NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration has pushed back a Friday deadline for New York officials to end its new $9 congestion toll on most drivers entering Manhattan—but also put the state "on notice."
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday said he was giving the state an additional 30 days as “discussions continue” on the Republican administration’s demand.
But he also lashed out at New York officials, who have said for weeks they did not intend to comply with the deadline as they have filed a lawsuit challenging Duffy’s decision to rescind the toll’s federal approval last month.
“Your refusal to end cordon pricing and your open disrespect towards the federal government is unacceptable,” Duffy wrote in a strongly worded post on X, formerly Twitter. “Know that the billions of dollars the federal government sends to New York are not a blank check. Continued noncompliance will not be taken lightly.”
A spokesperson for Hochul told 1010 WINS: "Congestion pricing is working. Traffic is down, business is up and support for this first-in-the-nation initiative continues to grow. We’ve seen Secretary Duffy’s tweet, which doesn’t change what Governor Hochul has been saying all along: the cameras are staying on."
The MTA's chief of policy and external relations, John J. McCarthy, said in a statement: “The status quo remains, which means everyone can continue to expect less traffic, faster commutes, and safer streets in Manhattan. As we’ve said, there was exhaustive study, projected benefits were right, and we can’t go back to gridlock.”
New York uses a system of traffic cameras to issue tolls to drivers in the congestion zone.
The fee started Jan. 5 and comes on top of tolls drivers already pay to cross bridges and tunnels into Manhattan.
It is meant to help deter drivers and relieve traffic congestion while also providing millions of dollars in new revenue to the city’s beleaguered transit system.
Similar toll programs have long existed in other cities, including London, Stockholm, Milan and Singapore, but they have never been tried before in the U.S.
Trump, whose namesake Trump Tower penthouse and other properties are within the congestion zone, vowed to stop the toll as soon as he took office.
Duffy, in his decision to rescind federal approval, called the fee a “slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners.”
Janno Lieber, chairman and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that administers the toll, vowed earlier this week that the Friday deadline would “come and go” with no changes to tolling.
He maintained the Trump administration lacks the legal authority to revoke approvals granted under former President Joe Biden’s administration.
“Nothing is going to change, and we are very confident that there won’t be a rollback of congestion pricing because the program stepped through every hoop on the way to getting that federal approval,” Lieber said Tuesday at an unrelated event in Penn Station. “It can’t be unilaterally rescinded.”
Hochul, meanwhile, has met privately with President Donald Trump at least twice in recent weeks to convince him to drop his opposition to the toll.
State officials have said the tolling plan is working as intended.
Lieber has said thousands of fewer vehicles are heading into central Manhattan each day, and commuters who continue to drive in are seeing shorter drive times on bridges, tunnels and busy cross streets.
The toll is also on track to generate roughly $500 million by the end of the year, allowing planned transit improvements to move forward, according to an MTA report last month.