Hochul, MTA set to blow off Trump April 20 deadline to kill congestion tolls

Yahoo

20-04-2025

Gov. Kathy Hochul is set to blow through another federal deadline meant to halt the $9 congestion toll to enter parts of Manhattan, as NYC Mayor Eric Adams' administration backed her in a lawsuit to keep the wildly controversial scheme alive.
Both the city and state Departments of Transportation on Friday joined a suit the Hochul-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority filed in February — after the White House threatened to block the embattled agency from continuing to collect on the first-in-the-nation tolls that went into effect Jan. 5 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street.
'Despite the Administration's 'royal' decree, its effort to summarily and unilaterally overturn the solution to the City's congestion enacted by New Yorkers' elected representatives is unlawful and invalid,' the amended complaint states.
The latest legal salvo was fired as the White House remained mum about what steps, if any, would be taken should New York snub the Sunday deadline set by the US Department of Transportation to quash the tolls.
Both the Governor's Office and the MTA said there's no plan to shut the toll cameras.
However, the US DOT insisted Saturday it's sticking by the deadline – despite an agreement reached in court earlier this month between the MTA and Trump administration lawyers to keep the toll cameras on until the fall.
'The deadline is April 20th, and we expect New York to comply and terminate this program,' an agency spokesperson said. 'USDOT will continue to fight for working class Americans whose tax dollars have already funded and paid for these roads.'
The agency earlier this month posted on X it would 'not hesitate to use every tool at our disposal' to shut the tolls down if the state didn't comply, but refused to provide specifics.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), a plaintiff in one of the many lawsuits seeking to block the tolls, accused the Hochul administration of violating federal law by pushing through congestion pricing without completing a 'full' environmental study on the impact on neighborhoods throughout the Big Apple.
'It's not the first time the governor has violated our laws, right?' said Malliotakis Saturday at an unrelated press conference on Staten Island.
'Whether it's the sanctuary [city policies], state policy, whether it's ignoring federal directives, this is just another example of how it's rules for me, not for thee. They don't want to comply with our federal law.'
The pol also said she spoke with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy last week and learned the Trump administration is 'not letting go of this' and is 'very focused on getting rid of this cash grab that is hurting' New Yorkers.
'I think that the Trump administration needs to come up with some type of penalization for not complying with this law,' she told The Post.
'Maybe they want to look at withholding certain federal funds, for projects within Manhattan, within the congestion zone. Maybe the Second Avenue subway [expansion project], for example.'
The White House previously demanded the MTA stop collecting tolls March 21, but Duffy announced before the deadline that the US DOT granted a 30-day extension through Sunday as negotiations continued.
Adams, who has grown close with Trump in recent months while remaining lukewarm on congestion pricing, has not publicly commented on his administration's involvement in the legal battle.
The city joined the suit just two weeks after the mayor's historic federal corruption case was dropped. Critics speculated that Adams was cozying up in hopes of obtaining a presidential pardon before a judge tossed the case.
The Mayor's office issues a statement that said: 'The mayor has been abundantly clear that he is open to working with the federal administration — as demonstrated by his subway walkthrough with the U.S. Transportation Secretary — to ensure all New Yorkers have access to safe, affordable, and structurally sound transportation. We also want to be sure our subway and bus system has the funds it needs, and the state should be able to make independent assessments of how to raise those funds. This was an amendment to a previously filed lawsuit by the MTA to add additional context that NYC DOT has gathered on the new program the state has instituted on city streets.'
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, the presumptive Republican nominee in this year's mayoral race, said the MTA should focus on cracking down on subway scofflaws rather than imposing unfair taxes.
'All their resources and focus should be on collecting the fares — which they are refusing to do,' he said.