Trump administration tells NYC to shut down congestion pricing by March 21
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(NEW YORK) — The Trump administration has instructed New York City to end its congestion pricing program, the first of its kind in the nation, by March 21 in a newly released letter.
The Federal Highway Administration said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority must stop collecting tolls by that date to allow for an “orderly cessation.”
The letter is dated Feb. 20, a day after the U.S. Department of Transportation said it pulled federal approval of the plan following a review requested by President Donald Trump.
New York officials have said they will not turn off the tolls without a court order.
“We have said that you may have asked for orderly cessation, which was the phrase that came in the letter to us. I will propose something in the alternative — orderly resistance,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said during remarks before the MTA board on Wednesday.
The MTA said it is challenging the Trump administration’s reversal in federal court, seeking a declaratory judgment that the DOT’s move is not proper.
The congestion pricing plan, which launched on Jan. 5, charges passenger vehicles $9 to access Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours as part of an effort to ease congestion and raise funds for the city’s public transit system. During peak hours, small trucks and charter buses are charged $14.40 and large trucks and tour buses pay $21.60.
Hochul called the program’s early success “genuine” and “extraordinary” in her remarks to the MTA board.
The toll generated nearly $50 million in revenue in its first month, the MTA said this week.
From Jan. 5 to Jan. 31, tolls from the congestion pricing program generated $48.66 million, with the net revenue for that period $37.5 million when taking into account expenses to run the program, the MTA said.
The program is on track to generate $500 million in net revenue by the end of this year, as initially projected, the MTA said.
Congestion has also “dropped dramatically” since the program went into effect, Hochul said last week.
ABC News’ Clara McMichael contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Users of the nation’s largest subway system will start seeing New York City police officers on every overnight train starting Monday as Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a strategy Thursday to tamp down rider anxiety that has been rising amid a series of horrific high-profile crimes.
“I’m not waiting,” Hochul said during a news conference. “Monday you will start seeing the increased presence on the overnight trains.”
The $77 million strategy will put 750 additional police officers on platforms and in stations and 300 more officers on overnight trains, Hochul said.
“We’ve doubled the number of law enforcement personnel in the New York City subway system in one year,” Hochul said.
The governor said most of the crime committed on the subway system occurs during overnight hours.
“There is a lot of anxiety on these trains late at night. I want to tamper that down,” Hochul said.
The move comes even as New York Police Department statistics show that crime in the transit system has plummeted 36% from this time last year.
However several high-profile attacks in the subway system have prompted calls from riders for government leaders to address the problem.
On Dec. 22, a woman sleeping on a stationary F train at Brooklyn’s Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station died after being set on fire. The suspect, Sebastian Zapeta, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, was arrested after a brief manhunt and charged with first- and second-degree murder and arson in the death of 57-year-old Debrina Kawam, who authorities said was homeless and originally from Toms River, New Jersey.
Zapeta has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
On Christmas Eve, a man allegedly used a knife to slash a man and a woman at Manhattan’s Grand Central subway station, police said. The suspect faced assault and menacing charges Wednesday.
The man was arrested on assault, reckless endangerment, menacing, harassment, disorderly conduct and a weapons charge after the attack, which left a 42-year-old man with an injured wrist and a 26-year-old woman with a neck injury, police said.
On New Year’s Eve, a 45-year-old man was shoved onto subway tracks ahead of an incoming train at the West 18th Street station in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, according to police. The victim, Joseph Lynskey, survived the attack that was caught on security video and is expected to make a full recovery, police said.
The suspect in the subway shoving, Kamel Hawkins, 23, was taken into custody and charged with attempted murder and assault. He has yet to enter a plea.
On Wednesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the indictment of a 23-year-old man in the slashing attack that occurred in December at the 50th Street subway station in Manhattan. Bragg alleged that the suspect, Orsen Reyes, stomped on a 48-year-old man’s head and slashed him with a knife. Reyes was indicted on charges of first-degree assault, three counts of assault in the second degree and three counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
He has pleaded not guilty.
“New Yorkers deserve to be safe in our subway system, and we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to combat transit crime,” Bragg said in a statement. “I hope the victim continues to heal from this horrifying assault.”
Hochul’s move comes after she ordered New York National Guard troops and New York State Police troopers to be deployed into the subway system to help riders feel safe. The deployment came after after six people were shot, one fatally, at a subway station in the Bronx on Feb. 13, 2024.
(WASHINGTON) — America’s national parks and other federal lands are in danger of falling into disrepair following the firings of thousands of federal employees by the current administration, experts said.
Federal agencies that were already strapped for resources, such as the National Parks Service and U.S. Forestry Service, will now be struggling to find workers to perform critical functions for visitors and maintenance, said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association.
More than 1,000 NPS employees were terminated by the Trump administration, Brengel said, while more than 2,000 U.S. Forest Service employees have been fired, according to Fire & Safety Journal Americas.
Some of the eliminated positions include search-and-rescue staff and campsite supervisors, Brengel told ABC News.
With park visitation expected to increase in the next year, fewer employees could translate to longer lines to get into parks, changes in park hours and more trash pileups at some locations.
The National Parks Service did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
‘Most beloved federal employees’
When tourists arrive at national parks, the expectation is that a ranger will be there to greet and educate them, Brengel said.
Surveys from the Pew Research Center find that National Parks employees have a 76% approval rating — the highest among federal employees. NPS workers are dedicated to their jobs and care deeply about the parks they service, Brengel said.
“National park rangers are among the most beloved federal employees,” Brengel said. “These are folks that everyone loves to see when they go to our national parks.”
The NPS has been “stretched thin” since 2010, with a 20% reduction in park service staff in the last 15 years, Brengel said.
“This means that people have to do collateral duties,” Brengel said. For example, a person sitting at the front desk of a visitor center may also be responsible for maintaining restrooms.
The lack of staffing is not new; it was also a problem in the 1980s and 1990s, according to Andrea Lankford, a former law enforcement and search and rescue park ranger for Cape Hatteras, Zion National Park, Yosemite National Park and the Grand Canyon.
Visitation to the parks continues to increase
More than 325 million people visited national parks in 2023, and visitation in 2025 will likely exceed that number, Brengel said. The NPS also contributed a record $55.6 billion to the U.S. economy in 2023 and supported 415,000 jobs that year, according to the NPS.
“We fully expect visitors to flood into national parks this spring and summer, and for parks to just generally be understaffed and not be able to handle that influx,” she said.
Last week, the Trump administration reversed a hiring freeze for seasonal National Parks Service employees, allowing the system to fill crucial roles to help maintain and operate popular parks ahead of the summer season, according to a memo obtained by ABC News.
NPS will now be permitted to hire a total of 7,700 workers, according to the memo. But the one-month delay in hiring seasonal workers, on top of the firing of probationary park rangers, could impact tourists this summer at some of the country’s most popular national parks, said Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers.
“It’s pretty safe to say that in many parks, at least for the start of the season, visitors are going to probably see some sort of impact and a decline in their experience,” he said.
Tourists could experience long lines to get into the parks, changes in hours at visitor centers, trash pileups and restrooms that are not cleaned as frequently, Wade said.
In addition, there could be delays for road, trail and building maintenance, Brengel said, noting that people who fill potholes and repair leaky roofs were among those terminated.
Impact of firings on Forest Service
Understaffing has also been a concern for the U.S. Forest Service, said Owen Wickenheiser, a former wilderness and climbing ranger at the Okanagan Wenatchee National Forest in Washington state.
“We were already short-staffed as a land management agency, with the number of trails expected to maintain,” Wickenheiser, who was recently fired, told ABC News. “We have one of the busiest districts in all of Washington state.”
Wickenheiser said the lack of rangers means “people will just trash the place.”
“No one is going to be actively searching out all the trash that we pick up — that’s going to make it into the lake,” Wickenheiser said. “Trees that fall down every year across the trail will likely go uncut and people will be hiking over trees all the time.”
Jaelle Downs, who was fired recently from the Forest Service as a wilderness ranger at the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, said she doesn’t know “what the summer is going to look like.”
“Even with volunteers, I don’t see how things aren’t going to be very covered in trash, very covered in human waste, it’s concerning,” she told ABC News.
Downs said she worries how the mass firings will affect future rangers.
“The excited, on-the-ground workers who were preparing to carry on the work of the agency have just been demoralized and pushed out. I just wonder where the next generation is going to come from,” she said.
Hiring freeze exemptions exist for critical health and safety positions, and more than 1,000 U.S. Forest Service firefighter positions were recently approved with more currently under review, according to a USDA spokesperson.
“Protecting the people and communities we serve, as well as the infrastructure, businesses, and resources they depend on to grow and thrive, remains a top priority for the USDA and the Forest Service,” the spokesperson said. “We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar spent goes to serve the people, not the bureaucracy.”
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(NEW YORK) — The Mega Millions jackpot has surged to $1.15 billion — and a winner could take home the fifth largest prize in Mega Millions history.
The next drawing will take place on Friday at 11 p.m. ET, with the cash value of the jackpot estimated to be $516.1 million.
No one has won the grand prize in the last 30 drawings, as the jackpot has ballooned. The last time the jackpot was won was at $810 million in Texas on Sept. 10.
No ticket matched the numbers drawn on Christmas Eve; the numbers drawn were 11, 14, 38, 45, 46 and gold Mega Ball 3.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350, according to Mega Millions.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets are $2 for one play.
