NY Gov. Hochul vows fight to keep congestion pricing as feds set deadline to end toll

Evan Simko-Bednarski, New York Daily News on Feb 26, 2025

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NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul doubled down on her defense of New York’s congestion pricing toll Wednesday as the federal government seeks to kill the program.

“Public transit is facing an existential threat from Washington right now, whether it’s the overall funding or whether it is the attack on congestion pricing,” Hochul said in an address to the MTA’s board. “One thing we’ve established: New Yorkers do not back down.”

“I had an interesting trip to the White House,” Hochul said of her Friday meeting with Trump, during which she tried to sell the avowed congestion pricing foe on the toll.

Hochul took a jab at the president’s reportedly short attention span, saying she asked her team to prepare a presentation with “real simple terms” and “real nice pictures.”

“I did my very best,” she said. “The fight’s not over.”

Trump tried to kill the toll last week, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring he was revoking a key authorization issued last year by the Democratic Biden administration.

“Commuters using the highway system to enter New York City have already financed the construction and improvement of these highways through the payment of gas taxes and other taxes,” Duffy wrote, apparently railing against tolls of any sort.

The MTA, which immediately sued the federal government over the order, has vowed to keep the cameras on while it fights the order in the courts. The feds, meanwhile, have ordered the state to end the program by March 21.

Hochul, who famously paused the traffic toll last summer before scrambling to get it in place before the end of the Biden administration, gave a full-throated endorsement of the program Wednesday.

“There is a huge disconnect from the reality we know New Yorkers are facing and the perception of reality at the White House,” she said. “I guarantee the president has never had to endure missing a child’s sporting event because he was stuck on a delayed train, never had to stand in a flooded subway station because we were not able to make the repairs, not sitting in traffic missing an important meeting.

“That is the reality of New Yorkers that we are solving for,” Hochul said. “I know there’s a lot of power in that Oval Office. But I’ll put that power up against the power of 6 million pissed-off commuters in New York City.”

The congestion pricing program, which went into effect on Jan. 5, charges most drivers a $9 toll once per day to drive on regular streets (not highways) in Midtown and lower Manhattan. In addition to traffic reduction, the program is charged with generating enough revenue to back $15 billion in bonds toward the MTA’s capital program.

The agency reported on Monday that the toll had generated $48.7 million in gross revenue in the month of January — meaning the MTA was on track to raise its $500 million annual target.

As of last week, 2.6 million fewer vehicles had traveled into the congestion zone since tolling began Jan. 5, MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan told the Daily News — amounting to a 10% reduction in vehicular traffic since the program’s start.

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