{"id":161538,"date":"2026-03-12T16:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T16:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/161538\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T16:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T16:55:07","slug":"second-circuit-skeptical-of-nyc-congestion-pricing-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/161538\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Circuit Skeptical of NYC Congestion Pricing Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Second Circuit on Thursday was not convinced that New York\u2019s congestion pricing program violates drivers\u2019 right to travel into downtown Manhattan. <\/p>\n

The judges floated the possibility they may not have jurisdiction to weigh in on the case, in which suburban Rockland and Orange counties claim the $9 toll for entering into the business district violates the US Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you point me to a case where have we ever suggested the right to travel has been violated when you charge tolls to people even though they don\u2019t have an alternative way of traveling? We charge tolls all the time and there are people who don\u2019t have other ways. One would think there would be hundreds of cases saying this violates the right to travel, but I haven\u2019t found a single one,\u201d US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Senior Judge Guido Calabresi asked the counties during oral arguments.<\/p>\n

The counties want the court to revive their case<\/a> at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York and allow it to proceed to discovery to see how the revenue from the program is used and whether it\u2019s achieving the goal of reducing traffic congestion. <\/p>\n

Southern District Judge Lewis Liman last week upheld<\/a> the congestion pricing program, saying the US Transportation Department\u2019s attempt to end it was unlawful.<\/p>\n

Tax or Fee?<\/p>\n

Toll revenue goes toward improving the buses and subways of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The counties argue the toll is actually a tax imposed generally on drivers who ultimately don\u2019t benefit from use of the transit system.<\/p>\n

The benefit is the use of Manhattan roads, \u201cwhich is a scarce resource,\u201d said Judge Michael H. Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo charge one person for something\u2014not for their use of the facility, but for a general purpose\u2014we submit is too attenuated a relationship,\u201d Matthew Parisi of McGowan Harrington Parisi PLLC argued on behalf of Rockland County. <\/p>\n

But the difference between a tax and a fee is generality, Park said, and since the tolling program has a specific purpose it seems \u201cnot like a general tax.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would we call that a tax as opposed to a fee?\u201d Park asked. <\/p>\n

Calabresi leaned in favor of the toll being classified as a tax because it raised \u201ca considerable amount of revenue.\u201d If that\u2019s the case, though, the court doesn\u2019t have jurisdiction since it\u2019s an issue of state law suited for state court.<\/p>\n

Calabresi proposed the court could, hypothetically, weigh in on the merits of the federal claims while leaving the question of whether the toll is a tax up to the state court. <\/p>\n

Parisi said the court should decide whether the toll is a state tax. But the court doesn\u2019t have authority to direct state courts as to whether something is a tax or not, and \u201cit shouldn\u2019t be able to do that through a declaratory judgment action either,\u201d said D. Brandon Trice of Kaplan Martin, arguing on behalf of the MTA and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. <\/p>\n

Judge Sarah A. L. Merriam also sat on the panel.<\/p>\n

Sive, Paget & Riesel PC also represents the city agencies.<\/p>\n

The cases are Cnty. of Rockland v. Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Auth., 2d Cir., No. 25-1963, oral argument 3\/12\/26 and Neuhaus v. Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Auth., 2d Cir., No. 25-1964, oral argument 3\/12\/26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Second Circuit on Thursday was not convinced that New York\u2019s congestion pricing program violates drivers\u2019 right to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5108,22661,42109,21718,5031,9,56,63,65,64,66648],"class_list":["post-161538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-constitutional-law","tag-discovery","tag-federal-tax","tag-jurisdiction","tag-mass-transit","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-roads-and-highways"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}