NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration has pushed back a Friday deadline for New York to end its new $9 congestion toll on most drivers entering Manhattan.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday, March 20, 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.”
Spokespersons for Duffy didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office shrugged off the announcement.
“We’ve seen Secretary Duffy’s tweet, which doesn’t change what Governor Hochul has been saying all along: the cameras are staying on,” spokesperson Avi Small said in a statement, referring to the system of traffic cameras used to assess the 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.
They say 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 a recent MTA report.
“The status quo remains, which means everyone can continue to expect less traffic, faster commutes, and safer streets in Manhattan,” MTA spokesperson John McCarthy said in a statement Thursday.
By Philip Marcelo, The Associated Press. Associated Press writer Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York, contributed to this report.
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