On Monday, the day after the latest federal deadline to end congestion pricing, Governor Kathy Hochul received yet another serious-sounding missive from Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation who's made a pet project out of denigrating the MTA. In the letter, Duffy reiterated his demand that the governor terminate New York City's congestion pricing program on the grounds that its tolls are illegal and should be funneling money towards highways instead of public transit—and outlined the first specific threats about what will happen if New York doesn't cave, including withholding federal funding and approval for new construction products in New York City starting on May 28.
So, is the end nigh for congestion pricing? Not in this real world, especially because the toll program isn't actually the issue here—it's just another way for the Trump administration to stress test New York. "It's all about making New York look a certain way from a political perspective when [in reality] the program is getting more and more popular, because it's been successful and people are seeing real benefits," Rachael Fauss, senior policy advisor for Reinvent Albany, told Hell Gate. "It's not even worth doing a line-by-line rebuttal of the letter, because it's not about the facts."