New Challenge on Trump Administration’s Attempt to “Terminate” New York’s Congestion Pricing Program

Today, Riders Alliance and Sierra Club, represented by Earthjustice, filed a new legal complaint against the Trump administration’s Department of Transportation (DOT) for attempting to end New York City’s long-awaited Congestion Pricing program, less than two months after the program’s successful launch. The legal complaint charges that the Trump administration made serious legal mistakes in its rush to deprive New Yorkers of the benefits of Congestion Pricing, and that these mistakes suggest that the administration is acting pretextually.

The groups filed to join the MTA’s lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York as interveners, raising two new claims. While the MTA’s lawsuit focuses on the Trump administration’s unlawful reneging on the agreement authorizing congestion pricing, the new lawsuit focuses on the flawed legal basis that Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy put forward in his letter.

In its first month of operation, the first-in-the-nation program has raised $48.6 million dollars in month-one and stands to raise billions for improvements on New York City’s aging subway and bus systems that serves approximately 5 million people daily. Reports show the program has majorly reduced traffic and congestion, decreased travel times, while improving speeds for buses and emergency vehicles.

On February 19, 2025, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to New York Governor Kathy Hochul purporting to “terminate” the agreement authorizing  the Congestion Pricing program. Sec. Duffy claimed that he had discovered an unwritten restriction in federal law, a secret loophole establishing that the Congestion Pricing Program had never been lawfully authorized to begin with. An hour later, the White House posted a statement from President Trump: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” The White House accompanied the statement with an image of President Trump, wearing a crown, posed against the Manhattan skyline.

As the lawsuit makes clear, Sec. Duffy’s claims are directly contradicted by the record. The letter states that federal law has never contemplated “cordon pricing” as a permissible congestion pricing strategy, except where toll-free options are available to drivers. In fact, cordon pricing has for decades been recognized by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) as a form of congestion pricing, and it authorized cordon pricing projects more than twenty years ago. The inescapable inference is that Sec. Duffy landed on a convenient legal pretext so that the administration could do what it really wanted: “terminate” congestion pricing as fast as possible. But as the lawsuit explains, in its haste the administration made serious mistakes that doom its effort.

“After a decade of organizing, everyday New Yorkers won congestion relief and we’ll defend it with everything we have,” said Riders Alliance Executive Director Betsy Plum. “After working closely with Governor Kathy Hochul, the MTA and U.S. DOT to start the program, a vengeful federal government now leaves us no choice but to go to court. We’re filing today’s case because congestion relief is saving us time on buses, fixing our aging subways, and improving our health. We can’t afford to go back. There is no way to make traffic gridlock great again.”

“In its rush to end congestion pricing, the Trump administration is selling a flimsy excuse to try and make an end run around what the laws require,” said Dror Ladin, Senior Attorney at Earthjustice. “But the administration’s explanations don’t add up, and we’re confident that the courts are going to see through them just as easily as most New Yorkers do.”

“New Yorkers have the right to improve the environment where they live while making much-needed improvements to the city’s public transportation system. After two months of operation, it’s clear that congestion pricing is succeeding: traffic is moving faster, vehicle pollution is down, and the added revenue is allowing the MTA to make essential improvements to the transit system. We have every intention of keeping it, and we are ready to defend it,” said Sierra Club New York City Group Transportation Chair Wayne Arden.

The Congestion Pricing program went live in NYC’s Central Business District on January 5, 2025, where early economic data shows improvements in markers like Broadway attendance and retail sales which reports show have been $900 million higher in January 2025 compared to the same period last year. Additionally, with less vehicles on the road, air quality improvements follow. Traffic fumes are responsible for more than 1,000 premature deaths in the city annually and are linked to illnesses like asthma and heart disease.

During a previous New York State-based legal challenge, Earthjustice and clients reached a settlement with New York State and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)/Triborough to enact the program after an “indefinite pause” placed by NY Gov. Hochul.