“This is huge,” said Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group that is named in the lawsuit as a supporter of the toll. “The longer this thing stays in effect, the happier people are going to be with it,” he added, noting that more residents were coming around to the benefits of the program.
On Friday, lawyers for both the M.T.A. and the Department of Transportation agreed to the schedule that would keep the judge overseeing the case, Lewis J. Liman, from rendering a decision until the summer. The additional time required to consider all of the motions that the two sides will submit could mean that the toll can stay in place until at least the fall.
But there are risks to the program outside the courtroom. In a social media post on March 20, a day before the first deadline that his office set for congestion pricing to end, Mr. Duffy issued what many observers considered a veiled threat. He said the governor’s decision to keep charging the toll was a sign of “open disrespect,” and that he would extend his deadline through April 20. “Continued noncompliance will not be taken lightly,” he wrote, after noting that the state relies on billions of dollars in funding from the federal government.
Other challenges could arise. Jack Lester, a lawyer representing a group of residents and businesses that oppose congestion pricing, said that other parties, including his clients, could seek an injunction sometime in late May, when the federal government will be required to respond to the M.T.A.’s complaint. There are several other lawsuits in which a range of plaintiffs, including truck drivers and a teachers’ union, are seeking to end the toll. Judge Liman, who presided over a number of the suits, has already dismissed key arguments in those cases, which allowed the program to proceed.
But Mr. Lester also said that the fate of congestion pricing should be decided in the courts, not through the political maneuvers that the Trump administration seems to be suggesting.
“They’re talking about strong-arm tactics, withholding federal funding,” he said. “It could be that litigation is only secondary in their strategy.”