By Peter Murphy, CFACT |March 18, 2025
The Trump administration, specifically U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, last month rescinded the federal government’s approval during the Biden administration of New York State’s imposition of congestion pricing tolls for vehicles driving into the southern half of Manhattan in New York City. Secretary Duffy’s February termination letter to Gov. Hochul said the congestion tolls are “a slap in the face to working-class Americans and small-business owners.”
The New York City congestion toll-tax scheme has national implications. If allowed to continue, it could proliferate to pre-existing public roadways in jurisdictions throughout the nation as the ever-greedy political class and unscrupulous climate grifters find ways to extract more cash from the public.
Call it a promise made/promise kept by President Trump, who committed during the campaign to remove the tolls and their cost to average New Yorkers. He stated he is holding firm and criticized the state and city for their refusal to crack down on subway and bus fare beaters, which loses $800 million annually – more than the annual projected revenue from the congestion tax.
At this writing, the toll cameras remain on and are collecting the $9.00 automobile and $14.40 to $21.60 truck taxes for entering the Manhattan congestion zone. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the tolls and is controlled by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, sued to block the fed’s reversal.
This latest chapter of the congestion toll saga is not final. If the courts uphold the tolls based on prior traffic and environmental approvals by the Biden administration, there are a myriad of other federal mandates and funding streams to New York for the Trump administration to leverage as a means to otherwise bury them.
Congestion tolls were first floated for Manhattan two decades ago when the NYC Mayor at the time, Michael Bloomberg, a champion of climate change fanaticism and the nanny state, proposed them. The state legislature instead rejected the idea.
Fast forward to 2019, when then-Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the congestion tolls into law as he sought to juxtapose himself with the legislature’s “progressive” shift further to the political left and parrot the bogus climate change narrative to reduce vehicle emissions. Five years and $500 million later, the tolls were about to take effect in the summer of 2024 when Gov. Hochul stopped them.
“I cannot add another burden to working middle-class New Yorkers,” Hochul said at the time (with her fingers crossed behind her back).
Hochul’s mendacious action came at the behest of U.S. House leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn to curry favor for his New York City metropolitan congressional candidates before the November elections.
Five months later, following the elections—surprise!—Governor Flim-Flam announced that, in fact, she can and will add another burden to working middle-class New Yorkers. The toll-taxes were back on and went into effect January 5th, two weeks prior to President Trump’s inaugural. Such was a reminder of why the public generally despises politicians.
Governor Hochul met in vain with President Trump last month during the annual National Governor’s Association meeting in Washington to get him to reconsider nixing the congestion tax. The governor’s spokesperson said that she presented to the president “a booklet on the early success of congestion pricing.”
Talk about a political tin ear.
Drivers are paying substantially more to enter the heart of New York City, which indeed has reduced traffic in lower Manhattan thus far by a measly 7.5 percent—Bravo!—as though that electron-lite amount will curtail “climate change.” Yet, to no surprise, increased traffic and emissions outside the zone also resulted. Congestion taxes also are being passed on by businesses and contractors to millions of consumers residing and working in the lower half of Manhattan. Some “success”.
CFACT has said from the beginning when congestion tolls were first approved for New York that it was a massive cash grab to pay interest on billions of dollars in new debt for the city’s mass transit system. For the non-credulous, it was never about the “climate crisis” or reducing Manhattan vehicle traffic overall.
The congestion tolls are a microcosm of what always happens when climate policies are imposed: Americans pay more, the economy suffers, the standard of living drops, and the climate goes on changing like the wind, unaffected. As with other costly and useless climate scams, President Trump rightly pulled the plug, hopefully to bury congestion taxes permanently.
A version of this article originally appeared at The Daily Caller
Peter Murphy is Senior Fellow at CFACT. He has researched and advocated for a variety of policy issues, including education reform and fiscal policy, both in the non-profit sector and in government in the administration of former New York Governor George Pataki.
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