NYC Congestion Pricing Explained: Rates, Exemptions, and the DOJ Appeal

TL;DR

• The Congestion Relief Zone (CRZ) tolls vehicles entering Manhattan south of 60th Street. Live since January 5, 2025, the first cordon-pricing program in any major US city. Statutory basis: the 2019 NY Traffic Mobility Act. Operating agency: MTA Bridges and Tunnels (TBTA), the MTA subsidiary that runs the seven bridges and two tunnels and now this. Operational lead: Allison C. de Cerreño, COO of MTA Bridges and Tunnels.
• Peak passenger-car E-ZPass: $9.00, once per day. Overnight: $2.25. Trucks pay $14.40 / $21.60 per entry, not per day. Yellow taxis: $0.75 per trip; Uber and Lyft: $1.50 per trip, both passed to the passenger by TLC rule. Tolls by Mail is 50 percent higher than E-ZPass across the board. Peak: 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekends. The toll applies 24 hours; only the rate changes.
• The four tolled crossings (Lincoln, Holland, Queens-Midtown, Hugh L. Carey) earn a peak-only E-ZPass credit against the CRZ toll: $3.00 for passenger cars, $1.50 for motorcycles, $7.20 for small trucks, $12.00 for large trucks. NJ-origin drivers via the Lincoln or Holland Tunnel pay a marginal $6 CRZ toll during peak, not $9. The FDR Drive and the West Side Highway are exempt for through traffic.
• First-year net revenue: $562 million (MTA-released, January 2026); Hochul’s anniversary release rounded to $550 million-plus. The $500 million annual projection was beaten because camera-system operating costs (about $10 million per month) came in low. The revenue is bonded 30 years by TBTA as lockbox bonds (first issuance scheduled 2026) and produces $15 billion in cumulative capital over the bond life, dedicated to the 2025-2029 MTA Capital Plan.
• First-year operational outcomes (Hochul, January 5, 2026): 27 million fewer vehicles entered the zone (an 11 percent reduction); up to 15 minutes saved each way at the major crossings during peak; 22 percent reduction in particulate matter (Cornell University study); 6 percent GHG reduction; subway ridership +7.7 percent (1.3 billion riders); LIRR +9 percent (81 million); Metro-North +6 percent (69 million); bus speeds inside the zone +2.3 percent. More than $6 billion in MTA capital projects unlocked by CP are in construction.
• The federal court fight: U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman (SDNY, a 2018 Trump appointee) ruled in MTA v. Duffy, 25-cv-1413 on March 3, 2026 that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s February 2025 attempt to rescind FHWA approval was arbitrary and capricious. The 149-page opinion held that the Secretary’s authority “does not carry with it the inherent unilateral ability of whoever holds the office of Secretary of the Transportation at any particular moment to terminate a project whether established by himself or a predecessor.” DOJ filed a Second Circuit notice of appeal in early May 2026 (Bloomberg confirms May 1). The briefing schedule has not been published as of June 6, 2026. A reversal would blow a ~$500M-$562M annual hole in the capital plan flow.

If you drive into Manhattan below 60th Street, you pay the $9 toll. If you take an Uber to a meeting in Midtown, the $1.50 shows up on your receipt. If you watched the program get paused, restarted, sued over, and then upheld, you know roughly that congestion pricing is a real thing now and roughly that the Trump administration is trying to kill it. What almost nobody walks around with is the full machine in one frame: the rate table, the seven exemptions, the where-the-money-goes flow, the federal court fight, and the first-year data that already came in better than the MTA projected.

This page puts the machine in one frame. The 60th Street cordon, the per-vehicle rate table with the tunnel-credit mechanic, the seven exemption categories with the LIDP and IDEP eligibility rules, the $562 million first-year net flowing into 30-year TBTA lockbox bonds that generate $15 billion in cumulative capital, the March 3, 2026 Liman ruling and the May 2026 DOJ Second Circuit appeal, the operational outcomes (27 million fewer vehicles, Cornell’s 22 percent particulate-matter reduction, +7.7 percent subway ridership), and the engagement paths a resident actually has. Congestion pricing is one of seven funding pots in the larger MTA architecture; for the full architecture, see how the MTA is funded.

What Congestion Pricing Is and How the 60th Street Cordon Works

The Central Business District Tolling Program (CBDTP), branded as the Congestion Relief Zone, is a cordon-pricing toll on vehicles entering Manhattan south of 60th Street. NY State authorized it in the 2019 MTA Reform and Traffic Mobility Act (Part ZZZ of the FY20 enacted state budget, codified at NY Vehicle and Traffic Law §1702 and related sections; original bill S1509-A / A2008-C). The Traffic Mobility Review Board scoped the rate structure under the statute. The FHWA approved the program under the Value Pricing Pilot Program after a multi-year environmental review. MTA Bridges and Tunnels (TBTA) operates it. Janno Lieber, MTA Chair and CEO, is the program’s primary press-facing principal. Allison C. de Cerreño, TBTA’s Chief Operating Officer and the agency’s key leadership figure through the final implementation stages per Engineering News-Record’s 2025 profile, is the operational lead.

The implementation chronology is short and busy:

The 60th Street boundary, precisely

The cordon covers Manhattan south of 60th Street, inbound. Two corridors are exempt for through traffic and structurally answer a question most coverage skips:

• The FDR Drive (along the East River). A driver northbound on the FDR from the Brooklyn Bridge to the RFK Triborough does not pay. A driver who exits the FDR onto local streets (the 42nd Street UN exit, the 23rd Street exit) triggers the toll at the local-street entry.
• The West Side Highway (Henry Hudson Parkway / NY-9A). A driver southbound from the GW Bridge to the Battery Tunnel does not pay. Exit onto local streets and the toll applies.

The four tolled tunnel and bridge entries into the zone are the Lincoln Tunnel (from NJ via Port Authority, into 39th Street), the Holland Tunnel (from NJ, into Canal Street), the Queens-Midtown Tunnel (from Queens, into 36th-37th Streets), and the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel (Brooklyn-Battery, into Lower Manhattan). The four East River bridges (Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, and the RFK into the FDR exempt corridor) bring vehicles in from Brooklyn and Queens. Local streets crossing 60th Street southbound bring them in from the Upper East and West Sides.

The peak window: 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekends. Overnight covers the remaining hours. The toll runs 24 hours; the rate changes, not the operation.

That is the cordon. Manhattan below 60th Street, FDR and West Side Highway exempt for through traffic, four tolled tunnels with their own credit mechanic, 24/7 operation at two different rates.

The Per-Vehicle Rate Structure: $9, the Tunnel Credit, and the Phasing

Every vehicle class has its own rate. Every rate has a peak figure and an overnight figure. E-ZPass earns the published rate; Tolls by Mail (license-plate billing for non-E-ZPass vehicles) is 50 percent higher across the board. Most coverage gives the $9 figure and stops there. The full table is what you actually need.

The complete rate table (June 2026)

The trigger rules vary by vehicle class

This is the distinction most coverage skips:

• Passenger cars and motorcycles pay once per day regardless of how many times the vehicle re-enters the zone. Enter at 8 a.m., exit at 11 a.m., re-enter at 2 p.m., exit at 6 p.m., pay one peak toll for the day.
• Trucks pay per entry, not per day. A small truck making three CRZ entries in one peak day pays $14.40 times 3, or $43.20 in CRZ tolls alone, plus tunnel tolls less any credit.
• Yellow taxis, green cabs, and for-hire vehicles pay per trip that starts, ends, or passes through the zone. The surcharge is passed through to the passenger as a separate receipt line item by TLC rule, not absorbed by the driver or the platform.

The per-entry rule for trucks is the structural reason commercial-fleet operators pay attention to congestion pricing in a way passenger-car drivers do not. A delivery operation making six entries a day at $14.40 each pays $86.40 in CRZ tolls per truck per day, before any other operating cost.

The tunnel credit: the answer to “what about NJ?”

E-ZPass vehicles entering the zone during peak through one of the four tolled crossings earn a credit against the CRZ toll:

The four crossings that qualify are the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, and the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel. No credit for Tolls by Mail drivers. No credit overnight (when the base toll is already 75 percent lower). The credit is the structural answer to the NJ-commuter question: a Lincoln or Holland Tunnel driver during peak pays a marginal $6 CRZ toll, not $9, after the $3 credit. The tunnel toll itself is separate.

The statutory phasing: $9 now, $12 in 2028, $15 in 2031

The Traffic Mobility Review Board scoped the rates as a six-year phase-in:

• 2025-2027: $9 peak passenger-car E-ZPass (the current rate)
• 2028: $12 peak passenger-car E-ZPass
• 2031: $15 peak passenger-car E-ZPass

The $9 figure is correct through 2027. Treat it as a starter rate, not the long-term target. The 2031 figure ($15) is what the program was originally scoped to charge at launch before Hochul restarted in November 2024 at the reduced base. Any change to this schedule would require MTA Board action subject to FHWA approval; nothing on the Board’s 2026 calendar suggests modification.

Late payment and enforcement

• First notice: the original toll amount.
• Second notice: $50 violation fee plus the original toll.
• After 30 days: referral to MTA collections; registration holds and license-suspension referrals are on the table for continued non-payment.
• Ghost plates and altered plates: NYPD and TBTA Bridge and Tunnel Officers enforce jointly. A March 2026 enforcement push ran coordinated impound operations at inbound river crossings; Streetsblog covered the targeted operations.

That is the rate machine. Eight base lines, two surcharges, four tunnel credits, three trigger rules, one phasing schedule. The next layer is who does not pay it.

The Seven Exemption and Discount Categories

Seven categories pull a vehicle out of full toll exposure. Five are full exemptions, two are discount or income-conditioned plans. Yellow taxis and FHVs are not exempt; they pay the per-trip surcharge. This trips up readers who assume “ride-share is exempted from congestion pricing” the way emergency vehicles are. They are not.

A few things to surface that the table cannot carry.

LIDP is the discount most NYC drivers should check. The 50 percent discount kicks in after the first 10 trips in a calendar month and applies to all peak-period trips after that. The eligibility threshold is $50,000 in federal adjusted gross income for the prior year, or current enrollment in SNAP, WIC, or TANF. You need a NY E-ZPass account, not a TBM account, to enroll. Apply through mta.info or the NY E-ZPass NY portal (e-zpassny.com → Congestion Relief Zone Plans).

IDEP and ODEP are full exemptions, not discounts. IDEP covers vehicles registered to an individual with a transit-prohibitive disability (or to a designated caregiver who drives them in the zone); ODEP covers organizational vehicles like Access-A-Ride, ambulettes, and special-ed transport. Apply at mta.info/fares-tolls/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/discounts-exemptions; disability documentation is required.

TLC commuter vans are exempt, but TLC for-hire vehicles and yellow taxis are not. This is the live confusion in the FHV market. Uber and Lyft drivers, and yellow-taxi drivers, do not pay the toll. Their passengers pay the per-trip surcharge ($1.50 FHV, $0.75 yellow) as a line item. The 2019 FHV congestion surcharge that pre-dates CBDTP is a separate program; both can apply to the same trip.

Emergency vehicles are exempt by statute, not policy. NY Vehicle and Traffic Law sets the definition; the MTA does not pick which vehicles qualify.

The remaining exemption category nobody asks about: government vehicles, narrowly defined. Most agency-marked passenger vehicles are not exempt. The exempt list is a specific MTA-published roster, not a blanket government carve-out.

Where Your $9 Actually Goes: The 30-Year Bond Architecture

The flow is structural, and most coverage gives the annual revenue figure without the multi-decade compounding mechanic. Here is the actual money flow:

Toll revenue (vehicles entering CRZ)
  → MTA Bridges and Tunnels (TBTA) operating accounts
  → TBTA-issued lockbox revenue bonds (30-year amortization, first issuance 2026)
  → Bond proceeds flow into the 2025-2029 MTA Capital Plan
  → Capital Plan funds long-life assets:
      Second Avenue Subway Phase 2,
      ADA upgrades at 9+ stations,
      CBTC signal modernization,
      bus electrification,
      systemwide state-of-good-repair

The first-year revenue actuals

The $562 million is annual net revenue. The $15 billion is cumulative bond proceeds the MTA can borrow against that revenue over 30 years. They are not the same number; do not conflate them. A $500-$562 million per-year stream, bonded over 30 years at investment-grade ratings, produces about $15 billion in present-value capital today. Far more than 30 years of pay-as-you-go spending would deliver.

What the $15 billion actually funds

Per Hochul’s January 5, 2026 anniversary release, more than $6 billion in MTA capital projects unlocked by Congestion Relief revenue are in construction as of January 1, 2026. The named priorities:

• Second Avenue Subway Phase 2. Capital match for Phase 2 to East Harlem. The Phase 2 Full Funding Grant Agreement is a $3.4 billion federal grant signed November 2023, rescinded by the Trump administration in early 2025, restored March 2026 after a seven-month delay and a lawsuit. Congestion pricing capital supports the state share.
• ADA accessibility upgrades at nine stations. Concrete-step elevators, ramps, and signal upgrades.
• CBTC signal modernization on the A/C lines. Serving 600,000-plus daily riders in Brooklyn and Queens. The signal-modernization program is the single largest reliability investment in the capital plan.
• Systemwide state-of-good-repair work. Track, switches, and electrical-supply upgrades.

The $15 billion in cumulative bond proceeds supports the 2025-2029 Capital Plan’s overall $68.4 billion total. Congestion pricing is one of seven funding pots in the MTA architecture, not the dominant one. The Payroll Mobility Tax (PMT), expanded in 2025 to 0.895 percent on the largest employers, generates roughly twice as much in capital-lockbox bonding capacity over the same five-year cycle. For the full seven-pot architecture, see how the MTA is funded.

Why TBTA bonds the revenue rather than spending it as it arrives

Dedicated revenue is the highest-quality bondable revenue stream the MTA controls. 30-year amortization stretches the capital impact across roughly a generation. The lockbox structure (statutorily separated from the operating budget) protects the bondholder pledge and keeps debt service from contaminating the MTA’s operating-budget affordability ratio. Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s June 2025 report (OSC Report 7-2026) flagged that MTA debt service would have hit 25.3 percent of operating budget by 2033 without the FY26 lockbox restructuring; the structure is designed to hold it under 15 percent. The same OSC report names the TBTA first congestion-pricing lockbox bond issuance as starting in 2026.

That is the architecture. Annual revenue at $562 million, bonded 30 years at TBTA, $15 billion in cumulative capital, six billion already at work in construction. Two factors can break it: the Second Circuit appeal and a federal-funding shortfall on the IIJA reauthorization. The next section covers the first.

The Federal Court Fight: Liman, the Second Circuit, and the DOJ Appeal

The Trump administration’s effort to kill congestion pricing is the live story under everything else on this page. The architecture is settled; the money is flowing; the rate structure is locked through 2027. The Second Circuit appeal is the variable that could blow a $562 million per year hole in the capital plan.

The compressed chronology

Liman’s specific APA reasoning

The load-bearing legal holding, per the ruling text quoted in coverage: the federal Department of Transportation’s legal authority “does not carry with it the inherent unilateral ability of whoever holds the office of Secretary of the Transportation at any particular moment to terminate a project whether established by himself or a predecessor.”

That sentence is the doctrinal core. The Trump administration’s rescission failed on three grounds:

1. The rescission did not engage with the program’s documented environmental and revenue findings under FHWA’s prior NEPA analysis.
2. It did not adequately explain the reversal of position under the APA’s reasoned-decisionmaking requirement.
3. The Secretary’s claim of unilateral authority to terminate a previously approved project exceeded the statutory framework.

Liman, confirmed to the Southern District of NY in 2018, is a Trump-appointed District Judge. The 149-page length and the specific APA-doctrine engagement signal a careful textual ruling designed to withstand Second Circuit review. A Trump-appointee striking down a Trump-administration rescission strengthens the appellate-defense posture; that detail is not load-bearing on the merits, but it is meaningful credibility framing the Second Circuit panel will see.

The Second Circuit appeal: what is known, what is not

Known.

• Case caption on appeal: Metropolitan Transportation Authority v. Duffy (anticipated; Second Circuit docket number not yet published as of June 6).
• Notice of Appeal filed: early May 2026 (Bloomberg reports May 1; CBS NY and New Jersey Monitor confirm within the first week).
• Appellant: USDOT and Secretary Sean Duffy, represented by DOJ.
• Appellees: the MTA, NY State DOT, and TBTA. NY Attorney General Letitia James’s office is the state-defense backstop.
• Forum: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting in Manhattan.

Not yet known as of June 6, 2026.

• Full briefing schedule.
• Oral argument date.
• Three-judge panel composition (the Second Circuit assigns panels by random draw).
• Named DOJ attorneys of record on the Second Circuit appeal.
• Named MTA outside counsel on the appeal (the SDNY trial team included Sive, Paget & Riesel and Riker Danzig per court filings; the Second Circuit team may differ).

NJ Governor Phil Murphy filed a separate NJ federal lawsuit in July 2023 challenging the program; the post-Liman status of that case has not been publicly updated in coverage we reviewed.

What each Second Circuit outcome would do

Affirmance. The program is cemented through at least the 2025-2029 Capital Plan cycle. The $15 billion 30-year bond architecture proceeds. First bond issuance happens in 2026 per OSC Report 7-2026. The phasing schedule ($12 in 2028, $15 in 2031) proceeds as statutorily scoped.

Reversal. A ~$500-$562 million annual hole opens in the capital plan flow. The $15 billion bond backing is disrupted. The Citizens Budget Commission and Comptroller DiNapoli have both flagged this as the single largest discrete federal-funding risk to the MTA capital plan. Of the $14 billion in federal funding anticipated in the 2025-2029 plan, up to $4 billion is at structural risk per DiNapoli’s June 2025 analysis; a Second Circuit reversal would add another ~$2.5 billion over the remaining plan years on top of that exposure.

A remand. The Second Circuit could rule on procedural grounds, send the case back for additional fact-finding, or address a narrower question and leave the merits open. Practically: this would prolong uncertainty into 2027 or beyond.

The named principals

The Mamdani administration has no direct authority over the MTA congestion-pricing program (state-authority structure; see how the MTA is funded for the full governance arithmetic). The Mayor could weigh in via amicus briefing at the Second Circuit if the City joins, or through City Council member testimony at MTA Board hearings. No formal Mamdani administration position on the federal appeal has been announced as of June 6.

What Actually Happened After January 5, 2025: The First-Year Data

The first-year data is the load-bearing answer to the “did it work” question. Hochul’s January 5, 2026 anniversary release (with the MTA’s parallel anniversary release on the same day) put the operational numbers on the record. The big ones:

Ridership uplift, the full breakout

The brief framing of “subway and bus +7 percent” is a conflation of two separate metrics. The actual MTA-released numbers:

Subway alone is +7.7 percent. NYC Transit combined (subway plus bus plus paratransit) is around +7 percent. Bus speed is a different metric from bus ridership; bus speed improved 2.3 percent inside the zone. Per Metro Magazine and Railway Age, MTA’s 2025 was a “record-breaking” year for ridership across modes.

The Cornell air-quality finding

The 22 percent particulate-matter reduction and the 6 percent greenhouse-gas reduction inside the zone come from a Cornell University study cited in Hochul’s January 2026 release. The Cornell study is the academic-source attribution; we are hedging on the specific paper, the lead author, and the methodology, which have not surfaced in publicly available materials we reviewed. The 22 percent figure has been carried in subsequent coverage (THE CITY, Streetsblog, Inside Climate News) sourcing it through Hochul’s release rather than through the Cornell paper directly. Treat this as the published outcome with academic attribution rather than as a peer-reviewed and replicable finding the writer has verified line by line.

What did NOT happen

Three pre-launch fears that did not materialize, also worth knowing:

• The small-business catastrophe. Pre-launch coverage warned of a collapse in CBD retail and restaurant revenue. Per Hochul’s six-month release (mta.info “Six Months In”) and the one-year release: Manhattan retail and restaurant traffic stayed within normal year-over-year ranges. Partnership for NYC’s small-business pulse showed no congestion-pricing-attributable decline.
• The outer-borough air-quality displacement. Pre-launch modeling worried about trips and pollution displaced to the Bronx, Hudson Yards, and the FDR. Hochul’s six-month release framed the displacement signal as “mixed.” A full 12-month outer-borough longitudinal study has not been published; treat displacement as the still-open empirical question.
• The commuter-belt retail collapse. Long Island, Westchester, and NJ commuter towns did not see retail collapse from the toll. LIRR ridership at +9 percent indicates more commuting from those markets, not less.

What to track in the MTA’s own dashboard

The MTA congestion-pricing dashboard at mta.info/project/CBDTP publishes monthly revenue, daily entry counts, and tunnel-by-tunnel breakdowns. The dashboard is the live primary source; the quarterly anniversary releases are the synthesis layer. For the freshest figures at the time of reading, the project page is the right starting point; this article uses the January 5, 2026 one-year anniversary numbers as the load-bearing baseline.

Compliance, Enforcement, and the Questions That Keep Coming Up

The practical layer most coverage skips. How collection works, what happens if you do not pay, how the city handles fleet compliance, and the two questions every rideshare passenger and self-employed driver asks.

How collection works

• License-plate cameras mounted at every CRZ cordon entry capture every vehicle entering the zone.
• E-ZPass vehicles get automatic toll deduction, and earn the peak-only tunnel credit if they entered through Lincoln, Holland, QMT, or Hugh L. Carey.
• Tolls by Mail (no E-ZPass) gets the plate captured by camera and the registered owner billed via mail, at the 50 percent premium.

Late payment and violations

• First notice: original toll.
• Second notice: $50 violation fee plus original toll.
• After 30 days: collections referral; registration hold or license-suspension referral; potential civil judgment.

The escalation curve matters most for repeat non-payers. A single missed first-notice trip closed out by the second notice runs $50 plus the toll. A pattern of non-payment is what triggers the collections referral and the registration hold.

Evasion enforcement: ghost plates, altered plates, the March 2026 push

The MTA partners with NYPD and TBTA Bridge and Tunnel Officers on enforcement against ghost-plate and altered-plate evasion. A March 2026 coordinated enforcement push ran targeted impound operations at inbound river crossings, focusing on known repeat-evader plates and vehicles flagged by the cordon-camera system. Fraudulent claims of disability exemption, government-vehicle masquerade, and falsified TLC license use are subject to civil and criminal penalties under the relevant state statutes.

The Uber and Lyft pass-through

By TLC rule, the $1.50 per-trip FHV CRZ surcharge is passed through to the passenger as a separate line item on the trip receipt. Driver does not absorb it; platform does not absorb it. Yellow taxi and green cab $0.75 surcharge: same mechanism, passed through via the meter. The 2019 FHV congestion surcharge that pre-dates CBDTP is a separate program; both can apply to the same trip in the relevant geography.

Fleet and commercial-vehicle compliance

Commercial fleets register with E-ZPass NY for fleet accounts; bulk billing flows through the fleet manager. The per-entry rule for trucks (not per day) means the cost stacks across multiple zone entries in a single day. A small truck making three entries during peak pays $14.40 times 3 in CRZ tolls alone, before tunnel tolls less any credit. Operators planning more than one peak entry per day are the cohort with the strongest economic incentive to route around the zone or to consolidate trips.

The taxes question, briefly

• Personal commuting: congestion pricing is NOT deductible as a personal commuting expense, under IRS general rules on commuting.
• Self-employed drivers and businesses: congestion pricing tolls may be deductible as a business expense when the trip is for business purposes. The analysis depends on filing status, trip purpose, and whether the toll is reimbursed by an employer.

This page does not give specific tax advice. A CPA does. The IRS commuting rule and the Schedule C vehicle-expense framework are the relevant authorities.

The “does it apply at night” question

Yes. The toll applies 24 hours a day. The rate changes between peak ($9 passenger E-ZPass) and overnight ($2.25), but the program never turns off. A driver entering the zone at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday pays the overnight rate, not nothing.

How to Engage if You Want to Influence Congestion Pricing Policy

Congestion pricing is a state-authority program operated by a state-authority subsidiary. The Mayor has no direct authority over it. The engagement venues that actually matter are the MTA Board, Albany, and the named advocacy ecosystem. Three concrete paths.

Path 1: MTA Board public meetings

Meetings monthly at 2 Broadway, 20th Floor, Manhattan; committee meetings the prior Monday at the same location. The full Board allows 60 minutes of public comment; committee meetings allow 30 minutes. Each speaker gets up to 2 minutes. Online registration opens 35 minutes before a Board meeting and closes 5 minutes before start. Meetings are livestreamed and archived. Sign up at mta.info/transparency/board-and-committee-meetings/how-to-comment.

Board-action items relevant to congestion pricing in 2026:

• Rate-structure changes require Board action with a public hearing.
• Exemption category modifications (TLC commuter van scope, IDEP/ODEP expansion or restriction) require Board action.
• Phasing-schedule adjustments (the 2028 $12 / 2031 $15 schedule) require Board action subject to FHWA re-approval; statutorily anchored.
• TBTA bond issuance authorizations appear on the Board’s 2026 agenda per OSC Report 7-2026.

Path 2: State legislative engagement

The 2019 Traffic Mobility Act sits in state statute (NY VTL §1702 and related). Rate-structure changes and statutory exemption changes move through Albany. Neither the Mayor nor the Governor can unilaterally modify the statutory framework. The policy lever is your State Senator and State Assembly Member, particularly the chairs of the Senate Transportation Committee and Assembly Transportation Committee for transit-policy items, and the Senate Finance Committee and Assembly Ways and Means Committee for any rate or fee modifications. The annual budget cycle (January through April typically; the FY27 cycle ran late and was signed May 28, 2026) is when these levers move. For the state-budget treatment of congestion pricing revenue and its interaction with the FY27 MTA operating aid figure, see NY State Budget 2026: what it means for NYC.

Path 3: Advocacy organizations

The pro-program coalition is structurally larger and better-organized than the opposition. The named players:

Pro-program rider and transit coalition:

• Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC). Executive Director Lisa Daglian. Coordinates the three statutorily-created rider councils, each with one non-voting MTA Board seat since 1995.
• Riders Alliance. Grassroots rider organizing on congestion-pricing implementation and rider-side advocacy.
• Transportation Alternatives. Policy Director Danny Pearlstein. The streets-and-public-realm advocacy anchor.
• Reinvent Albany. Executive Director John Kaehny. State-authority transparency and capital-plan oversight.
• Regional Plan Association (RPA). Regional planning anchor; published much of the analytical framework underpinning the cordon design.
• Tri-State Transportation Campaign. Regional advocacy (NY, NJ, CT).
• Bike New York. Cycling-and-mode-shift advocacy; congestion-pricing-supportive.

Pro-program business and fiscal coalition:

• Partnership for NYC. President Kathryn Wylde. The small-business and economic-impact case.
• Citizens Budget Commission (CBC). President Andrew Rein. The fiscal-analysis case.
• TransitCenter. Operations and bus advocacy.

Opposition coalition:

• Trucking Association of New York. The load-bearing opposition org on rate structure for the truck classes.
• Outer-borough City Council members. A smaller bloc has periodically raised opposition; named Council members from Queens and Staten Island districts with high commuter-vehicle drive-in shares have been the public voices.
• NJ political and labor groups. Governor Murphy’s NJ federal lawsuit anchors the NJ-side opposition; NJ labor and commuter coalitions have testified at MTA Board meetings.

What to actually read

• MTA Congestion Relief Zone toll page at mta.info/fares-tolls/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/about for rates and tunnel credits.
• MTA Congestion Relief Zone calculator at mta.info/fares-tolls/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/calculator for the cost-of-trip lookup.
• MTA Discounts and Exemptions at mta.info/fares-tolls/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/discounts-exemptions for IDEP, LIDP, and ODEP.
• MTA CBDTP project page at mta.info/project/CBDTP for the monthly dashboard.
• NYS Comptroller Report 7-2026 (DiNapoli, June 2025) for the bond architecture and the $14 billion federal exposure framework.
• NY State Bar Association “Congestion Pricing in the Courts” for the litigation summary.

What is NOT open to public input

The DOJ Second Circuit appeal briefing is between the federal government and the named appellees; the public has no procedural role beyond amicus briefing (which the City of NY could join if it chose to; no announcement as of June 6, 2026). The MTA Chair’s executive negotiations with the Governor on capital-plan sequencing are not public. Bond issuance terms are negotiated between TBTA and the underwriting banks, governed by market-disclosure rules but not subject to public comment.

The high-leverage lever is your State Senator and Assembly Member during the annual budget cycle. The high-volume lever is MTA Board public comment. The long-game lever is the named advocacy organizations.

Read Next

• How the MTA Is Funded. The parent pillar. The seven funding pots (congestion pricing is one), the 4-of-14 Board governance asymmetry, the $68.4 billion 2025-2029 Capital Plan, and the operating-vs-capital distinction this spoke sits inside.
• NY State Budget 2026: What It Means for NYC. The FY27 enacted MTA operating aid ($8.6 billion, signed May 28, 2026), the Albany budget cycle that controls the statutory framework, and the cross-cluster Albany-money flow around the program.
• How NYC City Government Works in 2026. The Power Map and the structural Mayor-vs-Albany boundaries the congestion-pricing program sits inside. The transit row in the Power Map names the program; the Second Circuit appeal is one of the live 2026 fights.

Sources

• NY State MTA Reform and Traffic Mobility Act of 2019 — statutory basis for CBDTP; enacted April 1, 2019 as part of the FY20 state budget (bills S1509-A / A2008-C); codified at NY Vehicle and Traffic Law §1702 and related sections. nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/VAT/1702.
• MTA — About the Congestion Relief Zone toll — rate structure (passenger, motorcycle, small truck, large truck, taxi, FHV; E-ZPass and Tolls by Mail), tunnel credits at the four crossings, peak window, per-day vs. per-entry rules. mta.info/fares-tolls/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/about.
• MTA — Congestion Relief Zone Toll Calculator — per-trip cost lookup. mta.info/fares-tolls/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/calculator.
• MTA — Discounts and Exemptions — IDEP, LIDP, ODEP, emergency vehicle, TLC commuter van, DOE school bus, and government-vehicle categories. LIDP $50,000 AGI threshold and 10-trip mechanic. mta.info/fares-tolls/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/discounts-exemptions.
• MTA — CBDTP Project Page — monthly revenue dashboard, daily entry counts, tunnel-by-tunnel breakdowns. mta.info/project/CBDTP.
• MTA — One-Year Anniversary Press Release (January 5, 2026) — “ICYMI: Less Traffic, Better Transit on Its First Anniversary.” First-year net revenue ($562M net after expenses), 27 million fewer vehicle entries (11 percent reduction), Cornell PM and GHG findings, ridership uplift across modes, $6 billion-plus in capital projects in construction. mta.info/press-release/icymi-less-traffic-better-transit-its-first-anniversary-governor-hochul-celebrates.
• Governor Kathy Hochul — One-Year Anniversary Press Release (January 5, 2026) — “Less Traffic, Better Transit.” Rounded $550 million-plus figure; 27 million fewer vehicles; Cornell 22 percent PM reduction; 15-minute peak time savings at major crossings. governor.ny.gov/news/less-traffic-better-transit-its-first-anniversary-governor-hochul-celebrates-transformational.
• Governor Kathy Hochul — Six-Month Press Release (June 2025) — “Six Months In: Governor Hochul Highlights Success of Congestion Pricing.” Mid-year operational picture; outer-borough displacement framed as “mixed signals.” mta.info/press-release/icymi-six-months-governor-hochul-highlights-success-of-congestion-pricing-traffic.
• NYS Comptroller Tom DiNapoli — Report 7-2026 (June 2025) — TBTA “lockbox bond” architecture, first issuance starting 2026, $15 billion cumulative bond proceeds over bond life, $14 billion in 2025-2029 plan federal exposure with up to $4 billion at structural risk, debt-service trajectory under and without the FY26 lockbox restructuring. osc.ny.gov/files/reports/osdc/pdf/report-7-2026.pdf.
• NYS Bar Association — “Congestion Pricing in the Courts” — litigation summary covering the SDNY case, the Liman ruling, and the Second Circuit appeal posture. nysba.org/congestion-pricing-in-the-courts/.
• Metropolitan Transportation Authority v. Duffy, 25-cv-1413 (SDNY) — primary court record. March 3, 2026 ruling by U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman; 149-page opinion holding the rescission was arbitrary and capricious under the APA.
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit — pending appeal of MTA v. Duffy; notice of appeal filed early May 2026; briefing schedule and oral argument date not published as of June 6, 2026.
• Cornell University air-quality study — cited in Hochul’s January 2026 anniversary release for the 22 percent PM and 6 percent GHG reductions inside the zone. Subsequent coverage carries the 22 percent figure sourced through the governor’s release rather than the underlying paper.
• Gothamist — “NYC congestion pricing tolls rake in $562M during first year” (January 2026) — load-bearing for the $562 million net-after-expenses figure and the ~$10 million per month operating cost. gothamist.com/news/nyc-congestion-pricing-tolls-rake-in-562m-during-first-year.
• THE CITY — “One Year In, Congestion Toll Yields Gains for Manhattan and MTA” (January 5, 2026). thecity.nyc/2026/01/05/congestion-pricing-hochul-mamdani-mta/.
• NY1 — “Congestion pricing upheld by federal judge over Trump’s objections” (March 3, 2026). ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/traffic_and_transit/2026/03/03/congestion-pricing-upheld-by-federal-judge-over-trump-s-objections.
• New Jersey Monitor — “Judge rejects Trump bid to end congestion pricing” (March 3, 2026). newjerseymonitor.com/2026/03/03/judge-trump-congeston-pricing-ruling/.
• New Jersey Monitor — “Trump administration files appeal in new bid to kill congestion pricing” (early May 2026). newjerseymonitor.com/briefs/trump-administration-appeals-congestion-pricing/.
• Bloomberg — “Trump Administration to Appeal Ruling on NYC Congestion Pricing Plan” (May 1, 2026) — load-bearing for the Second Circuit notice-of-appeal filing date. bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-01/trump-administration-to-appeal-ruling-on-nyc-congestion-pricing.
• CBS NY — “Trump administration appeals NYC congestion pricing ruling that kept toll in place” (May 2026). cbsnews.com/newyork/news/trump-administration-appeal-nyc-congestion-pricing-toll/.
• CBS NY — “Congestion pricing maps show which New York roads and tunnels are and are not impacted” — FDR and West Side Highway exemption routing; cordon boundary detail. cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nyc-congestion-pricing-maps/.
• Streetsblog NYC — “Federal Judge Rules Trump Can’t Kill Congestion Pricing” (March 3, 2026). nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/03/03/breaking-federal-judge-rules-trump-cant-kill-congestion-pricing.
• Streetsblog NYC — “How Kathy Hochul Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Congestion Pricing” (January 6, 2026) — political-context framing of Hochul’s pivot from June 2024 pause to November 2024 restart. nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/01/06/how-kathy-hochul-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-congestion-pricing.
• Inside Climate News — “Judge Rejects Trump Administration’s Plan to End NYC Congestion Pricing” (March 2026). insideclimatenews.org/news/04032026/new-york-city-congestion-pricing-continues/.
• Earthjustice — “Federal Court Rules That Trump Administration’s Attempt to End Congestion Pricing Is Unlawful” (March 2026). earthjustice.org/press/2026/federal-court-rules-that-trump-administrations-attempt-to-end-congestion-pricing-is-unlawful.
• Metro Magazine — “New York MTA Marks Record Year for Ridership, Performance in 2025” — ridership uplift breakout. metro-magazine.com/news/new-york-mta-marks-record-year-for-ridership-performance-in-2025.
• Railway Age — “For NY MTA, ‘Record-Breaking’ 2025 Performance, Ridership” — same. railwayage.com/passenger/for-ny-mta-record-breaking-2025-performance-ridership/.
• Engineering News-Record — Allison L.C. de Cerreño profile (2025) — TBTA COO title verification; Allison de Cerreño as the agency’s key leadership figure during the program’s final implementation stages. enr.com/articles/62338-allison-lc-de-cerreno-key-leader-during-critical-final-stages-of-new-york-citys-effort-to-enact-the-first-us-congestion-pricing-program.
• Citizens Budget Commission — “Focus, Fix, and Finance” — capital plan and bond-architecture analysis. cbcny.org/research/focus-fix-and-finance.
• Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC) — three rider councils; Lisa Daglian Executive Director. pcac.org.
• Riders Alliance — grassroots rider organizing. ridersny.org.
• Transportation Alternatives — Danny Pearlstein, Policy Director. transalt.org.
• Reinvent Albany — John Kaehny, Executive Director; capital-plan oversight. reinventalbany.org.
• Regional Plan Association — regional planning. rpa.org.
• Partnership for NYC — Kathryn Wylde, President; small-business and economic-impact analysis.
• Tri-State Transportation Campaign — regional advocacy.
• NBC NY — “Where is the congestion relief zone? MTA answers top questions” — secondary-source detail on cordon boundary and routing. nbcnewyork.com/manhattan/congestion-relief-zone-pay-toll-mta-60th-street-price-cost/6094419/.
• NBC NY — “NYC congestion pricing exempt list released” — exemption category detail. nbcnewyork.com/traffic/transit-traffic/who-is-exempt-from-nyc-congestion-pricing-new-list-out-ahead-of-mta-vote/5255286/.
• ABC7 NY — “NYC Congestion pricing plan: Start date, tolls, exemptions, MTA New York City zone map” — secondary-source rate and exemption detail.
• E-ZPass NY — Congestion Relief Zone Plans — LIDP, IDEP, ODEP enrollment portal. e-zpassny.com/ezpass/congestion-relief-zone/plan-descriptions.
• NYC 311 Congestion Pricing portal — public-facing help and inquiry. portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-03612.
• Companion files — docs/drafts/nyc-congestion-pricing-explained-brief.md, docs/drafts/nyc-congestion-pricing-explained-research.md, docs/drafts/mta-funding-explained-research.md, and src/content/articles/mta-funding-explained.md for the parent pillar cross-reference.

Last updated: June 6, 2026. Refresh triggers: Second Circuit briefing schedule; Second Circuit oral argument date; Second Circuit ruling on the DOJ appeal; MTA Board congestion-pricing dashboard releases; toll phase-up to $12 in 2028; LIDP eligibility-rule changes; any Albany action on the 2019 Traffic Mobility Act framework. For the operating constitution behind every claim on this page, see About NYC Daily TL;DR; for the editorial methodology that produces the daily briefing, see How we curate.