Judge Rules in Favor of MTA in Congestion Pricing Suit

In the ongoing saga of New York City’s beleaguered congestion pricing program, a federal judge ruled against a lawsuit challenging the program, throwing Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to suspend it into further question.

As Gersh Kuntzman explains in Streetsblog NYC, the lawsuit accused the MTA of violating the National Environmental Policy Act. The judge disagreed, saying that the MTA conducted a “meticulous” 45,000-page analysis of the program’s potential impacts.

Kuntzman outlines the judge’s point-by-point refutation of the plaintiffs’ arguments. “Liman's 113-page opinion dealt mostly with jurisdictional claims and whether plaintiffs had sued the right people or whether they had standing in the first place. But it also included a clear lack of patience for most of the plaintiffs' arguments, such as the contention that congestion pricing was such a significant change that its magnitude alone required a formal environmental impact statement instead of the supposedly less-rigorous environmental assessment.”

Commenting on the decision, Riders Alliance Executive Director Betsy Plum said, “Now that a federal court has upheld the MTA's exhaustive environmental review, our governor should feel comfortable with moving forward and delivering the program's benefits.”

A ruling in a separate case brought by the state of New Jersey is still pending.