What's at Stake with Congestion Pricing in the Courtroom?

If there’s a window for New York City to implement congestion pricing, it’s narrowing. The reelection of Donald Trump to the White House could spell doom for a proposed charge for motorists entering Manhattan’s Central Business District (below 59th Street), meant to fund $15 billion worth of mass transit upgrades. In Trump’s first term, his administration tied up federal approvals for the project; in his second, he has promised, he will “terminate” the program should it be implemented before he takes office.

Gov. Kathy Hochul abruptly paused the program right before its expected rollout in June, citing her state’s high living costs. Since last week’s election, Hochul has announced the program’s revival, though with a $9 per car charge rather than the original $15. Now she has about two months to secure the Biden administration’s signature in their last remaining days in office — and then brace for any legal impact.

Hochul also faces a deadline in court. Passed in Albany in 2019, the congestion pricing plan itself provoked eight lawsuits in federal court, most notably from New Jersey officials who argued that the toll would place an undue financial burden on drivers crossing the Hudson River from their state. And that’s not counting the additional four suits spawned by Hochul’s decision to pause the program. The varying litigation has put the state’s lawyers in an awkward position: in one courtroom, they defended the process; they then found themselves in another a few weeks later, arguing to halt it altogether.

But the lawsuits, like congestion pricing itself, have faced fits and starts. In June, a federal judge undercut a key argument made by the parties in opposition to the program by ruling that it had undergone sufficient environmental review. (With congestion pricing on ice, those cases now face uncertainty.) In September, state trial judge Arthur F. Engoron allowed three lawsuits in support of the program to advance, denying Hochul’s motion to dismiss. He later extended the deadline to file a response to his ruling to today — November 15 — creating a make-or-break moment for the governor to decide what to do next.

The recent saga captures the entanglement and seesawing of politics that have consumed congestion pricing since the idea was first floated in the 1950s. And so, understanding the legal battles is crucial to knowing where the policy — which would be the first of its kind in the nation if enacted, with existing precedent only abroad — goes from here.

One lawsuit, brought by the City Club of New York City, a good governance nonprofit, is a “case about power,” the plaintiffs argued to Engoron in late September. The core dispute — or, at least, the argument that received substantial attention from the judge — is over whether the governor has the authority under the state constitution to unilaterally pause a program signed into law by the state legislature.

The Traffic Mobility Act of 2019 grants the authority to set tolls to a board overseen by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) but notes that the board’s authority is “subject to federal law.” The state’s attorneys claim that language implies that the governor can execute a contract for a federal-state partnership as she sees fit, not just by default. That the governor never signed a final, legally binding agreement between the local transit agency and the federal transportation department outlining the plan was her prerogative, her attorneys say. That inaction is what has kept the already installed tolling cameras dark since June. (At the oral arguments in September, the defense was met with skepticism from Engoron.) The lawyers for City Club argue that the governor’s refusal to sign the contract — what they call a mere “ministerial act” — illegally overrides the legislature’s expressed intent to create the program. Additionally, they claim that the governor didn’t offer an advance notification of a formal withdrawal to federal officials, which, they say, was legally necessary for the about-face in policy.

Two other lawsuits, brought by the advocacy organizations Riders Alliance, Sierra Club, and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, are based on existing environmental law. The first argues that the governor’s “pause” on congestion pricing is in direct violation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a state law passed in 2019 that requires New York to hit certain carbon emission thresholds in the coming years. Transportation is one of the state’s highest emitters, so revoking congestion pricing will put those benchmarks out of reach, at least in New York City, the plaintiffs say.

The other lawsuit argues that the reversal on congestion pricing threatens what’s known as the “Green Amendment,” a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2021 that guarantees the right to clean air and water. The amendment has already begun to build a caseload, including litigation related to a landfill’s odors and emissions. But Engoron appeared hesitant during oral arguments that it applied here.

New York City’s transit system is no stranger to legal actions. It was a federal class action lawsuit brought by disability rights advocates that impugned the MTA to accept a settlement in 2023 to make nearly all subway stations ADA-accessible by 2055. (Those same parties recently filed another lawsuit, arguing that the settlement was contingent on “congestion pricing [providing] the capital funds necessary” for accessibility upgrades.) And that wasn’t the first time the MTA had been sued over accessibility issues. As an entity responsible for one of the world’s most extensive transit systems, it finds itself in court often.

The latest lawsuits, however, are notably different. Although congestion pricing is central to the MTA’s long-term vision for the tristate region, it’s not the agency that finds itself in the legal hot seat — it’s the governor. Between the judges, the White House, and the MTA’s now-uncertain financial outlook, Hochul has been pinned into a position where she must decide on congestion pricing. And after decades of debate, that moment has now arrived.

John Surico is a journalist and researcher. His reporting can be found in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Bloomberg, and elsewhere. He teaches city-centric reporting at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and serves as the Senior Fellow for Climate and Opportunity at Center for an Urban Future.

Suggested Citation: John Surico, What’s at Stake with Congestion Pricing in the Courtroom?, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ(Nov. 15, 2024), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/whats-stake-congestion-pricing-courtroom