Visitors strikes alongside midtown Manhattan on February 19, 2025 in New York Metropolis. Earlier within the day, the Trump administration terminated approval of New York Metropolis congestion pricing.
Alex Kent | Getty Pictures
New York Metropolis’s $9 congestion toll on drivers in Manhattan’s busiest areas will stay in impact, regardless of the federal authorities’s Sunday deadline to scrap this system.
In a press release on the deadline, a spokesperson for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul mentioned, “This system is working. Visitors is down, enterprise is up and the cameras are staying on.”
The U.S. Division of Transportation on Friday mentioned it anticipated New York to adjust to the Sunday deadline to “terminate this program,” in a press release to NBC New York.
“USDOT will proceed to struggle for working class People whose tax {dollars} have already funded and paid for these roads,” the division mentioned.
However MTA officers instructed NBC New York it was unlikely something would change Sunday, given the truth that a federal decide has to date sided with New York that the toll is authorized, and courtroom filings recommend it can doubtless take till the Fall for the case to be totally resolved.
Plus, each Hochul and the MTA have mentioned that until directed in any other case by a courtroom, the cameras, and due to this fact the tolls, will keep on.
The plan has already confronted quite a lot of deadlines from the federal authorities, adopted by simply as many pushbacks.
Congestion pricing went into effect on Jan. 5, and has targets to minimize visitors within the overcrowded metropolis and pump funds into the ailing subway system.
The plan expenses most automobiles getting into Manhattan’s central enterprise district — which stretches from sixtieth Road all the best way all the way down to the southern tip of the Monetary District — a peak payment of $9 from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends.
The Trump administration sought to kill the program on Feb. 19, with the president declaring himself “king” in a social media submit that celebrated the potential finish of congestion pricing.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, in a letter to Hochul, mentioned that the federal authorities has jurisdiction over highways resulting in Manhattan, making the newly imposed toll an unfair burden for drivers exterior of New York Metropolis.
Hochul fought again, declaring: “The cameras are staying on.”
The following week, the Trump administration gave New York until March 21 to end congestion pricing. On March 20, Duffy pushed again the deadline one other 30 days, based on the Associated Press.
The USDOT on April 8 said it was not backing down on Sunday’s deadline. It stays to be seen whether or not congestion pricing might be stopped by the Trump administration.
