Adams administration says Trump’s congestion pricing ban ‘undermines the rule of law’

This column originally appeared in On The Way, a weekly newsletter covering everything you need to know about NYC-area transportation.

Sign up to get the full version, which includes answers to reader questions, trivia, service changes and more, in your inbox every Thursday.

When President Donald Trump started making moves to shut down Manhattan’s congestion pricing tolls earlier this year, Mayor Eric Adams seemed to wash his hands of the controversy, claiming it’s a state-run program and “not a city issue.”

New court filings show City Hall is actually taking a more aggressive stance.

The city’s top lawyer, Muriel Goode-Trufant, submitted a memorandum earlier this month supporting the MTA’s federal lawsuit that challenges the president’s order to shut down the tolls.

It not only says the city Department of Transportation “has a direct and substantial interest in” congestion pricing — but also argues Trump’s effort to shut it down “undermines the rule of law itself.”

“Initiatives like congestion pricing require long-term planning and coordination by various agencies — like city DOT — at all levels of government, but these efforts are not achievable if parties may arbitrarily alter course and terminate a program after it has received all lawful approvals and is implemented,” the filing states.

It’s a rare pushback from City Hall against a Trump directive. The mayor’s critics say he’s been cowed by the White House after the president told federal prosecutors to abandon the criminal corruption case they’d been building against the mayor for years.

Since the November election, Adams has repeatedly declined to criticize the president in public. He also declined to publicly defend congestion pricing two days after his Goode-Trufant wrote the April 2 court filing. On April 4, the mayor rode the subway with U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who told reporters the tolls are “fundamentally unfair,” arguing Gov. Kathy Hochul “is forcing people into the train system, into the MTA, because she’s priced them out of using these roads.”

Mayoral spokesperson Sophia Askari argued that as the corporation counsel, Goode-Trufant operates independently of Adams, despite the mayor personally appointing her and having the authority to fire her.

Askari also said there’s nothing inconsistent about the filing and the mayor’s stance.

“As Mayor Adams has consistently said, he supports the governor’s implementation of congestion pricing,” Askari wrote in a statement. “He has also said he is open to working with the federal administration.”

For his part, Duffy has also said one thing in public while his agency’s attorneys write another thing in court filings.

The transportation secretary has publicly given the MTA an April 20 deadline to turn off the tolls. But in an April 4 legal filing in the MTA’s lawsuit, his agency wrote they agreed to a timeline that would delay the judge’s decision on the future of congestion pricing until at least October.

Still, U.S. DOT spokesperson Halee Dobbins said the federal government left open the door to change its mind, and could ask the court to order the tolls shut down ahead of the deadline.

“While the trial schedule could drag the trial until October, there was no explicit agreement in the letter regarding the program remaining in place, nor did the feds agree to withhold injunctive actions in court,” Dobbins wrote in a statement.

MTA officials have said they have no plans to comply with the April 20 deadline, and will continue collecting the tolls until a judge orders otherwise.

This newsletter has been updated to more precisely describe the role of the corporation counsel.

Have a question about subway cars (or literally anything else NYC-transit related)? Use this form to submit yours and we may answer it in a future newsletter!

But note that Curious Commuter questions are exclusive for On The Way newsletter subscribers. Sign up for free here.

Charlotte, from Manhattan

Why are the tunnels under the East River named for Manhattan streets on the north end but for Brooklyn streets on the south?

Answer

To answer the question, we will have to quibble with the premise. We checked with the Transit Museum, and historian Andy Sparberg wrote that, similar to the recent “Saturday Night Live” skit that skewers the layout of Manhattan, “there was no coherent pattern” to the naming conventions of the East River subway tunnels.

But this question does give us an opportunity to remind readers that each under-river subway tunnel has a unique — and often fun — name. As Charlotte points out, the tunnels that connect Manhattan to Queens are named after the streets on the Manhattan side: The 63rd Street tunnel carries the F line, the 60th Street tunnel carries the N, R and W lines and the 53rd Street tunnel carries the E and M lines.

But here’s where it starts to get wild.

The tunnel that carries the 7 train from 42nd Street in Manhattan to Long Island City is called the Steinway Tunnel, named after the founder of the legendary piano company Steinway & Sons, which built a piano factory in Astoria. The tube that carries the L train is sometimes called the Canarsie Tunnel, a reference to the neighborhood where the line terminates. But it’s also sometimes called the 14th Street Tunnel, the street where the line runs in Manhattan.

Farther south there’s the Rutgers Street Tunnel, which is used by the F train between Manhattan and Brooklyn and named after the street in Lower Manhattan (which is named after the same Henry Rutgers of New Jersey fame). The remaining tunnels to Brooklyn are all named after streets in Kings County: The Clark Street (2, 3 lines), Cranberry (A and C lines), Montague (R line) and Joralemon (4 and 5 lines).

The latest NYC area transit headlines

Listen here:

Traffic below 60th Street. It’s way down, according to the MTA.

“The data reflects what New Yorkers are seeing every day: Congestion pricing is working as intended and should remain on, even in the face of misguided threats from the federal government.”

- Brian Fritsch, associate director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA

The MTA estimates that the tolls led to a 13% drop in the number of drivers who otherwise would have entered the congestion zone each day in March.

Brooklyn Audi driver pleads not guilty to killing a mom and two kids. Miriam Yarimi, the 32-year-old who allegedly hit and killed a mom and her daughters on Ocean Parkway last month, faces a 20-count indictment.

Fixing the “hot spots” between New Jersey and Penn Station. NJ Transit and Amtrak said they’re on track to fix the issues that sparked chronic service meltdowns last year, though 12 more weeks of construction-related service disruptions are still scheduled leading into the summer.

Another apparent subway surfing incident. Police said a man died in the Bronx early Tuesday after possibly falling off a 1 train in Kingsbridge.

Will last week’s fatal helicopter crash in the Hudson River lead to a crackdown on tourist choppers? Mayor Eric Adams said the flights are vital for the city’s tourism industry. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop says they have to stop.

Car-free streets for Earth Day. On Saturday, April 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., select streets and plazas across all five boroughs will be blocked off for pedestrians.

Listen to us talk about all this! Download our app and tune in to “All Things Considered” around 4 p.m. today. And catch up on last week’s segment in case you missed it.