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 remains 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 congestion pricing – alive, even as she takes an increasingly combative stance with the administration.
The governor did note that Trump winced when she asked him to help secure a massive $6 billion for the Penn Station overhaul.
“I don’t take that as a ‘no,’” Hochul said, adding, “We are doing Penn Station. I’m supposed to show him the plans. That will be my next trip down.”
Hochul’s prior conversation evidently didn’t change Trump’s mind on congestion pricing, however.
His Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in February wrote a letter ordering the MTA to shut down the phased-in $15 congestion pricing toll for entering lower Manhattan.
Trump celebrated by comparing himself to a monarch in a Truth Social post: “LONG LIVE THE KING!”
Hochul blasted Trump in harsh terms, likening herself to Rambo and taking up the mantle of the “resistance” to the president — as the MTA sued the feds to keep the tolling program in place.
But Trump and Hochul kept talking.
During one White House visit, Hochul even provided a pro-congestion pricing picture book to Trump, including phrases clearly designed to flatter the president, such as “big, beautiful Penn Station.”
“Big words, nice colors,” Hochul recounted to a crowd, drawing giggles.
Just days after the picture book powwow, it was revealed that the Trump administration set a March 21 deadline to end congestion pricing.
Hochul in the meantime has rebuffed the new administration on threatened cuts to the federal Department of Education, an attempt to extradite an abortion doctor to Louisiana and tariffs against Canada.
Cost estimates for the varying proposals surrounding Penn Station have run north of an eye-watering $17 billion.
Hochul also said she opposes proposals from Amtrak and New Jersey Transit that would significantly ramp up the number of trains that could run through the hub out of fear it could cost of razing parts of or entire adjoining city blocks.
“As owner of the station, Amtrak is fully committed to transforming New York Penn Station with our partners to ensure it meets the needs of both current and future travelers,” the company said in a statement. “The ultimate goal must be to achieve both the improved station experience and the increased capacity necessary to take advantage of the expanded train volumes made possible by the new Hudson River Tunnels and the Gateway Program. We welcome continued productive discussions and collaboration with all our stakeholders, including the state of New York, to deliver these vital improvements to Penn Station.”
The governor said Amtrak’s insistence on its plans has delayed the project, but now she’s got “everybody heading down the right tracks” over the last few months.
“The challenge has been that Amtrak had a different vision. I want to redo the station. I want it to be magnificent,” Hochul said.
“I said I’m not going to destroy this neighborhood. We can do the station itself, make it something we’re proud of, without destroying a neighborhood in the process,” she added.
Assemblyman Tony Simone (D-Manhattan), who reps Penn Station, said he was glad to hear the governor vocally oppose Amtrak’s proposal.
“It’s time to build a big bold Penn Station. I’m glad that she’s talking to the president about it. It’s time to do it,” Simone told The Post.
But Simone, a proponent of congestion pricing, said he doesn’t think the revamp project should be any sort of bargaining chip for congestion pricing.
“I don’t think they should be connected,” he said.
