Hochul will defy Trump deadline to stop NYC congestion pricing but insists president still backs her Penn Station revamp plan
A defiant Gov.Kathy Hochul insisted congestion pricing cameras will stay on past a President Trump-mandated Friday deadline to stop the tolls — but said their mutual desire to revamp Penn Station is keeping broader talks alive.Hochul told reporters Tuesday that she didn’t know if her Oval Office meeting with Trump last week changed his mind on trying to kill the hated toll for drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street.“I don’t know the answer to that question, but I said the cameras are staying on,” she said.Metropolitan Transportation Authority honcho Janno Lieber likewise offered bad news Tuesday for motorists hoping to avoid ponying up $9 to drive into the heart of Manhattan after this week.He said the Trump administration’s March 21 end date for congestion pricing will “come and go” and the tolls will remain, so long as the MTA’s lawsuit challenging the US Department of Transportation’s move to kill the program remain active.“This is not a test of wills,” he said at an unrelated press conference at Penn Station, Newsday reported.
“It’s just the reality that, when you have a dispute, things don’t change until a court orders it, and that has not yet taken place.”The adamant stance by Hochul and Lieber signals a long potential fight with Trump over congestion pricing.Trump had vowed to kill congestion pricing if elected, but Hochul hoped that the native New Yorker could be swayed otherwise — despite the widespread unpopularity of the first-in-the-nation toll program.The governor’s hopes were buoyed, at publicly, by seemingly productive early talks with Trump, who expressed a desire to make the Big Apple’s crumbling Penn Station and subways “beautiful” again.Hochul said Tuesday that she still has common ground with Trump over the Penn Station project.She agreed it was a fair characterization that the conversation over Penn Station is keeping her broader talks with the president – including about the future of conges...