The Trump administration announced on Wednesday it intends to rescind approval of New York City’s congestion pricing program that is designed to reduce traffic in the heart of busy Manhattan and, in the process, raise billions to upgrade New York’s subway train and bus systems.
In Wednesday’s letter, Duffy also said that he believes the “imposition of tolls under the [congestion pricing program] appears to be driven primarily by the need to raise revenue for the Metropolitan Transit Authority system as opposed to the need to reduce congestion”.
The MTA and a New York bridge authority filed a lawsuit in Manhattan against Duffy, saying the department’s decision to withdraw approval of the program is “for blatantly political reasons” to uphold Trump’s campaign promise.
New Yorkers had mixed views about the scheme, but proponents of public transport and a cleaner environment were behind it and in the early days there were indications from MTA data that street congestion had eased in central Manhattan, the New York Times reported.
On 20 January, the day of Trump’s inauguration, Murphy sent a letter to Trump in which he asked him to re-examine New York’s congestion pricing program.
