One of President Trump's anti-congestion pricing mouthpieces has a notable conflict of interest: her husband owns more than a dozen parking garages in the very part of Manhattan where driving has been reduced by the toll.
Alina Habba, the counselor to the President, is married to Gregg Reuben, the chief executive of Centerpark, which has 28 parking garages across the city on its website, a majority of which, 17, are located inside of the congestion relief zone — where there are now far fewer drivers needing to rent spaces in his lots.
In an interview on Fox Business on Thursday, Habba did not mention that a significant portion of her family's wealth comes from high prices charged to drivers for off-street parking and, instead, targeted the toll as unfair.
“We will allow people to drive to work, not have to take unsafe subways,” Habba said during an appearance on the cable channel. “Congestion pricing is wrong. It doesn’t work and [U.S. DOT Secretary] Sean Duffy did a tremendous job by getting rid of it.”
By "tremendous job," she might have been referring to the business that Duffy's move will add to her husband's garages. Traffic has plummeted in the Central Business District since congestion pricing launched on Jan. 5. MTA data shows that trips through the Holland Tunnel were 48 percent faster in January 2025 compared to the same month the year before, while traffic was 30 percent faster across the Williamsburg and Queensboro bridges.
Private bus operators in New Jersey report that travel times through the notoriously clogged Lincoln Tunnel and into the Port Authority Bus Terminal are 16-18 minutes quicker in each direction. Transit ridership has also jumped with the subways, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North posting 7- to 11-percent increases in ridership.
The factors that fueled the daily traffic gridlock before the toll also contribute to Manhattan’s crippling, but lucrative, parking shortage. Garage spots can cost thousands of dollars. For example, Reuben’s company owns a garage in the West Village — at 677 Washington St., near 10th Avenue — that offers an annual pass for $5,988.
And that's Centerpark's "special" offer. At the company's garage at 125 W. 58th St., 10 hours of parking costs $45.
Before joining the White House, Habba previously worked as one of Trump’s hired legal guns in his various court battles, including a failed attempt to sue The New York Times and Trump's niece for $100 million. And she served as Centerpark’s general counsel, The Washington Post revealed in a profile.
The government watchdog group Reinvent Albany said that Habba’s involvement in the administration’s push to nix the toll violates basic ethics.
“It’s an absolute and complete conflict of interest,” said Executive Director John Kaehny. “If she was a New York official, we’d be calling on the Conflict of Interest Board to investigate.”
The interview came the day after Duffy, the Transportation Secretary, himself a veteran of the Fox Business channel, announced he would attempt to revoke the federal government’s approvals for the tolling program.
President Trump, long an opponent of the toll, posted on his social media account: "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"
The MTA responded by immediately suing, arguing, among other reasons, that the administration was overstepping its authority because the federal government can't withdraw an approval.
Hochul pledged to keep the cameras rolling at a press conference and hammered Trump for describing himself as a "king."
“I'm here to say New York hasn't labored under a king in over 250 years. We are not subservient to a king or anyone else out of Washington,” the fired-up governor told reporters.
The White House press office, Centerpark and the MTA did not respond to calls for comment.
In one of his last speeches, President Biden warned that Trump's election would unleash an "oligarchy" in America, one in which personal business interests trump the public interest.
