President Trump took a triumphant victory lap after his administration ordered New York to end congestion pricing on Wednesday.
“Congestion pricing is dead. Manhattan, and all of New York, is saved. Long Live The King!,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
US Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the decision on Wednesday, penning a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul informing her that the administration would “terminate” approval of the congestion pricing program.
The MTA immediately filed a lawsuit challenging the decision.
The first-in-the-nation congestion toll, which continues to garner mixed feelings from commuters, charges drivers $9 to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.
Duffy said in his letter to Hochul that the feds would work with New York State on an “orderly termination” of the tolls, but it was not immediately known when the $9 tax would cease being collected.
MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber slammed the Trump administration’s “baseless effort” to combat congestion pricing, with the agency filing a lawsuit to save the toll.
“Today, the MTA filed papers in federal court to ensure that the highly successful program – which has already dramatically reduced congestion, bringing reduced traffic and faster travel times, while increasing speeds for buses and emergency vehicles – will continue notwithstanding this baseless effort to snatch those benefits away from the millions of mass transit users, pedestrians and, especially, the drivers who come to the Manhattan Central Business District,” Lieber said in a statement.
Up until its implementation last month, congestion pricing had remained widely unpopular in the New York area.
The latest surveys, however, suggest the majority of residents in the Big Apple are growing accustomed to the toll.
A Morning Consult survey of 1,200 registered voters last week found that 60% of them believe Trump should allow the controversial program to continue.
Hochul, who was said to have been having high-powered talks with Trump over congestion pricing in recent weeks, has yet to comment on the administration’s move to try and pull the plug on the toll.
