Blue vs Blue. New Jersey sues Highway Authority over New York

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has been working on a plan to massively increase the tolls charged to people coming into New York City since last year. Now that plan is finally going into effect, or at least it was. The scheme may be on hold now because the Governor of New Jersey filed a lawsuit to stop the rate hikes from going into effect. He apparently couldn’t figure out a way to sue New York State directly, so he is instead suing the Federal Highway Administration over its approval of the plan last year. And since it’s not illegal to charge a toll or a fee to drive on a road or bridge, Governor Phil Murphy is suing on environmental damage grounds, claiming that the project was approved without a sufficiently comprehensive environmental study… or something.

New Jersey has filed a federal lawsuit aimed at stopping New York’s plan to charge big tolls to drive into the most visited parts of Manhattan, arguing that New Jersey residents and towns will bear the brunt without benefiting.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced his state’s plans on Friday. The lawsuit against the Federal Highway Administration claims the agency’s approval of the plan last month was “misguided” and violates the National Environmental Policy Act. New Jersey also wants a more comprehensive environmental study conducted for the plan.

New York officials have said the first-in-the-nation plan is part of an effort to reduce traffic, to improve air quality and to raise funds for the city’s public transit system.

The plan in question will introduce a confusing series of “congestion” fares at different times of the day. Running as high as $23 per car during peak periods, this will significantly increase the cost of commuting into and out of Gotham. It’s being done under the guise of climate concerns, with Hochul claiming that reduced traffic will lead to lower emission levels or whatever, pushing more people to take the increasingly dangerous buses and subways. But she really just wants to be able to have the state collect those extra fees.

Pushing more people onto mass transit in that area is problematic as well. We already know that New York’s Mass Transit Authority is facing a nearly one billion dollar budget shortfall.  Pushing them into adding additional capacity at this point would only exacerbate the situation. Crime on the subways is already bad enough without jamming even more potential victims into the loop.

Murphy takes the opposite stance, of course. Many people who can’t afford to live in Manhattan choose to live in New Jersey and commute. They will be the ones shouldering the brunt of these new fees, and New Jersey’s governor is trying to score some points by preventing or at least delaying the price increases. All of that makes sense, but this plan was originally drawn up back in 2019, though without the final fees being specified. If the environmental survey is insufficient now, why wasn’t it insufficient back then?

The MTA believes that New Jersey’s assessment is nonsense. Their spokesperson pointed out that the 4,000-page environmental evaluation study was “supervised at every stage and specifically approved by the Biden administration.” So New Jersey is unlikely to have Washington riding to its rescue and thwarting New York’s plans.

Perhaps they need to stop arguing about the environmental impacts of this congestion pricing scheme and address the real problem. Price hikes like these will undoubtedly deter some people from commuting. That will result in less revenue for New York and fewer people both working there and coming for reasons of tourism. People are already fleeing the city in droves. Do you really want to drive more of them away? The solution to every problem can’t simply be higher taxes and fees because you’re eventually going to run out of other people’s money. Rather than going to something this extreme, perhaps set aside some money to add extra lanes to the turnpikes and bridges. Traffic has managed to continue flowing in and out of New York under the current conditions. It can do so for a while longer, surely.