By Renae Reynolds, Justin Balik, and Danna Dennis
As he approaches his final year in office, Governor Phil Murphy must settle the state’s congestion pricing lawsuit. He’s made his point that transportation planning must happen across state lines. Now it’s time to take the win on offer by settling and securing badly needed funding for NJ Transit.
As the governor knows, NJ Transit is in dire straits. While the system has long suffered funding woes, he’s yet to keep his own promise to Garden State commuters. If the governor doesn’t want to be remembered for a huge fare hike and rampant cancellations and delays, he must take the opportunity presented to him now and win more funds for New Jersey.
If the governor instead tanks congestion pricing, he may save the less than 2% of state commuters who drive to work in Manhattan a few dollars each day, but he will also leave a legacy as an anti-transit, climate-denying, champion of air pollution and longer commutes.
Jerseyans will compare the governor’s shortsighted failure to Gov. Chris Christie’s 2010 decision to cancel the ARC tunnel, which would already have averted years of train delays had it been built. Without congestion pricing, bridge and tunnel tolls will keep rising, hitting just one-third of drivers into Manhattan – including everyone from Jersey – while the other two-thirds enter free.
The governor’s position in negotiations has been that New Jersey shouldn’t pay anything at all toward public transit in New York. This is despite the fact that not only do growing numbers of Garden State commuters ride the subway every day but also that every driver in Manhattan depends on most people getting around by public transit to make the streets passable.
Whether the governor admits it or not, Jersey drivers contribute heavily to the worst congestion in Manhattan. Anyone sitting in rush hour traffic near the lines of cars heading west into the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels knows the truth. Jersey-bound drivers sit idling in gridlock, spewing exhaust fumes and blocking ambulances and firetrucks en route to emergencies.
In exchange for their toll, Jersey drivers will see faster, more reliable commutes from day one of the program. That’s a crucial benefit Gov. Murphy leaves to chance by waiting for a judge to decide the case. By avoiding settlement, the governor guarantees – win or lose – NJ Transit, which everyone agrees is underfunded, will get nothing from congestion pricing.
The governor may drive a hard bargain and split the revenue however he likes. He could even fund PATH train service. But if he turns down a settlement, he cuts Jersey commuters out of a crucial upside — the funding stream created by tolling the most congested neighborhoods in North America, where 9 in 10 commuters already arrive using public transit via aging, deteriorating infrastructure.
Faster drive times and more transit funding are far from the only benefits of congestion pricing to New Jersey.
If the governor remains stubborn, refuses to settle, and happens to win, he kneecaps New York’s ability to fund improvements that thousands of Jersey residents need.
For example: The A and C subway lines serving New York’s Penn Station await urgent signal upgrades that will get more Jersey commuters to work and back home on time. Without congestion pricing, A and C line riders from both states remain delayed.
Without congestion pricing, Jersey communities with air quality challenges lose out on mitigation funds set aside from the program for improvements in Fort Lee, Newark, Orange and East Orange. The governor’s lawsuit hinges on air quality, but of course neglects the fact that pollutants from idling vehicles in New York easily cross the Hudson as the wind shifts.
If the governor thumbs his nose at New York and the Federal Highway Administration, he may as well cut it off, and ours, to spite the MTA. Transit agencies are hated by design, but the MTA moves several million people each day. New York spends hundreds of millions of dollars employing Jersey contractors and workers to make transit upgrades that the entire region depends on.
Governor, it’s time to make the responsible choice and take the victory that a congestion pricing settlement represents for Jersey commuters, families, and businesses.
Renae Reynolds is Executive Director at Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Justin Backal Balik is Senior State Program Director at Evergreen Action, and Danna Dennis is Senior Organizer at Riders Alliance. All three live in New Jersey.
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