The feds were back in court Wednesday to duke it out with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority over their ongoing — and so far stymied — bid to kill New York’s hotly contested congestion pricing scheme.
Reps for President Trump’s administration and for the MTA each made their case to Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan federal court for a final ruling that could either halt the hot-button tolls, or keep them running.
The Trump-appointed judge in May temporarily thwarted the feds’ effort to force the Empire State to scrap the first-in-the-nation program which charges drivers $9 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street.
The order ensured that the tolls — which launched in January 2025 and are set to rise to $15 by 2031 — would stay on for now.
Each side made its case during two hours of dense, legal arguments before Liman, who said he would issue a ruling in writing at a later date.
“The value pricing pilot program is subject to termination by the federal government,” insisted Eric Hamilton, a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department’s civil division.
Trump in February 2025 took a victory lap after claiming that he’d ordered New York to end congestion pricing, declaring in a Truth Social post that “Congestion pricing is dead. Manhattan, and all of New York, is saved. Long Live The King!”
But the tolls have stayed on since.
“An order from your Honor would help us with this battle of the social media which the president continues to engage in,” quipped Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer repping the MTA, during Wednesday’s hearing.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has threatened to withhold federal funding and approvals for New York projects if the toll is not nixed, but has yet to follow through on that threat.
The toll’s detractors have called it a cash grab for the MTA, at the expense of drivers. Opponents cited polls issued in advance of the program’s start date showing that New Yorkers were not in favor of the plan, and some business leaders have claimed that the program has led to companies passing on their toll costs to customers.
Congestion pricing backers have cited stats showing that 27 million fewer vehicles entered the “congestion relief zone” from Jan. 5, 2025 to Dec. 31, 2025 than over the same period in 2024, reducing air pollution in the area by 22%.
The tolls have so far raised more than $550 million toward subway improvements, according to the MTA.
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