A pair of New Jersey pols promised to continue their opposition to New York’s congestion pricing plan, following last week’s decision by federal regulators to green light the tolling scheme.
“We plan to fight — we plan to fight hard,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said at a press conference on the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel Tuesday. “That’s what we do in Jersey when someone’s trying to stick it to us.”
Gottheimer, a vocal opponent of the plan that would see all vehicles entering lower Manhattan tolled in an effort to reduce car traffic and fund the MTA’s capital budget, was joined by Rep Rob Menendez (D-NJ) who represents Jersey City.
“Look, this is today — without congestion pricing,” Menendez said, gesturing at a four-block long line of cars waiting to enter the tunnel. “If people want to go down to Exchange Place or Newport to take the PATH, this traffic will go through our neighborhoods.”
The lawmakers said that by discouraging drivers from entering Manhattan, congestion pricing would negatively impact the revenue of the Port Authority, which controls the bridges and tunnels between New York and New Jersey.
The expected reduction in traffic at Port Authority crossings would cost the bi-state agency $1.25 billion over the next decade, Gottheimer said. The congestion pricing plan is expected to finance some $15 billion in capital funding for the MTA.
“It’s a revenue shift from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to the MTA — there’s no way around it,” Menendez said, adding that the lost money could keep the Port Authority from replacing its bus terminal.
“If the MTA is serious, and this is not a revenue shift to fund their projects … expand the 7 line to Seacaucus Junction station here in New Jersey,” Menendez added. “If they are serious about getting cars off the road, they would spend every single dollar from this project on the expansion of the 7 line.”
Citing the MTA’s plan to set some congestion pricing revenue aside for pollution mitigation in the Bronx — where traffic is expected to increase once tolling begins — Gottheimer called the plan “anti-environment.
“In the MTA acknowledges, in their [2022] report to the federal government, that if their congestion tax program goes into effect, there will be more cars diverted here, at the tunnel, and trucks in northern New Jersey by the G W Bridge, and to the outer boroughs just outside the tolling zone,” Gottheimer said.
“The MTA said the Bronx alone could face 700 more trucks every day.”
The MTA did not immediately respond to Gottheimer and Menendez on Tuesday.
MTA chair Janno Lieber has said congestion pricing is crucial to the city. “New York is the number one most congested place in the United States,” told reporters Friday. “Ambulances can’t get to hospitals; fire trucks can’t get to fires. We have to do something.”
Friday’s signoff by the federal Department of Transportation began public appraisal period of just over a month. The federal OK of the MTA’s environmental assessment of congestion pricing is among the last steps toward approval of the program.
Many details about congestion pricing have not been settled — including how much tolls will cost, what vehicles if any will be exempt, and what discounts might be available.
An MTA official told the Us.Mistertruth last week that those details will be worked out in the coming months, in time for congestion pricing to begin early in 2024.