A Manhattan federal decide has blocked the federal authorities from ending congestion pricing earlier than the tip of an ongoing lawsuit — issuing a preliminary injunction towards Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the U.S. Division of Transportation on Wednesday.
The order, issued by Choose Lewis Liman, comes in the future after he issued a brief restraining order within the case, blocking any such motion for 2 weeks.
The injunction indefinitely prevents Duffy or his company from performing on their claims that they will unilaterally revoke authorization toll — and blocks any of the so-called “compliance actions” Duffy has threatened — till Liman guidelines on the legality of USDOT’s efforts to finish the congestion pricing program.
“For the avoidance of doubt, [Duffy and the USDOT] are enjoined from taking any of the“compliance measures” … together with withholding federal funds, approvals, or authorizations from New York state or native companies to implement compliance with or implement … [their] purported termination of the Tolling Program,” the 109-page order concludes.
Chatting with reporters shortly after the order was filed Paige Graves, MTA’s basic counsel, mentioned she hadn’t but learn the injunction in full.
The congestion toll first started in January — a requirement of New York State’s 2019 Visitors Mobility Act, meant to each scale back congestion and again $15 billion in bonds towards particular MTA initiatives.
Duffy first claimed the authority to unilaterally finish the toll weeks later, in February. When the MTA sued, Duffy gave Gov. Hochul a March 21 deadline to finish the toll. Duffy then prolonged the deadline to April 20, then to Might 21.
Because the toll remained in place on Might 21, Duffy — in a letter to Hochul — threatened to withhold federal funds for any freeway mission in Manhattan, refuse to approve Manhattan initiatives underneath the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act, and refuse to greenlight any funding amendments from the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council — except Hochul ended the toll.
In issuing Tuesday’s restraining order, Liman mentioned New York stood to endure irreparable harms from the feds’ calls for, together with the “delay of numerous public works projects,” “harm to the bond market” and the “undermining [of] the authority of a sovereign state” that had democratically handed the regulation requiring the toll.
