Feds Give Final Nod to Revived Congestion Pricing as Trump Administration Nears

With the second coming of President Donald Trump just two months away, the Biden administration gave final approval for New York City’s congestion pricing program.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), an agency under the purview of U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, on Thursday greenlighted the final iteration of the plan to toll drivers passing through parts of Manhattan, according to Metropolitan Transportation Authority disclosures.

With the toll reduced to $9 by Gov. Kathy Hochul from the original $15 approved by the MTA earlier in the year, federal approval saves the Central Business District Tolling Program from another period in purgatory, a repeat of when the Trump administration took no action on providing the criteria that would be needed for the environmental assessment of the plan. Tolling is now set to come online Jan. 5.

“Decongesting America’s most gridlocked neighborhoods will speed up ambulances and cut the massive waste and inefficiency that drive up our grocery bills and put essentials out of reach. Reducing traffic crashes and toxic air pollution will lower health care costs,” Betsy Plum, executive director of advocacy group the Riders Alliance, said in a statement. “While a relative few pay a new toll, 20 million Americans in four states will save time, money and aggravation.”

This iteration of a toll for cars entering Manhattan below 60th Street has been through some trials, not only from Trump in his first term.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed the toll in 2017 during the transit crisis that summer as a means of feeding $15 billion to the MTA to modernize the subway system. It was passed by the New York legislature in 2019, but the federal government offered the MTA no advice on what would be needed for approval until President Joe Biden took office in 2021. The feds approved the program in 2023.

Over the course of the following years, the tolling structure was decided upon by the Traffic Mobility Review Board, which was mostly helmed by real estate leaders, and adopted by the MTA in March.

But surprises were still in store as Hochul herself paused the plan weeks before it was set to start, angering many including the real estate industry, before reinstating the program earlier this month with a $9 price for general car admission into Manhattan.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.