Northeast
Trump admin moves to block NYC congestion toll program
President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to block the New York City congestion pricing toll program.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy penned a letter informing New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday that the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) approval of the pilot program was “not authorized by law.”
“New York State’s congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working-class Americans and small business owners,” Duffy also said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital. “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. But now the toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways. It’s backwards and unfair.”
“The program also hurts small businesses in New York that rely on customers from New Jersey and Connecticut,” he added. “Finally, it impedes the flow of commerce into New York by increasing costs for trucks, which in turn could make goods more expensive for consumer[s]. Every American should be able to access New York City regardless of their economic means. It shouldn’t be reserved for an elite few.”
MTA BOARD APPROVES DEMOCRAT GOV. HOCHUL’S MASSIVE NYC CONGESTION PRICING TOLL REBOOT
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy during an executive order signing in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. (Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In his letter, Duffy explained the legal avenue the administration will take to stop the pilot program.
The Federal Highway Administration and the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) entered into an agreement on Nov. 21, 2024, approving the Central Business District Tolling Program (CBDTP) under the Value Pricing Pilot Program (VPPP). Approved by Congress in 1991, VPPP is an exception to the general rule prohibiting tolling on highways as a pilot to test congestion reduction techniques. New York is one of 15 states authorized to implement the program.
Duffy’s letter notes the “cordon pricing” method of tolling that charges tolls to drivers who enter Manhattan south of 60th Street under the program means drivers are charged no matter what roads they use and “provides no toll-free option for many drivers who want or need to travel by vehicle in this major urbanized area.”
“No statue contemplates cordon pricing in a situation where tolls are inescapable,” Duffy wrote.
Duffy also said the “imposition of tolls under the CBDTP pilot project appears to be driven primarily by the need to raise revenue for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) system as opposed to the need to reduce congestion.”
“I share the President’s concerns about the impacts to working class Americans who now have an additional financial burden to account for in their daily lives,” Duffy wrote.
Citing legal challenges to the program and concerns expressed by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner Fran O’Connor, Duffy said that he reviewed the tolling authority granted under VPPP to the CBDTP pilot project for compliance under federal law and “concluded that the scope of this pilot project as approved exceeds the authority authorized by Congress under VPPP.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaking at the state Capitol, Feb. 1, 2023. ((AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File))
“To be sure, the termination of the program may deprive the transit system of funding, but any reliance on that funding stream was not reasonable given that FHWA’s approval was not authorized by law,” Duffy wrote. “The FHWA will contact NYSDOT and its project sponsors to discuss the orderly cessation of toll operations under this terminated pilot project.”
HOCHUL SPURS BIPARTISAN OUTRAGE OVER MASSIVE TOLL REBOOT AS DEMS WORRY TRUMP WILL BLOCK IT
New York City councilman Bob Holden, a Democrat representing Queens, praised Trump, saying the president “kept his promise to New Yorkers by stopping the unfair congestion pricing scheme, a scam tax that was unjust from the very start.”
“This is a major victory for working- and middle-class families who were forced to shoulder another financial burden just to navigate their own city,” Holden said. “New Yorkers deserve real solutions to traffic and transit issues—not another cash grab disguised as policy.”
A staunch critic of the program who sued over the pilot, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., thanked Trump and Duffy “for keeping their promise to examine and halt New York City’s Congestion Pricing scheme.”
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber praised the MTA board’s approval of Gov. Hochul’s modified congestion pricing plan last year. (Luiz C Ribeiro/Gardiner Anderson/Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
“As I’ve said from the beginning and reaffirmed in our lawsuit, this congestion tax was approved by the Biden Administration in violation of federal law, as the proper environmental studies required under the National Environmental Policy Act were never conducted,” Malliotakis said in a statement obatined by Fox News Digital. “President Trump is a New Yorker who understands the negative impact this additional toll had on my constituents, local businesses and our city’s economy.”
“Today’s actions are a victory for hardworking, taxpaying commuters who have been unfairly burdened by this toll and we will continue to fight against such policies that treat New Yorkers like bottomless ATMs,” she added.
In response to Duffy’s letter, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chair and CEO Janno Lieber announced that the MTA filed papers in federal court Wednesday “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.”
“It’s mystifying that after four years and 4,000 pages of federally-supervised environmental review – and barely three months after giving final approval to the Congestion Relief Program – USDOT would seek to totally reverse course,” Lieber said.
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Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Todd Spencer said “the thousands of small business truckers who operate in New York City welcome USDOT’s decision to rescind tolling authority for New York ‘s congestion pricing plan.”
“Truckers often have very little control over their schedules, so this congestion pricing plan is particularly problematic for owner-operators and independent drivers,” Spencer told Fox News Digital. “We routinely have no other choice than to drive through metropolitan areas during periods of high congestion because of the rigidity of current federal hours of service requirements.”
He said “shippers and receivers generally have little regard for a driver’s schedule, frequently requiring loading and unloading to occur at times when nearby roads are most congested,” adding that “New York City’s congestion pricing plan was anti-trucker to begin with and we will continue fighting to ensure it doesn’t come back.”
“Beyond New York City, we encourage the Trump Administration and Congress to fight the expansion of tolling across the country,” Spencer said.
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Along the Park
Dear Diary:
It was April Fools’ Day, and the weather kept changing from sunny to drizzle, as if the gusty wind was moving the sun back and forth behind a cloud.
I put my jacket on and off as I walked along Prospect Park. The trees were still bare, but spring was slowly awakening with yellow forsythias, and every child walking by stared at my new purple hair, hungry for color.
A guy in the bike lane yelled, “Hey!”
I turned to him.
“Sorry,” he said, pointing to someone else. “I’m talking to this guy.”
“But you actually look familiar,” I said.
“So do you,” he said, laughing.
I entered the park to hear pop music near the band shell. Two people with a portable speaker were dancing.
I wanted to join the party, but I realized that I hear the music, so I’m in the party. I danced along from a distance.
From high above, hundreds of blackbirds swooped down like falling peppercorn into the black-and-white woods ahead. As I got closer, I saw specks of tiny green buds emerging on each tree limb.
I left the park, passing three people who had converged because their dogs could not contain their joy. The people laughed like old friends, but within seconds they had walked off separate ways.
As I passed Seeley Street, I overheard a friend through the open window, cheering on a drum student.
I laughed. I should be getting home before the possible rain, I thought, but today, everywhere was home.
— Mare Berger
S. Klein’s Basement
Dear Diary:
It was around 1960, and my mother, my sister and I were in the bargain basement at the S. Klein department store on Union Square.
My sister, 13, was trying on winter coats in the aisle between the bins and discussing two final options with my mother when a woman riding the escalator up to the ground floor weighed in.
“Take the red!” she called out.
We took the red. I miss S. Klein’s.
— David Hammond
Brooklyn Warehouse
Dear Diary:
I woke up to my alarm at 2:45 on a Saturday morning, then maneuvered trains and city blocks through darkness to an unremarkable warehouse in Brooklyn.
Inside was a cathedral of music. Hips gyrated, and arms exalted rhythm. Fog embraced kissers, dancers, exhilaration, prayer, meditation, community.
I found my intention and connected with my spirit and the energy of bodies around me, alone and together, holding friends as family and strangers as friends.
I departed at 8:45 a.m. to a cold, golden morning, feeling lighter, freer, learned and loved.
A shopkeeper opening up for the day called out from behind me, his question nearly drowned out by the morning traffic.
“Hey, what’s happening over there?” he asked.
“Just a little dance party,” I replied. “Nothing crazy.”
— Carlie Cattelona
Helping Hand
Dear Diary:
I ride my bicycle 99 percent of the time. It’s just me and the city. I move fast enough to keep things interesting, but slowly enough to catch the weather changing or feel the mood of the people on the sidewalks.
Every so often, I have to take the train. On very rare occasions, it’s me, the train and my bike, a combination no one ever seems thrilled to encounter.
Because I know this, I try to shrink myself into an apologetic bicycle origami project once I’m on the train. I fold. I hover. I whisper “sorry” to people who haven’t even seen me yet.
On one such evening, I was trying to avoid anyone’s shins while hauling my bike up a flight of stairs after getting off the train, when I felt someone close behind me.
Terrified that I’d clipped someone, I whipped around to see a smiling woman who had one hand casually gripping the back of my bike.
“I got you,” she said, like we were old friends moving a couch.
I told her I had it under control.
“Two hands are better than one,” she said. “I got you.”
So we climbed the stairs together: me, my bike and a total stranger, moving in perfect, unspoken coordination. At the top, she let go, nodded and vanished into the crowd.
— Evan Abel
Central Park Zoo
Dear Diary:
Years ago, our nanny would take our son and daughter to the Central Park Zoo, where they could be set free from their stroller.
It was safe because the children loved the zoo and always stayed in the nanny’s sight and because the zoo’s walls meant there was no way they could leave.
One spring day when I was not working, I decided to accompany them all on a walk through the park, with the kids in their stroller.
As we passed the zoo, a guard at the entrance beckoned our nanny over and had a deep consultation with her.
She was laughing when she came back.
“He wanted to know who was that strange woman walking with me,” she said.
— Georgia Raysman
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee
Employees at the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston are gearing up for contract negotiations with the Seaport museum after quietly opting to unionize last month.
Just over 90 employees, in roles ranging from visitor services to development to curation, are now being represented by the UAW Local 2110, a New York-based union, as they prepare to go to the bargaining table, seeking better pay and other job protections.
The ICA voluntarily recognized the union shortly after the workers went to museum leadership in early April, said Maida Rosenstein, UAW Local 2110’s director of organizing. That meant the employees could sidestep a formal election through the National Labor Relations Board and instead conduct a card-counting process.
“That all happened quite quickly,” said Rosenstein.
“Our experience with getting voluntary recognition was that the ICA was reasonable about the process,” she added. “So hopefully that will continue through the bargaining process.”
The next step, Rosenstein said, is for the workers to elect a bargaining committee from among their ranks, and then draw up some specific proposals. “We’re hopeful of being able to be negotiating this summer,” she said.
In a statement, the ICA’s director, Nora Burnett Abrams, who stepped into the top job last May, noted that “our exceptional staff are at the heart of what makes the museum so special.”
“We are voluntarily recognizing our employees’ choice to be represented by a union and view the decision to organize as an expression of their deep dedication to the institution,” Burnett Abrams said. “We look forward to working collaboratively and in good faith with Local UAW 2110 toward a collective agreement.”
The ICA is just the latest local institution to see labor action among its workforce. UAW Local 2110 also represents employees at the MFA Boston, who voted to unionize in 2020 and secured compensation increases and other benefit improvements when they ratified their first contract in 2022. Workers at MASS MoCa in North Adams, the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine are also represented by UAW Local 2110.
Carter Seggev, a 28-year-old events coordinator at the museum, said seeing the MFA go through its own unionization process served as something of a blueprint for the ICA workers.
“It has been a very helpful beginner example, to sort of be like, ‘Oh, yeah, they can do it,’ and especially that scale,” he said.
Rosenstein said a chief concern among workers is improving pay, which is currently “very slightly above minimum wage at the entry level,” she said. Other concerns include protections against layoffs and other “health and safety” provisions, such as adequate rest and seating for visitor-facing employees.
For Seggev, who earns $50,000 a year at the museum, better pay is only one piece of the puzzle. He wants more transparency from museum leadership into policy decisions — and a greater say in the institution’s future.
“I like the ICA a lot. It’s a fun workplace, and I would love to have more of a voice in making sure that everyone is being considered and everyone’s needs are being taken into account,” he said. “For me personally, that’s been the biggest driving force.”
He added that, since workers went public with their organizing efforts, he’s been happy with leadership’s willingness to talk with workers about their aims. He was also encouraged by the museum’s voluntary recognition of the union.
“I know that is a very rare thing, and so far, the communication has been very positive,” he said. “I think everyone’s sort of looking forward to working together to make the ICA better.”
The ICA, which has been housed in a gleaming glass building perched on the waterfront since 2006, had an operating surplus of about $800,000 in the fiscal year that ended in June 2025, according to its latest publicly released financial statements. That was up more than a quarter-million dollars from the previous year.
Dana Gerber can be reached at dana.gerber@globe.com. Follow her @danagerber6.
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