Congestion pricing: Trump extends deadline for New York to end toll for Manhattan drivers
A sign alerting drivers of congestion pricing tolls is displayed near the exit of the Lincoln Tunnel in Manhattan. Credit: AP / Seth Wenig
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President Donald Trump’s transportation chief is giving New York an extra 30 days to take down its congestion pricing tolls, with the warning that “continued noncompliance will not be taken lightly.”
Hours before a Friday deadline set by the federal government for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to pull the plug on its Central Business District Tolling Program, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, in a post on X, said the Trump administration is providing New York a 30-day extension “as discussions continue.”
Duffy last month rescinded federal approval — previously given by the Biden administration — for the MTA’s first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan, which charges most vehicles $9 for driving at or below 60th Street in Manhattan during peak periods.
Duffy cited what the Trump administration maintains are legal problems with the congestion pricing program, including that it doesn't give motorists a toll-free option to drive within the congestion relief zone and that the revenue goes to transit infrastructure, rather than highways.
The MTA quickly sued the federal government in response, arguing that the Trump administration cannot unilaterally terminate the program. With the matter now in the courts, the MTA has maintained it will keep the tolls in place unless it is ordered by a judge to do otherwise.
Before Duffy announced the 30-day delay, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber reiterated that the deadline had no bearing on the agency's plans.
"The scoop is, nothing's gonna happen tomorrow," Lieber said to applause on Thursday morning at the New York Building Congress, a construction trade group. "This is not a test of wills. There is a legal dispute. When you have a legal dispute, it's in the courts, there's no change of the status quo until the court makes a decision. That's where we are. The status quo is the system is operating."
Avi Small, a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul, said Duffy's announcement "doesn’t change what Governor Hochul has been saying all along: The cameras are staying on."
On Thursday, Duffy, on X, said New York officials’ "open disrespect towards the federal government is unacceptable.”
Although federal officials have not spelled out what consequences the MTA faces if it doesn’t comply with the deadline, Duffy noted that “the billions of dollars the federal government sends to New York are not a blank check.”
“Continued noncompliance will not be taken lightly,” Duffy wrote.
Earlier this week, Duffy separately warned that New York could lose federal funding if it did not address safety concerns on New York City buses and subways — a measure that some saw as the Trump administration demonstrating its leverage over the MTA, the largest public transportation provider in North America.
Lisa Daglian, executive director of the MTA Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee, a transit rider advocacy group, in a statement Thursday wryly lauded the Trump administration's "magnanimity" in granting New York permission to keep congestion pricing in place for another month.
"Whether or not we need that permission is another story," Daglian said.
With Matthew Chayes
Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.
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