Trump’s transportation division shouldn’t be planning to sue if the MTA blows by Secretary Sean Duffy’s deadlines to finish the state’s congestion pricing program, new courtroom filings reveal.
The filings come as Duffy has repeatedly talked — and tweeted — robust, threatening funding to the transit company and deriding Gov. Hochul’s “disrespect towards the federal government.”
In a letter filed to the docket within the MTA’s lawsuit to avoid wasting this system, Roberta Kaplan, an lawyer for the transit company, mentioned she’s been in discussions with attorneys for the federal authorities as each side search to schedule the case.
“The MTA … specifically asked whether the federal defendants contemplate taking any unilateral action on or after [the current deadline of] April 20 that might require plaintiffs to seek expedited injunctive relief,” Kaplan wrote to federal decide Lewis Liman, who’s listening to the MTA’s problem in Manhattan federal courtroom.
Kaplan mentioned the feds replied “that, at present, they do not intend to seek preliminary injunctive relief themselves.”
United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy joins Mayor Adams for a subway on April 4, 2025. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Each day Information)
In different phrases, even when the MTA misses the arbitrary deadline for ending congestion pricing imposed by Duffy, attorneys for the federal authorities will not be planning to sue to cease the toll forward of the conclusion of the case.
Primarily based on a schedule for the proceedings proposed by Kaplan — and agreed to, she mentioned, by the feds — the case might prolong into October.
What foundation, if any, the federal authorities might should revoke a beforehand granted authorization and finish a state-run program mandated by state legislation stays unclear.
Duffy first sought to finish the toll in February, declaring that his division had revoked a key federal authorization granted by the Biden administration final yr — regardless of specific tips within the authorization that solely the state of New York can reverse it. The MTA sued in Manhattan federal courtroom the identical day.
Duffy’s division then issued a letter, demanding New York “cease the collection of tolls” by March 21.
However on March 20, he walked it again, asserting in an angrily-worded tweet that he was extending his deadline 30 days — to April 20.
Congestion pricing tools and signage are pictured close to the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Each day Information)
Amid the shifting deadlines, Duffy has additionally threatened to chop off federal funding to the MTA, which receives roughly $2 billion in capital funding a yr from Washington.
The transportation secretary has tied this risk to his claims that crime is on the rise within the New York Metropolis subway system, regardless of NYPD stats exhibiting crime at a decade low.
Duffy doubled down final week, threatening to “offer” DOGE — Elon Musk’s para-governmental firing-squad — to the MTA after encountering a mentally-ill particular person throughout a two-stop subway trip.
In her letter to the courtroom, Kaplan mentioned Duffy “appeared to suggest that [the feds] may consider improperly withholding federal funds from the State of New York, as the Trump Administration has done in many other recent cases, in order to coerce compliance with its demands.”
She went on to say that the MTA and different state and municipal businesses “will act swiftly to assert their rights should the federal government improperly withhold funds or otherwise illegally retaliate against them for commencing this litigation.”
