MTA’s Lieber Vs Trump’s Transport Sec Duffy

On April 4, US Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, rode our subway system on a mysterious ride with Mayor Eric Adams, eluding MTA Chair & CEO Janno Lieber and bereft of Gov. Kathy Hochul, neither of whom were invited. With Adams showing Duffy how to use a Metrocard, the one-time FOX co-host was not familiar with the process.

The Wisconsin-born Duffy, who now lives and votes in New Jersey, in a tony suburb that is part of the New York metropolitan region of almost 20 million people. Days earlier, Duffy had blasted Hochul for what he said was mishandling of crime. Even though NYPD statistics said crime was down double digits in the first quarter, he still called the system as “shithole.”

After his two stop ride on the B train that did not alter his opinion. “We’re not where we need to be,” he told the Daily News after his brief sojourn and he continued to blash Hochul and congestion pricing.

“It’s fundamentally unfair, it’s classist, it’s elitist,” Duffy said as reported on X by Daily News reporter Josie Stratman.

When Duffy was asked if he still considers the subways a “shithole.”

“Some would say,” he responded.

He suggested on Fox that “even big men don’t want to ride the subway.”

“The truth is, transit across America is dangerous,” Duffy told Fox host Laura Ingraham. “And these liberals, liberal mayors, they want everybody out of cars and into trains—but they made the trains unsafe so nobody really wants to ride them.”

A few days later, Senator John Curtis (R-UT) took Duffy for a ride on Salt Lake City’s rail commuter system, part of the region’s transit network. Utah is a Republican State, whose population ethnicity variation is not as broad as New York’s. The Secretary’s social media response was a bit kinder than on the East Coast.

Duffy noted this on Instagram: “Enjoyed meeting your team, as well as state and local officials, to ride the FrontRunner. Transit is fundamental to supporting Salt Lake City’s rapid growth. We look forward to continuing to work together on core infrastructure needs and making our transportation systems more efficient than ever.” Salt Lake City is the 47th largest population center, while New York City is #1.

FrontRunner handled 4.1 million riders in 2024; by comparison, Metro North and the Long Island Rail Road combined had almost 150 million riders; if you add in PATH and NJ Transit’s Rail lines, it’s 266 million riders for the year.

In a February statement made through a Federal Highways newsletter, the Duffy cited “The toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways.”

On April 9, Federal government attorneys said in a 20-minute pretrial conference that Secretary Duffy is evaluating options for what comes next if the MTA doesn’t shut down congestion pricing by April 20.

Held in the Southern District of New York’s chambers. During a session in the chambers of the Southern District of New York in downtown Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dominika Tarczynska said “The Department of Transportation maintains the position that New York City should stop charging tolls by April 20.” She noted “The Secretary, however, is still evaluating what DOT’s options are if New York City does not comply. There has been no final decision as to what, if anything, will occur on April 20.”

On the same day that Adams and Duffy took their subway ride, according to reports, the MTA and the feds agreed to keep the tolls going and the cameras rolling through at least October; congestion pricing will continue temporarily as the MTA’s lawsuit to make congestion pricing permanent moves through the U.S. Court system. An expected judgement by Justice Lewis Liman, who is overseeing the case is expected sometime during the summer.

In a tweet released by the U.S. Department of Transportation on the day before the pretrial hearing, the tone was not the least bit conciliatory. “The Trump Administration and (DOT) will not hesitate to use every tool at our disposal in response to non-compliance later this month,”

“The US DOT position remains that New York’s elitist cordon pricing scheme is illegal, a form of class warfare that targets working Americans.”

The posting mentioned that the feds reaching an agreement with the MTA, as was widely reported was a complete lie by the elitist New York liberal media, and accused the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of desperation to manufacture fake news to distract the fact that their riders are getting assaulted regularly. This contravenes the NYPD reporting that subway crime now is the lowest in 15 years, excepting COVID-ridden 2020 and 2021.

But in the April 17 announcement that the feds wanted to become the principal driver of the long talked and long delayed rebuilding of Penn Station, the remarks by Hochul and Lieber seemed somewhat concilatory. Lieber pointed out that the MTA had made major improvements to the station and Hochul insisted that she wanted the feds to takeover the rebuilding all along.

So it remains to be seen if this is the quite before the storm or the start of a remarkable new era of cooperation on a project that has an estimated price tag of $7 billion.