After Jan. 20, Donald Trump’s secretary of transportation will take steps to revoke New York’s congestion pricing. That has been certain for months, but Gov. Hochul’s 11th hour modification of the plan yesterday likely gives Trump and his DOT secretary even more grounds to end the tolling of vehicles driving below 60th St. Trump was not subtle in proclaiming on May 24: “Congestion Pricing” is a disaster for NYC. I stopped it for years at the Federal level, but Crooked Joe railroaded it through. A massive business killer and tax on New Yorkers, and anyone going into Manhattan. I will TERMINATE Congestion Pricing in my FIRST WEEK back in Office!!! Manhattan is looking for business, not looking to kill business! Less than two weeks later, Hochul announced her “pause,” which was really an illegal interference in a mandated and authorized state program on the verge of final federal approval and the commencement of collecting the $15 toll on June 30. When the tolling now starts on Jan. 5, Hochul’s meddling (laws cannot be paused on a governor’s decree), will have cost the MTA half a year’s worth of toll revenues valued at half a billion dollars. While that is bad enough, reducing the tolls and the credits by 40% might be considered a substantial modification that the incoming Trump DOT may reject, saying that the Biden DOT didn’t properly go through all the necessary approval steps. Hochul said that “This is a very normal sequence of events.” It is not. And the unusual procedure may kill the whole thing. So no tolls at $15, no tolls at $9, no tolls at all. We hope we’re wrong, but Trump will be fighting to overturn the tolling, so why give him more weapons? If it does survive a Trump reversal, there are also the nine federal lawsuits opposing congestion pricing (two in Newark, four in Manhattan, two in White Plains and one on Long Island). In each of those suits, the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice all support congestion pricing. Come Jan. 21, they will switch sides to be against the toll program. If the tolls are upheld in court, Hochul’s reduction to $9 from $15 needs to still generate enough money to underwrite $15 billion in capital spending for transit. As she said: “This is the law of the State of New York. I’m obligated to follow New York law,” even though she’s been breaking that law since June. If a $15 toll can produce $1 billion in cash to sell $15 billion in bonds, how can 40% less revenue do the same? Will the interest rates on those bonds have to be higher? Will the terms of the bonds have to be longer? Or both? And won’t that increase the cost of borrowing to the MTA; the more that goes to pay for debt service, the less we’ll have for upgrading signals and replacing rolling stock. The fee was set at $15 for a reason, now thrown out the window for Hochul’s political expediency. We look forward to when the tolls we have urged for decades start on Jan. 5. Our fingers are crossed that they remain on after Jan. 20.