Congestion-Pricing Entry Tolls Are Reviewed as Reasonable User Fees (Not Strict-Scrutiny Burdens on Travel) and Survive Rational-Basis Review

1. Introduction

County of Rockland v. Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Auth. (2d Cir. July 13, 2026) is a consolidated challenge by two suburban counties—Rockland and Orange—to New York City’s Central Business District (“CBD”) congestion-pricing program, administered by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (“TBTA”) and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“MTA”).

The program, created by New York’s Traffic Mobility Act (N.Y. Veh. & Traf. Law § 1701 et seq.), imposes a daily toll on vehicles entering Manhattan’s CBD (Midtown and Lower Manhattan). Plaintiffs characterized their counties as “transit deserts,” alleging residents often must drive to access Manhattan and would bear meaningful costs without corresponding local transit benefits.

The complaints advanced multiple theories: (i) the toll is an unauthorized tax under New York law; (ii) it violates the constitutional right to travel; (iii) it violates due process and equal protection (federal and state); and (iv) it constitutes an excessive fine. The district court dismissed for failure to state a claim, and the Second Circuit affirmed.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Second Circuit:

  • Assumed without deciding that the toll is not a tax (and thus proceeded to the merits notwithstanding the Tax Injunction Act concerns).
  • Held no right-to-travel violation: the program creates no “invidious distinctions,” imposes at most a minor restriction on travel, and therefore is tested for reasonableness under Nw. Airlines, Inc. v. County of Kent—which it satisfies.
  • Held no due process or equal protection violation: the program readily survives rational-basis review because it is rationally related to legitimate interests (reducing congestion and funding mass transit).
  • Held no excessive-fines violation: the toll is not “punishment for some offense,” so it is not a “fine.”
  • Affirmed denial of leave to amend: Plaintiffs did not request leave and did not identify additional allegations that could cure the defects.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

A. Tax Injunction Act and “hypothetical jurisdiction”

  • Levin v. Com. Energy, Inc.: The court relied on Levin for the proposition that the Tax Injunction Act (“TIA”) bars lower federal courts from granting injunctive or declaratory relief that would “thwart state tax collection” where state court remedies are “plain, speedy and efficient.” This framed the threshold problem: if the congestion charge were a tax, federal jurisdiction would be blocked.
  • Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC v. Shumlin: Cited to reinforce that the TIA is jurisdictional and would deprive federal courts of power if the charge is a “tax under State law.”
  • Abimbola v. Ashcroft and Springfield Hosp., Inc. v. Guzman: These cases supplied the doctrine the panel used to proceed: the court may exercise “hypothetical jurisdiction” where the jurisdictional issue is statutory rather than constitutional. Here, rather than decide whether the charge is a tax (triggering the TIA), the court assumed it was not and dismissed on the merits.

Practical influence: This set of precedents allowed the court to avoid a potentially complex classification question under New York law and the TIA, while still affirming dismissal of all federal constitutional claims. Importantly, the court did not create a definitive federal holding on whether congestion pricing is a “tax” for TIA purposes; it instead insulated the judgment from that debate by resolving the substantive constitutional claims.

B. Pleading and appellate review standards

  • Nat'l Credit Union Admin. Bd. v. U.S. Bank Nat'l Ass'n: Cited for the rule that, on a motion to dismiss, courts accept complaint facts as true.
  • Xeriant, Inc. v. Auctus Fund LLC and Ashcroft v. Iqbal: Used to confirm de novo review and the “plausibility” pleading standard (allegations must permit more than a “mere possibility of misconduct”).

C. Right to travel: source, scope, and level of scrutiny

  • Saenz v. Roe, Att'y Gen. of N.Y. v. Soto-Lopez, Jones v. Helms, and Mem'l Hosp. v. Maricopa Cnty.: These cases provided the Supreme Court’s recognition of an interstate right to travel and the Court’s varied accounts of its constitutional “textual source” (Privileges and Immunities, Commerce Clause, Due Process, Equal Protection, and structural inference).
  • Jeffery v. City of New York: Cited to note that the Supreme Court has not definitively resolved whether the right extends to intrastate movement, while also reflecting the Second Circuit’s own cautious approach to defining the right’s contours.
  • Selevan v. N.Y. Thruway Auth. (Selevan I) and Selevan v. N.Y. Thruway Auth. (Selevan II), plus King v. New Rochelle Mun. Hous. Auth.: These anchor the Second Circuit’s recognition of a right to intrastate travel and—critically—its bifurcated approach to tolls: strict scrutiny for “invidious distinctions” versus a reasonableness/user-fee test for minor restrictions.
  • Williams v. Town of Greenburgh and Town of Southold v. Town of E. Hampton: These articulate limiting principles: the right protects “movement between places,” not access to a particular place; and there is no right to the “most convenient” form of travel, so “minor restrictions” generally do not amount to constitutional violations.
  • Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority District v. Delta Airlines, Inc.: The foundational user-fee case. The Supreme Court upheld airport passenger charges and instructed that compelling-interest scrutiny does not govern reasonable charges for state-provided facilities, emphasizing fair approximation of use and non-excessiveness.
  • Nw. Airlines, Inc. v. County of Kent: The modern three-part “reasonableness” framework (fair approximation of use; not excessive relative to benefits; no discrimination against interstate commerce). The panel treated this as the governing test once strict scrutiny is off the table.
  • Janes v. Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Auth.: A key Second Circuit bridge-toll case used to show that, absent “markers of invidious distinctions,” toll challenges are analyzed under the Northwest Airlines reasonableness test.
  • City of New Orleans v. Dukes: Cited in rejecting Orange County’s attempt to characterize the program’s entry/within-CBD distinction as “wholly arbitrary.”
  • Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Steamboat Co. v. Bridgeport Port Auth.: Used to explain the overlap between “fair approximation” and “excessiveness” in the user-fee analysis.

D. Due process and equal protection: rational-basis architecture

  • Town of Southold v. Town of E. Hampton and Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y. v. Madison Cnty.: Used for the “coextensive” treatment of New York and federal equal protection, and the generally coextensive approach to due process.
  • United States v. Amalfi: Provided the statement of rational-basis review where no suspect class/fundamental right is implicated.
  • Winston v. City of Syracuse: Supplied the “highly deferential” rational-basis standard, including that courts do not assess “wisdom, fairness, or logic,” and the challenger must “negative every conceivable basis.”
  • Spina v. Dep't of Homeland Sec.: Cited for the principle that legislatures need not choose the best or most precise classification.
  • Ellis v. Apfel and Est. of Landers v. Leavitt: Used to justify administrative efficiency as a rational basis supporting broad categorical line-drawing (here, a point-of-entry toll rather than a more granular “time/miles in CBD” charge).

E. Excessive fines, abandonment, and leave to amend

  • von Hofe v. United States, County of Nassau v. Canavan, and United States v. Viloski: These define a “fine” as a payment to a sovereign imposed as punishment for an offense, and they supported the court’s conclusion that a congestion toll is not punitive and thus falls outside Excessive Fines analysis.
  • Jackson v. Fed. Express: Used to hold Rockland abandoned its “study an offset” request by failing to respond to dismissal arguments in the district court.
  • Williams v. Citigroup Inc. and Horoshko v. Citibank, N.A.: These supported affirmance of denial of leave to amend where leave was not requested and plaintiffs did not proffer what amendments would cure the pleading defects.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. The court sidestepped the “tax” question but clarified the practical consequences

Plaintiffs’ lead framing—that the charge is an unauthorized tax—created an immediate federal-court obstacle: if it is a “tax under State law,” the TIA generally bars federal injunctive or declaratory relief. The panel did not decide the tax/user-fee classification; it instead assumed the toll was not a tax and held that, even then, the pleaded constitutional claims fail. This approach preserves (for future litigation) state-court primacy over state-tax disputes while ensuring that federal constitutional theories cannot proceed on the pleadings presented.

B. Right to travel: no strict scrutiny; apply user-fee reasonableness

Orange tried to trigger heightened review by alleging that driving is often the only viable commuting option from a “transit desert.” The panel refused to equate “importance of the route” with a severe burden on travel. Two key moves follow:

  1. No “invidious distinctions”: The program distinguishes between vehicles that enter the CBD (tolled) and those whose trips originate and remain within it (not tolled). The court held that is not “wholly arbitrary” because New York could rationally conclude entry vehicles are a workable proxy for congestion contributions and because point-of-entry tolling is administrable.
  2. Reasonableness under Northwest Airlines: With strict scrutiny off the table, the question becomes whether the toll is a reasonable user fee. The panel emphasized: (i) Orange conceded no discrimination against interstate commerce; (ii) the toll is a fair approximation because it targets entry into the congested zone and aims to reduce congestion for drivers generally; and (iii) the toll is not excessive relative to the benefits of reduced congestion and transit investment, even if benefits are not earmarked to Orange County’s specific transit lines.

Notably, the court treated “benefit” broadly: it is enough that the program plausibly reduces congestion and funds mass transit that affects the region’s transportation ecosystem; the Constitution does not require that proceeds be spent on the exact roadways used by each payer or that each payer receive a precisely individualized return.

C. Due process and equal protection: rational basis and administrability

Because no suspect class or fundamental right was burdened (and the right-to-travel theory failed), rational-basis review governed. Plaintiffs themselves alleged the program’s objectives: reduce congestion/pollution and raise funds for mass transit. The panel held that:

  • Deterring some drivers from entering the CBD is rationally related to congestion reduction.
  • Applying proceeds to transit capital projects is rationally related to funding mass transit.
  • Exempting intra-CBD trips does not defeat rationality because legislatures may adopt administrable proxies and need not solve the problem with perfect comprehensiveness.

The reasoning underscores that under rational basis, the judiciary’s role is limited to ensuring a plausible fit—not second-guessing program design, distributional consequences, or whether the most burdened communities receive tailored offsets.

D. Excessive fines: the toll is regulatory/user-fee-like, not punitive

Rockland’s excessive-fines claim failed at the threshold: the toll is not imposed “as punishment for some offense.” Because there is no underlying offense in merely driving into the CBD, the charge is not a “fine” at all, so proportionality analysis never begins.

E. Procedure and remedies: abandonment and amendment discipline

The court also enforced procedural rigor: Rockland abandoned its “offset study” request by not responding below. And it upheld denial of leave to amend because Plaintiffs neither requested leave nor identified curative allegations—especially significant given that the defects were largely legal (level of scrutiny, governing tests, and the non-punitive nature of tolls).

3.3 Impact

  • Strengthens the Second Circuit’s “user-fee lane” for travel challenges: By treating CBD congestion pricing as a paradigmatic case for Nw. Airlines, Inc. v. County of Kent reasonableness review (rather than strict scrutiny), the decision makes it harder to convert commuting hardship or regional transit inequities into a constitutional right-to-travel claim—absent truly “invidious” classifications.
  • Broad view of “benefits conferred”: Benefits need not be earmarked to the payer’s locality or the tolled facility itself. Congestion relief and transit investment can be system-wide justifications sufficient to defeat pleading-stage claims.
  • Administrative efficiency as a constitutional shield: The court’s embrace of administrability (point-of-entry tolling vs. time/mileage tracking) reinforces that line-drawing in large transportation systems will typically survive rational-basis review.
  • Excessive-fines challenges to pricing mechanisms face a categorical barrier: Unless a charge is tethered to punishment for an offense, plaintiffs may not reach the Excessive Fines Clause at all.
  • Litigation strategy consequences: The TIA discussion signals that “this is a tax” theories may belong in state court, while “this violates federal constitutional rights” theories will be filtered through deferential standards unless plaintiffs can plead discriminatory classifications or punitive features.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Tax Injunction Act (TIA): A federal statute that usually prevents lower federal courts from stopping a state from collecting taxes when the taxpayer can pursue an adequate remedy in state court. If a charge is a “tax,” federal courts generally cannot enjoin it.
  • Hypothetical jurisdiction: In limited settings, a court may assume (without deciding) a statutory jurisdiction question and dismiss on the merits. Here, the court assumed the charge was not a tax so it could affirm dismissal of the constitutional claims.
  • Strict scrutiny vs. rational basis: Strict scrutiny is the hardest standard for the government to satisfy (used for suspect classifications or fundamental-right burdens). Rational basis is highly deferential (the government only needs a plausible connection between the policy and a legitimate goal).
  • “Invidious distinctions”: Classifications that are unfair in a constitutionally significant way—e.g., targeting outsiders or burdening a protected right through discriminatory line-drawing. Without such a feature, tolls are typically evaluated as user fees.
  • Northwest Airlines reasonableness test: A toll/user fee is generally constitutional if it (1) roughly matches use/privilege of use, (2) is not excessive relative to benefits, and (3) does not discriminate against interstate commerce.
  • Excessive Fines Clause threshold: The Clause applies only to punitive payments imposed for an offense. Regulatory fees and tolls that are not punishment usually fall outside it entirely.

5. Conclusion

The Second Circuit’s decision cements a clear analytical path for congestion-pricing challenges in this circuit: absent invidious discrimination or more-than-minor burdens on travel, courts will treat congestion charges as reasonable user fees under Nw. Airlines, Inc. v. County of Kent, not as triggers for strict scrutiny. Parallel due process and equal protection claims will ordinarily rise or fall under rational-basis review, where administrability and broad transportation-policy objectives (congestion mitigation and transit funding) are more than sufficient. Finally, labeling a toll an “excessive fine” fails at the gate unless the charge is punitive—an important doctrinal boundary between pricing regulation and constitutional punishment.