavin Jr. said he could not comment on pending litigation.

Hempstead has filed two separate lawsuits challenging the legality of the program. MTA officials have said that since the tolls took effect Jan. 5, travel times into and within Manhattan’s central business district have improved significantly.

Still, there remains vehement opposition to the plan among New Yorkers, including on Long Island, where three-quarters of registered voters rejected the plan in a 2023 poll.

The uncertainty over how Trump’s administration will deal with congestion follows other confusing signals sent by the new White House to transportation providers throughout the United States. On Monday, the Trump administration ordered a freeze on federal loans, grants and financial aid — sparking concerns at the MTA, which said it relies on $2.5 billion in federal aid annually. After a federal judge signaled that he would issue a restraining order to halt the freeze, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget rescinded the memo.

On Thursday, new Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy issued a memo stating that going forward, U.S. Department of Transportation policies will "give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average," prohibit recipients of federal transportation funding from "imposing vaccine and mask mandates," and require "local compliance or cooperation with Federal immigration enforcement."

Lieber said he had not seen the memo. Hochul, addressing the potential uncertainty of future federal transportation funding, said, "there is no way, no way, no way in hell that a single state is going back fill the loss of federal dollars."

With Matthew Chayes