DOT Secretary Sean Duffy slams Gov. Hochul’s NYC congestion pricing as ‘warped’ war on the middle class

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy slammed congestion pricing as Gov. Hochul’s “warped” war on the middle class — intended to price the poor out of their cars and into the filthy, unsafe underground.

The goal of Hochul’s wildly unpopular $9 toll is to force working-class commuters onto subways and buses while New York fat cats continue to cruise Manhattan roadways — all to make up for the state’s woefully mismanaged transit budget, Duffy declared in an exclusive interview with The Post this week.

“The whole concept behind what they’re doing is warped — it’s liberal insanity. She doesn’t ride the subway, she’s got a detail that drives her around. So she may not care about the experience of MTA riders, but she should,” Duffy said.

4

“This is an elitist policy that allows the rich to use roads traffic-free while the poor are taxed off accessing Manhattan. It’s actually outrageous,” he continued.

“Democrats say they care about poor people, but they’re getting completely screwed by this policy to the benefit of the rich, who can afford it. To price them out just because they don’t make as much money as the elites who fund Hochul’s campaigns, I just don’t find that to be fair.”

But Duffy declined to offer specifics on how he plans to squeeze the defiant governor to obey the latest federal deadline to pump the brakes on New York’s congestion pricing program.

“I can’t micromanage the MTA, but I do have a role in safety, I have a role in providing funds to the MTA and I do have a role in the federal highways in the greater Manhattan area,” he said ominously.

“So in the role that I have, I’m going to use it to make sure the . . . average American is taken care of,” he added.

4

Duffy’s fight with Hochul ramped up this week after Hochul ignored DOT’s April 20 deadline to terminate the tolls for cars entering Manhattan south of 60th Street. The transit secretary fired back in a letter Monday threatening to hold up federal highway funds to the state if it fails to provide an explanation by May 21.

“I don’t think the Congress actually anticipated that it would be used in this fashion that you would basically block off an urban area unless an additional toll was paid,” he told The Post.

On Wednesday, lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York’s Southern District representing the DOT in its fight with the Big Apple erroneously uploaded a privileged memo to the court docket detailing the flaws in the department’s legal strategy. The offending attorneys have since been booted from the DOT’s legal team, but questions over the viability of their legal strategy remain.

4

A DOT spokesperson told The Post after the leak that the SDNY’s memo “doesn’t represent reality,” and that the program remains “unprecedented and illegal.”

“If New York doesn’t shut it down, the Department of Transportation is considering halting projects and funding for the state,” the spokesperson added, without providing any further details.

The DOT maintains that New York’s tolls are illegal since taxpayers have already paid for the highways that are now being restricted.

“Hochul’s congestion pricing war against the working class was hastily approved by the Biden Administration after Donald Trump was elected,” DOT Spokeswoman Halee Dobbins told The Post. “Taxpayers already financed the highways that Hochul is now shutting down to the driving public and there is no free alternative.”

A Hochul spokesperson said Duffy  is “totally ignoring the fact that people of all incomes rely on a well-functioning mass transit system,” noting that the “vast majority of New Yorkers use public transit to get into Manhattan.”

4

“If Secretary Duffy really cared about the working poor, he’d ask his boss to stop the insane cuts to Medicaid, Head Start, Social Security, free school meals and other safety net programs that help low-income Americans make ends meet,” the spokesperson said. 

Hochul yanked $1.3 billion in state funding from the much-anticipated Penn Station renovation project Friday, making good on her promise to pull out state resources since the Trump administration usurped the project from MTA.

Duffy said it made sense that the governor would repeatedly ask the feds to fund the project.

“They’ve mismanaged the MTA, so why would we have them do a massive project like this? She realizes that under her leadership they can’t even build this project,” he said, adding that the DOT’s plan will be more cost-effective.

“President Trump is a builder, he knows New York well. I have more faith that the DOT, through Amtrak, will make Penn Station beautiful and spend far less taxpayer money than what would be spent with MTA.”

Duffy didn’t have details yet on his plans for Penn, but says DOT will have more clarity after the bidding stage.