By Hank Russell
Two Long Island lawmakers signed on to a letter calling on President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to continue the fight against congestion pricing.
U.S. Representatives Nick LaLota (R-Rocky Point) and Andrew Garbarino (R-Patchogue) recently signed on a letter along with Elise Stefanik (R-Plattsburgh), Mike Lawler (R-Pearl River), Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), Tom Kean Jr. (R-New Jersey) and Nick Langworthy (R-Jamestown) thanking Trump and Duffy for continuing to battle the congestion pricing plan.
As previously published in Long Island Life & Politics, Trump told Governor Kathy Hochul that she initially had until March 21 to end the Central Business District Tolling Program (also known as the congestion pricing program). But, Hochul said she will dig in her heels and has no intention of shutting it down.
The Trump administration later changed its mind and extended the deadline by another 30 days, LILP previously reported. But Hochul was given until May 21 to stop the cordon pricing program.
LILP later reported that a New York judge dealt a blow to the Trump administration when he issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the federal government, forbidding them from punishing New York State over the congestion pricing program. The TRO went into effect until June 9.
In the letter, the signatories cited statistics showing that there have been 144 felony assaults in the subway system so far this year, with felony assaults up 6.7% from 2023 and 54.8% from 2019. Furthermore the MTA lost $700 million alone from fare evasion.
“Instead of addressing this brazen lawlessness, mismanagement, and public safety crisis, Governor Hochul wants to extract even more money from law-abiding, taxpaying New Yorkers to subsidize the dysfunction,” they wrote in the letter. “That is not governance; it’s coercion.” They also called congestion pricing “a blatant scheme to fund Governor Hochul’s inflated Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) budget at the expense of working families and small businesses.”
“Hochul’s commuter tax was never about improving transit—it’s about squeezing hardworking suburban families to paper over the MTA’s bloated, mismanaged budget,” LaLota said. “She’s forcing law-abiding, taxpaying commuters into a system riddled with crime, delays, and dysfunction—without demanding a shred of accountability.”
Garbarino called congestion pricing “a shameless cash grab—punishing hardworking New Yorkers to cover up her own mismanagement.”
In response, a spokesperson for the governor said, “No matter how many times the Trump Administration tries to undermine New York, the Governor remains steadfast: congestion pricing is legal, it’s working and the cameras are staying on.”
LILP also reached out to the MTA. Spokesperson Eugene Resnick said in a statement, “Traffic and crime are down and LIRR and subway ridership are up. More people are coming to Manhattan yet we have less gridlock. This is a program that is working.”