A closely watched lawsuit could block or upend the city's new tolling program, which will charge most vehicles for entering the busiest parts of Manhattan.
By Winnie Hu and Elise Young
Apr 03, 2024
Federal transportation officials allowed New York to move ahead with congestion pricing without fully addressing how traffic and pollution would be shifted to its neighbors across the Hudson River as drivers avoid the new tolls, a lawyer for the State of New Jersey argued in federal court on Wednesday.
Now, as traffic patterns change, those New Jersey communities will be forced to shoulder the environmental burdens of the tolling program while New York receives all the benefits, the lawyer, Randy M. Mastro, said in his opening remarks in New Jersey's lawsuit against congestion pricing.
"It isn't about whether you like or don't like congestion pricing," Mr. Mastro said in a courtroom in Newark. The issue is whether the Federal Highway Administration "took a hard look" at the potential environmental effects.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency overseeing congestion pricing in New York, has repeatedly said that New Jersey communities were extensively studied in an environmental assessment. In court papers, the authority made clear that the assessment "found no significant impacts" and "that mitigations can and will be applied where appropriate," including in New Jersey, John J. McCarthy, a spokesman for the M.T.A., said recently.
But Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey and other state officials have sued the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration , an agency within that department, for allowing the program to move forward. The M.T.A. later filed a motion to join the lawsuit, which was approved by a federal judge.
New Jersey officials have challenged the federal agency's "decision to rubber-stamp the environmental review phase" of the tolling program based on its "inexplicable finding" that there would be no significant effects, according to their lawsuit.
The closely watched case is the first legal test of New York City's congestion pricing program, which brings a divisive traffic management policy to the United States that has worked in other car-choked cities, including London, Stockholm and Singapore .
New Jersey's case is widely seen as the most serious challenge to the tolling program, which is expected to begin charging drivers in mid-June, and one that could potentially block or upend it at the last minute. State officials are seeking a more comprehensive environmental study of the program, which would delay it.
Wednesday was the first day of a two-day hearing that has been scheduled on the case before Judge Leo M. Gordon, who is expected to make a decision before the tolls start in just over two months.
The courtroom was filled with teams of lawyers and more than a dozen reporters, all of whom were required to turn over their cellphones to courtroom guards before the proceedings. For an issue that has drawn heated debate across the region, both sides made their arguments matter-of-factly and without theatrics.
Janno Lieber, the M.T.A.'s chairman and chief executive, and other authority officials attended the hearing on Wednesday. Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer representing the M.T.A., said at a press briefing that it was obvious that Judge Gordon had done "a lot of homework" and was asking smart questions. "We are happy with how things have gone so far," she said, adding: "We believe that we win on the arguments."
The congestion pricing plan will charge most passenger cars $15 a day to enter Manhattan at 60th Street or below during peak hours; commercial trucks will be charged $24 or $36 during those times, depending on their size. The program is expected to reduce traffic in the city's central business district and raise $1 billion annually for improvements to New York's mass transit system.
The new tolls were approved last week by the M.T.A.'s board, bringing the program one step closer to the starting line. A recent public feedback process elicited more than 25,000 comments about the plan, of which roughly 60 percent were in support.
The program is being reviewed by the Federal Highway Administration, which is expected to approve it.
In recent months, a growing number of elected officials, union leaders and residents across the New York City region have mobilized against congestion pricing , citing the cost of the tolls and the potential environmental and public health effects on their neighborhoods. The pricing plan was initially approved by New York State legislators in 2019 .
During Wednesday's hearing, Mr. Mastro argued that New Jersey stood to receive no funds to mitigate potentially harmful environmental effects from congestion pricing even as tens of millions of dollars had been earmarked for New York City and surrounding New York counties. "The M.T.A. took care of its own," he said.
Though 15 New Jersey towns were initially identified as being possibly affected by pollution, only four of them were included in a later assessment, with no explanation or assurance of any funding, Mr. Mastro said. "That's not the way it works," he said.
But Mark Chertok, a lawyer for the M.T.A., said there was no intention to leave New Jersey out of mitigation efforts. "The notion that there's not mitigation is incorrect," he said, adding that potential measures include school air filters and neighborhood tree plantings.
The New Jersey case is one of six lawsuits that have been brought against congestion pricing in local federal courts. The mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., Mark J. Sokolich, has filed a related lawsuit.
Four additional lawsuits have been brought in New York: one by Ed Day, the Rockland County executive; one by the United Federation of Teachers and Vito Fossella, the Staten Island borough president; and two by separate groups of city residents. A federal court hearing has been scheduled for the New York cases on May 17.
Amid the lawsuits, M.T.A. officials have suspended some capital construction projects that were to be paid for by the tolling program and warned that crucial work to modernize subway signals on the A and C lines had been delayed.
This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/03/nyregion/nj-congestion-pricing-federal-court.html
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