Trump hasn’t 'TERMINATED' congestion pricing in NYC ... yet.

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President Donald Trump has been back in the White House for four days, and so far he’s failed to make good on his campaign promise to “TERMINATE” congestion pricing during his first week in office.

The tolls, which required federal approval before they launched on Jan 5, provide a funding stream for the MTA’s construction budget. Transit officials plan to use the revenue to finance $15 billion worth of repairs and upgrades to New York City’s troubled mass transit system.

So how could Trump kill congestion pricing? It’s unclear if he actually has the legal authority to cancel the tolls through an executive order. The tolls could be ended through an act of Congress, as some New York Republicans have suggested. To fend off any politicking over the program, its supporters think the MTA should aggressively highlight its early success in reducing gridlock in Manhattan.

“I think it's still an open risk that the administration will try to interfere with congestion pricing,” Nicole Gelinas with the Manhattan Institute told Gothamist. “The state doesn't have a lot of time to prove to a broad array of New Yorkers — not just people within Manhattan, or commuting by bus to Manhattan — that it's working so well that it should be immune from any political interference.”

Even if Trump stays out of the congestion pricing fight, history shows his administration will be unfriendly to the MTA.

During his first term, Trump held up the routine bureaucracy that would’ve allowed congestion pricing to move forward. He also held up federal grants to fund the Gateway Project to build a new tunnel beneath the Hudson River, as well as the Second Avenue subway’s extension into East Harlem. The money for those two projects (which were two of the largest federal grants ever issued for mass transit projects) came during President Joe Biden’s administration.

Because the money is already approved, experts believe those projects are safe from interference from Washington.

But other New York City megaprojects on the horizon could be in Trump’s crosshairs. Those include long-delayed repairs to the triple-cantilever structure of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which remains usable for now thanks to a series of temporary repairs and weight limit restrictions. The Trump administration could also hold up Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed Interborough Express light rail line.

“Major funding for these usually requires a lengthy negotiation with [the Federal Transit Administration], resulting in a ‘full funding grant agreement,’” said Jon Orcutt, the director of Bike New York and a former New York City transportation official. “Projects that may seek this kind of agreement in the future could be on the block.”

Orcutt also pointed out that infrastructure funding from Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will run dry in 2026. That could spell trouble for the MTA’s new five-year construction plan, which assumes the feds will cover $14 billion worth of projects. (The MTA’s previous construction plan, which was approved in 2019 during Trump’s first term, received $13 billion thanks to federal formula grants).

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said any drop in federal subsidies could be devastating for the transit agency.

“Any reduction in funding puts the MTA and the city's economy in harm’s way,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “New York is already struggling to identify funds for the MTA's next capital program, let alone find replacements for money already in its budget."

MTA Chair Janno Lieber hasn’t publicly criticized Trump since Election Day, but has instead said he hopes the president understands how important mass transit is to the city.

“ Donald Trump is a New Yorker who, in part because he's an owner of office buildings, gets that traffic is an impediment to the economics of New York City, and with it, the nation,” Lieber said at an MTA board meeting after the election. “There may be MAGA folks around him who look at it differently, but that is one of the reasons that I am optimistic about how this will go forward into the Trump era.”

Trump, for his part, reportedly floated the idea of making Penn Station and the city’s subways “beautiful” to Hochul.

Gelinas suggested New York’s rightward political shift in recent years could make Trump more inclined to send money to the state — so long as he’s handing the check to a Republican like Hudson Valley Rep. Mike Lawler, who is mulling a run for governor.

“Strangely, we've proven ourselves a swing state when it comes to Congress, meaning there is some incentive to throw money our way, but that money would have to have swing-representative champions,” Gelinas said. “And it's not clear that we can interest Lawler in, say, the BQE.”

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Question from Alison in Brooklyn

Is the subway technically privately owned?

Answer

While New York City technically owns the subway, it’s leased to the MTA, which is a state-run public authority whose leaders are not elected and do not require public approval to take on debt. But Alison’s hunch would have been true a century ago. The majority of the city’s subways were built by private companies during the first quarter of the 20th century. Those companies initially profited from fares, but went bankrupt after politicians banned them from raising their rates. The system became publicly owned after the private enterprises went under.

The latest NYC area transit headlines

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• Now that congestion pricing is in effect, drivers are discovering a quirk of the Queensboro Bridge that tolls them even if they don’t want to enter the zone south of 60th Street — and they’re furious. Read more.