Dual Lawsuits Slam Hochul's Congestion Pricing ‘Pause'

By Jose Martinez, The City

July 25, 2024

A pair of lawsuits filed Thursday aims to put congestion pricing back on track after Gov. Kathy Hochul derailed the Manhattan vehicle-tolling plan last month, weeks before it was to take effect.

The cases, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court by transit advocates and a civic association, are the first that seek to overturn what court papers describe as Hochul’s “quite literally, lawless” about face on the Central Business District Tolling Program that became law in 2019 — and which was supposed to start on June 30.

Better known as congestion pricing, the years-in-the-making initiative to toll motorists driving south of 60th Street in Manhattan had long been counted on by transit officials to reduce vehicle emissions and traffic while also generating billions of dollars for upgrades to the mass transit system.

But Hochul’s June 5 pause upended the MTA’s current Capital Program — the five-year, more than $50 billion roadmap for system upkeep and expansion — after the transit agency had already spent more than half a billion dollars preparing for the congestion plan. That included planning, buying and installing tolling infrastructure and even hiring customer service center employees.

Betsy Plum, head of Riders Alliance, is among groups suing to overturn Gov. Kathy Hochul's pause on congestion pricing, July 25, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

“If we want New York to remain … enjoyable, economically viable, we need to be able to move,” said Layla Law-Gisiko, president of the City Club of New York, a 132-year-old organization that filed one of the lawsuits. “We can’t continue to choke on vehicular traffic and we can’t continue to disinvest from our public transportation systems.”

In its court papers, the City Club calls Hochul’s order to the MTA to “indefinitely pause” congestion pricing a “180-degree reversal” on the tolling program that the governor once championed. It accuses her of violating the Traffic Mobility Act, the 2019 state law that mandated the congestion pricing program, following similar tolling efforts in London, Stockholm and Singapore.

The suit says that only the MTA and its Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority have the power to implement congestion pricing — and that the governor’s pause “lacks any basis in the law as democratically enacted.”

“Governor Hochul cannot defy the law, she is bound by it,” said Andrew Celli, a lawyer for the City Club. “Governor Hochul cannot ignore the will of the legislature, she must respect it.”

A second case — brought by Riders Alliance, the Sierra Club and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance — charges Hochul, the state Transportation Department and the MTA of violating the state’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the 2021 Green Amendment that guarantees a right to a clean environment in the state constitution.

“Every official in state government, the governor on down, needs to take account of whether their actions help get us towards our goal of reducing emissions or take us further from it,” said Dror Ladin, an Earthjustice senior attorney who is representing the plaintiffs in that case.

The prospect of legal action began to take shape days after Hochul abruptly hit the brakes on congestion pricing, declaring “a $15 toll, at this time, is too much” for people who drive into the city.

Her action caught New Yorkers and MTA officials by surprise and prompted an uproar. A coalition of groups that includes environmentalists and disability rights advocates formed to consider legal action. Lawyers said Thursday that other lawsuits remain a possibility, including one filed by people with disabilities who are counting on legally required accessibility upgrades that would have been largely paid for with toll revenue.

A landmark 2022 settlement that calls for 95% subway and Staten Island Railway stations to be accessible to people with disabilities by 2055 has provisions that allow the MTA to put a smaller share of money in present and future capital budgets toward those upgrades in case the transit agency fails to meet funding goals.

“Faith in our leaders, especially our governor, has been lost,” said Betsy Plum, executive director of Riders Alliance. “And so we’re now turning to the courts, our judicial branch, to show that democracy can prevail against unilateral, dangerous and unlawful decisions by the executive.”

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.