(The Center Square) – The Trump administration, seeking to end a congestion pricing program that began in Manhattan this year, has asked a federal judge to issue a ruling on the matter.
The U.S. Department of Justice this week wrote to U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman to “respectfully request” the court issue a decision on the parties’ summary judgment motions “as soon as it is able” to resolve longstanding questions about the legality of the toll.
“As the Court knows, the parties completed summary judgment briefing in July in light of the Court’s observation that the public interest would be served by resolving this case quickly,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote in the Dec. 2 one-page letter.
The first-in-the-nation program began on Jan. 5 after a U.S. District Court judge denied New Jersey’s last-ditch push to block it.
Under the program, most cars and trucks pay a $9 toll between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays and between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekends to travel through the Congestion Pricing Zone from Midtown to downtown.
City officials have reported faster commutes for drivers and less congestion, and the city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority says the revenue generated from the program will put the agency on track to meet its funding goals.
President Donald Trump, a native New Yorker, pledged on the campaign trail to “terminate” the toll, saying it would cause businesses to leave the city.
The toll has continued as the legal challenges play out.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul in February saying the Federal Highway Administration was pulling its approval of congestion pricing and would work with New York State on an “orderly termination of the tolls.”
Duffy called congestion pricing a “slap in the face” to working-class Americans and small business owners and set a deadline to shut the program down. The city filed a lawsuit seeking to block the move.
In April, Duffy told Hochul the transportation department might withhold environmental approvals or project funding beginning on May 28 if the state does not end congestion pricing. Hochul declined.
Judge Liman issued a temporary restraining order in May barring the transportation department from enforcing a directive to shut down the program.
The judge wrote in his order that the Metropolitan Transit Authority was likely to succeed on the merit of the lawsuit and that the federal government had “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” by pledging to terminate the program.
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