By Eric Allen Conner
This past Jan. 5 marked an increase in the Port Authority’s bridge and tunnel tolls and inaugurated New York’s much-delayed congestion pricing. New York’s new congestion tolls are designed not only to ease traffic in Manhattan’s central business district but also to raise revenue for the MTA, improve air quality across the region, and decrease carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.
New Jersey, regrettably, chose to pursue a long-shot and ultimately flawed lawsuit to try to stop congestion pricing while turning down a $100 million settlement offer to help fix the much-beleaguered New Jersey Transit.
During the first few days of implementation, the effect on traffic congestion entering Manhattan from the New Jersey side of the Hudson was stark. Delays that used to snarl the Turnpike Extension, Route 139, and the local streets surrounding my home in Jersey City went quiet as commute times shortened by up to 40% during rush hour. Google Maps, which typically shows dark red routes indicating long delays, was eerily green.
Nowhere, however, has the improvement been more marked than on the Newark Bay Bridge and the stretch of Turnpike that curls its way through Jersey City as it approaches the Holland Tunnel. The interchange and approach, normally clogged with a mix of traffic, flowed freely without the crush of Manhattan-bound cars. This sudden improvement supports an idea long proposed by economists: pricing road usage is more effective at controlling congestion than any highway-widening scheme.
While the bridge, tunnels and surrounding highways will soon settle into new traffic patterns as commuters adjust to congestion charges, New Jersey has a chance to reevaluate some of its priorities around improving the region’s mobility.
First, the Murphy administration should abandon its $11 billion Turnpike widening project through Hudson County. This project was unnecessary before New York’s congestion charges went live; now, it is downright wasteful as the volume of traffic bound for New York is expected to settle at around 20% lower than before the program started.
My second suggestion is to adopt dynamic tolling. Mayor Steven Fulop of Jersey City has already floated ways New Jersey could implement its own version of congestion pricing as part of his gubernatorial campaign. Dynamic tolling, which allows the price of a toll to fluctuate over the course of the day based on traffic conditions, is easier to implement than congestion pricing and is already used in states like Virginia to keep express lanes free moving.
Dynamic tolls would work well on the Garden State Parkway’s express lanes, the multiple carriageways of the Turnpike between Exits 6 and 14 (effectively turning the middle segments into dynamically tolled expressways), and the Turnpike Extension into Hudson County. Like congestion pricing, these tolls would help keep our highway traffic moving while raising revenue for much-needed infrastructure improvements.
Finally, New Jersey can use dynamic toll revenues to increase transfers from the Turnpike Authority to New Jersey Transit from the current $455 million a year. New Jersey Transit can use these funds to purchase better buses and trains and improve the transit agency’s reliability and reach. There are any number of transit projects on the table that would move more people and create less traffic for less money than the $11 billion that Gov. Murphy wants to spend widening the Turnpike Extension. The state could use the money to finally invest in Bus Rapid Transit lines, the reactivation of the West Shore Railroad in Bergen County, and the expansion of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail north to Bergen County, Secaucus and the Meadowlands.
As Murphy enters his final year in office, he has a chance to repair his legacy as a climate and transit governor. By ending the state’s opposition to congestion pricing, abandoning fruitless highway widening schemes, and working with the legislature to implement dynamic tolls, he could secure a future where New Jersey sees more reliable transit and its own less congested streets.
Eric Allen Conner, a native New Jerseyan and long-time resident of Jersey City, is a JD/MBA candidate at the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton.
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