New York Judge Rules Against Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit Challenging Pause of Congestion Pricing

Judge Arthur Engoron presides over former President Donald Trump's fraud trial in N.Y. Supreme Court, in New York City on Oct. 3, 2023. Dave Sanders/Pool Photo via AP

NEW YORK—Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron on Friday denied a motion from counsel for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to toss out two lawsuits brought by plaintiffs charging that the governor’s pause on congestion pricing in the city oversteps legal bounds.

The judge announced his decision in a courtroom at 60 Centre St. in Lower Manhattan after roughly two and a half hours of oral arguments and responses from attorneys representing the governor and the plaintiffs, respectively. Several independent sources also spoke to reiterate points they had made in their amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs.

Congestion pricing, which was scheduled to take effect June 30, is a policy of charging drivers a fee when they enter the Congestion Relief Zone. For example, the driver of a passenger car entering Manhattan below 60th St. would pay a $15 toll. Trucks would pay more, depending on size.

Advocates say the tolls are needed to alleviate traffic density in the borough by encouraging drivers to find other means of commuting, help keep the air clean to protect residents’ health, and raise money for the issuance of $15 billion worth of bonds that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) needs to upgrade public transportation networks and vehicles.

Hochul said at a June 7 press conference that “hardworking New Yorkers” who are “still feeling the cost of inflation on their pocketbooks” could ill afford the $15 tolls.

Lawsuits Proceed

The two lawsuits, filed in July after congestion pricing failed to go into effect as scheduled, are City Club of New York et al. v. Hochul, and Riders Alliance v. Hochul.

The first alleges that by issuing a pause on the policy, the governor violated the terms of the 2019 MTA Reform and Traffic Mobility Act, one of whose provisions expressly authorizes congestion pricing.

The second alleges that the governor’s pause violates the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which seeks to curb carbon emissions and promote clean and breathable air for New Yorkers.

Congestion pricing has enjoyed the support of a broad array of ecological activists, spokespersons for the disabled, and prominent figures in New York City politics, such as Comptroller Brad Lander.

After Engoron issued his ruling, Lander’s office released a statement praising the decision.

“Judge Engoron rightfully denied Governor Hochul’s motion to dismiss two critical lawsuits to restore congestion pricing. This development is a blow to the governor’s misguided belief that she has the ultimate authority to override an established law and to remake it to fit her whims,” Lander stated.

Andrew Celli, an attorney for the City Club of New York, argued before the court that from a statutory viewpoint, Hochul had overstepped the bounds of her legitimate authority. He said that under the 2019 law passed by the state legislature, the decision was up to the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), not the governor.

“The legal authority to decide when congestion pricing begins belongs to the TBTA, not to the governor and not to the state Department of Transportation,” Celli said.

Though the decision was not up to the Department of Transportation, that body had done all it needed to do to comply with federal rules and expectations for implementing a change in transit policy in New York City, and the city itself had also done all that federal law required, he said.

“All the legal and practical requirements for federal approval have been met, and all that remains outstanding is the technical signing of the toll agreement,” Celli said.

Celli said traffic and pollution continue to increase and the city has been losing the new toll revenue after the congestion pricing was blocked before its effective date of June 30.

Public Transit in Need of Funding

Celli said the toll funds would have allowed MTA to issue bonds to start upgrades for at least 23 subway stations. The city has had to cancel or postpone renovations and has not been able to purchase the buses it needed, he said.

Traffic moves through downtown Manhattan in New York City on April 21, 2023. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)Andrew Otis, a partner and chair of the environmental practice at the law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis and Frankel, said congestion pricing would probably have raised around $155 million and that the city needed the revenue to qualify for the issuance of bonds worth significantly more.

Otis said that by not issuing bonds, the city had lost $15 billion in badly needed funding.

Daniel Mullkoff, a lawyer at the firm of Cuti Hecker Wang, made a case for congestion pricing based on the needs of the one million New York City residents he said have disabilities.

“Mass transit is critically important to all New Yorkers, yet the New York City transit system has failed for many decades to meet certain accessibility standards,” Mullkoff said.

According to Mullkoff, fewer than 30 percent of subway stations in the city have elevators, and those that do suffer frequent power outages. He said 23 stations that had elevator installations scheduled have had to postpone them.

Critics

Commuters’ advocacy groups such as Passengers United joined the governor in questioning congestion pricing’s efficacy and fairness.

In the view of Jack Nierenberg, Passengers United’s vice president, charging higher fees to ease the flow of traffic into Manhattan is self-defeating. If congestion pricing achieves its stated goal and significantly fewer people drive into Manhattan, then the sharply reduced number of toll-paying commuters will negate any fiscal gain from the $15 charge.

Nierenberg and others have criticized the outcome of congestion pricing in London. They say the richest 20 percent of commuters still pursue the same habits as before while the bottom 20 percent face serious inconveniences. In Nierenberg’s view, this class-based disparity is one of the last things New Yorkers want to see implemented in their city.

Alan Schoenfeld, a lawyer for Hochul, denied the accusation that the governor had gone back on her word by pausing congestion pricing, and said that the governor’s position on the policy was not inconsistent.

Hochul had made general statements in support of the principle of congestion pricing before she announced the pause on June 5, partly on procedural grounds, Schoenfeld said, when a TBTA tolling agreement still needed the governor’s review and approval.

The challenge to the governor’s actions had no basis in federal law, Schoenfeld said.

“Our legal position is [that] it is the governor’s decision as to whether the state should enter into that contract, and the timing of it. What wasn’t finalized is that the governor didn’t want the contract to be executed,” he stated.

“We have over a century of precedent standing for precisely this position.”

The governor’s office and the Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’s request for comment.